TEAM DREAMS: The San Antonio Spurs Will Be Fine (BUT DESPAIR OH DESPAIR)
We’re a week into the 2016–17 NBA season, and something is odd: The San Antonio Spurs are not uniformly expected to be a top-two franchise in the Western Conference. That seems, uh…fucking insane, regardless of who the team lost in the offseason and the free agents brought in to replace them (the ultimate effectiveness of whom is up for debate — we’ll get to that).
Ladies. Guys. We’re talking about the goddamn Spurs here.
Aside from the tanked year that landed them Tim Duncan, the team hasn’t played below .500 since 1988–89. In all full 82-game seasons since then, they won at least 47 games each, for a mean of 54.72 wins. Adding the 1998–99 and 2011–12 lockout-shortened seasons only drops the average to about 53.9. By win percentage, that’s .657 — almost the number of the beast but not quite, so it’s remarkable and badass. Oh, plus five championships and 25 playoff appearances. The excellence is —
I AM A SICKENED BEAST. LOST AND RUDDERLESS, NO LONGER BOUND BY THE STEADY HAND OF OUR GREAT LEADER. THE TALL ONE, HE OF THE BORING JEANS AND THE LOW POST RHUMBA AND THE COMIC BOOKS — HE IS GONE, GONE, GONE — WHITHER MIGHT I LOOK FOR JOY? I HAVE TRIED THE BOTTLE AND THE GLASS PIPE; THEY BRING ME NO PEACE. I HOPE NOT TO TURN TO THE NOOSE BUT KNOW NOT WHERE DESPAIR WILL DRAG ME! I GOBBLE THIS MIXTURE OF PEANUT BUTTER AND MUSHROOMS, AMANITA MUSCARIA TO BE SPECIFIC —
Sorry. That’s the Spurs Coyote assisting me with this preview. He’s pretty strung out about Tim Duncan’s retirement. But as all Spurs fans must, he’ll eventually process it and move on without abandoning the countless great memories.
In my Boston Celtics preview, I modified the title of Sufjan Stevens’ song “The Tallest Man, The Broadest Shoulders” — one of the few non-insufferable ones — to refer to Isaiah Thomas. But in the case of Tim Duncan, well…figuratively and often literally he was the tallest man on the court at any given time. On those massive shoulders he carried teams whose parts had varying sums to greater heights than most of them could’ve ever reached otherwise. The Big Fundamental (even that goofy nickname sounds right for him) loomed large as an avatar of every good thing that the particular elegant dance of basketball is supposed to symbolize. All those cliches, corny maxims and supposed sports truisms, all the garbage emerging from the mouths of Whitlocks, Barkleys, Baylesses and Wilbons like the overpriced calorie-stuffed Panera sandwiches they gobbled hours before going on camera, the things that we as jaded-as-fuck, zing-chasing NBA Twitter addicts so often rightly skewer— all of them are true, and right, when applied to Duncan.
It’s easy, and maybe accurate, to say that Duncan was just the exception proving the rule of those cliches’ emptiness, but if so, what an exception he was. NBA fans hardly even have disses for the guy. Nearly every current superstar embraced by league addicts — from Steph and CP3 to Russell Westbrook and Carmelo Anthony — has a fault or weird tendency you can rib them for, whether it’s indignant flopping, mouthguard-chewing or a propensity to wear outlandish hats. What can you roast Tim Duncan for other than dad apparel, speaking in monotone and reading comic books? Most of which he was more than willing to parody. [N.B. Derrick Rose is in this, back when he was a PG of questionable washedness, not a defendant (albeit an acquitted one) in a civil rape trial.]
The man is in a class by himself, even last year when 18 seasons of high-usage basketball finally caught up with him and he was largely a defensive specialist. So, by that measure, what do the Spurs do without h —
WE DESPAIR, DESPAIR, DESPAIR!! HOW IS IT NOT OBVIOUS TO YOU WHAT WE SHOULD DO, KEYBOARD TYPING MAN? *crunching sounds, deