Y! Sports: Spurs Trade Ratliff

Mayb they are making space to try and make a run at LEBRON.

LOL, JK JK.

What a season huh folks?????

I like the idea of signing a free agent, like gooden again.

I wish 48MoH had polls that also showed comments from voters for and against… like, in this case, those for dumping Theo, versus those crazies who think he was gonna bang with the Lakers elite come playoff time. LOL!… OF COURSE Holt and company are dumping payroll to get a future draft pick and save almost 1.9 million dollars… OF COURSE this is an admission that we are not contenders this year, and that our reality has changed since the optimistic spending last summer! Duh.

I’ll make a variety of general points:

1) On the trade front, I am perplexed why the FO didn’t think they could make a move as we approached this years trade deadline. I’m sure they have their reasons, which may be entirely legitimate (I’m sure it’s much more complex than I think we sometimes make it out to be). For example, I’m not sure why they weren’t able to make a deal with the Wiz, before the Mavs. I was pushing for that before the Mavs/Wiz trade. Perhaps we’ll never know. That said, I’m not convinced that the failure to accomplish a deal for Ty Thomas was a mistake (there are some negatives with him), although it does look like he turned out not to be very expensive to acquire, and he certainly has the skills that could have helped us in the front court in some capacity. The Ratliff trade is really not very important. Apparently Pop & Co. must have felt (through observation in practice, etc.) his skills have waned too much at this stage in his career (37 in April) to warrant displacing minutes from any of our other front court players. I trust their judgment on this, and the draft pick and salary savings makes some sense. Finally, I think failing to conclude a deal for this guy was a BIG mistake:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=AttYrY.yIxzoB0Upu87q2eo5nYcB?slug=ys-jazztrade021810&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Picking up a guy like Brewer for a draft pick is a no-brainer in my view. This guy is an excellent YOUNG talent, with exceptional size and defensive prowess at the two-spot. Granted, he has one distinct weakness; he’s not a shooter, and may never be a very good shooter. As such, he MAY not ever be good enough to be a STARTER on a championship contender. That said, his size and defensive skills a the two-spot are undervalued in my estimation. He would be great to have in the guard rotation, and have the luxury to play him more against the bigger, more talented two-guards around the league.

2) It looks to me that the Spurs front office is gun-shy to make another major deal right now. They’ve been disappointed with the performance of their major acquisitions from last summer, and probably don’t want to risk compounding the problem. This is understandable. That said, I also think they may not have completely given up on their current roster being competitive in the playoffs this year, and depending on how they finish, they will simply regroup accordingly in the off-season. And make no mistake, for all the Spurs problems and apparent weaknesses, they’re not out of it quite yet. WE always knew getting past the Lakers was a stretch, even if everything went swimmingly with the new acquisitions. And of course, the Spurs do have significant talent (although, in my view, they must still sign somebody, SOON, for a decent price, from buyout/waivers that can help on the front line defensively; former Spur, Elson, may become available, and obviously knows the system; does he have the legs left to contribute 10-20 minutes a game at age 33?). Without such a signing, or something similar, our REMOTE chance of a birth in the Western Conference Finals will be almost entirely extinguished. Other than that, the key is, can the starters and main rotation players step it up the rest of the year and play aggressively as a team, with pride & confidence? It is possible… so don’t lose hope yet for a respectable finish. And remember, as I write this, we’re only a half game behind the Mav’s for the Southwest Division title.

Main things MUST improve over the last 30 games:

- execute and close out all quarters, preferably with a scoring advantage in the last five minutes, particularly in the fourth quarter, and of course, WINNING close games (a blow-out now & then wouldn’t hurt!).

- establishing a winning record (over .500) against .500 + teams over the remainder of the season.

- maintaining at least a .550 to .600 winning percentage on the road the rest of the way (MUST win three consecutive road games coming out of the break, and winning the first six road/home games would show we mean business, and would probably put us in the lead in the Southwest Division).

- GET IT IN ANOTHER GEAR DEFENSIVELY, in all areas; transition, perimeter, in the paint.

Without meeting these basic benchmarks, I’m afraid it could be a frustrating finish to the season for us fans. If this occurs, let’s still try to be grateful (at least sometimes!) for all our prior success, and the team we have. It’s a lot better than most cities.

3) Finally, for those of you that continuously complain about Pop’s rotations and use or disuse of his players; PLEASE get a grip. It’s becoming very nauseating, and is entirely counter-productive. I could see if the Spurs coach was young and not very experienced, and also produced a mediocre to shoddy record over the past 4-5 years. There’s FIVE coaches ALL-TIME that have FOUR or more titles under their belt; and as you know, Pop is one of them. And please, don’t try to tell me the “players” were why we won, but now that we’re not winning as much the coach is the reason. And of course, NONE of us could hold a candle to Pop as a coach of the Spurs ourselves. Obviously, it’s fine to question some decisions, if you must, but can we do it with a bit more respect and less “know it all” attitude, even in some cases calling for Pop to go. Also, please realize, YOU don’t know how to use the Spurs players better than Pop …… OR otherwise, feel free to tell us all you’ve got a coaching contract in the works with R.C. Absent such development, it’s silly to scapegoat Pop for our own frustrations with the team. The Spurs problem this year is almost entirely results from our VETERAN players not playing up to their capability in terms of production, consistent work ethic on the court, and overall mental focus and desire in carrying out their jobs, particularly against good teams and at the end of quarters. Perhaps at some point we could chill a bit on the “Pop Critique” in the comments section, and focus our attention on how the “players our performing on the court” during our wins and losses? It would focus attention where attention is due: WHAT ARE THE PLAYERS doing that may ruin our hopes for a successful season.

@Jim Henderson, re: your 3 points…

1) Ty Thomas was obviously gettable (although they may have just bit on the best draft pick offered), but it will be interesting to see if TT blossoms under Larry Brown. Though TT may never make us regret it, I thought his expiring contract was a worthy gamble, given that the best chance for him to become an All-NBA defender would be playing for Pop, next to TD — can he be one-half of a younger Kevin Garnett (the defensive half)? There are only a few places where he can go to maximize his growth during the second phase of his young career as Varejao, Ben Wallace, and even Kendrick Perkins have/did at that same point, and Charlotte is on that short list.

2) I am also looking for some basic signs of life which will allow me to be more optimistic going into the next/off season.

3) Fact is Houston, Sacramento, and especially Portland are looking like they have far savvier GMs than the Spurs these days. I, for one, back Greg Popovich, I want him as our coach at least until we can put together a new group around TD (and Manu, ideally) and maximize their defensive potential, but I think he needs to lighten up a little and try to cultivate a culture this year (since we’re not contenders) where guys can have much more joy playing for this team, give up the small-ball, and give the young guys big minutes (especially Blair) to grow and learn.

This has to be the most amount of comments for such a short article.

Poor Theo, he didn’t even get a chance to play. For the first time as a Spur’s fan I am really questioning the front office moves.

Spurs.com reporting its a “protected 2nd round” pick in the year 2016. No that is not a typo… 2016!

What is a protected 2nd round pick? I’ve heard of a lottery protected first round pick but never a 2nd round pick.

Amen.

@Jaceman

And I wanted Camby for the next 2.5 - 3.5 seasons. I feel your pain.

Oddly, Darko MIGHT have been a reasonable fit as a role-playing big man, the likes of which we had from ’04-’08, and his youth is a plus. Would be a project/ wouldn’t transform the Spurs this season, but given the lack of gettable young bigs that can play, such a project should be a priority.

Darko has a maximum of 2 remaining opportunities to have a satisfying career in America. The first of these starts now, in Minny, although the Triangle may cripple his chance of figuring it out, working with K Love could help him. If he fails there that may be the end of the road. Odds are high that he’s just another 7 foot major bust. If Detroit wanted a big man, and was destined to pass on all the Hall-of-Famers in the ’03 class, K Perkins would have been a laughable and too much like Big Ben, but Chris Kaman would have been totally respectable.

grego-
Theo didn’t play, so moving him in no way implies more PT for any of the young guys.

You can’t forget the coaching staff works with these players day in and day out and have more knowledge about these players when we ever will. If Theo was showing something in practice, he would be on the floor. If they had a design to save him for later in the season and the playoffs, he still would have been on the floor more than he played. No disrespect to Ratliff, but he just didn’t pan out.

I’m sorry, I didn’t make it very far down the comments before I got totally frustrated. Why don’t you fair weather fans go start your own blog where all you do is call for TP to be traded, Pop to be fired, and fans to protest. Total Crap!

I am so very happy to be a Spurs fan. I love this team and everything they have given us. I was a fan before we won championships, and I’ll be a fan forever. If you want to like a team that has a good shot at winning it all this year, please go buy a Kobe jersey and leave this message board to those who are looking for good positive insight on the team we love.

I can’t wait until the Playoffs when these same posters jump all over a Spurs loss like they’re smarter than people who do this for a living or totally retreat when we kick the crap out of the Mavs/Suns/etc.

Kevin:

I understand your frustration & totally concur. See my post, point # 3, February 18th, 2010 at 6:28 pm.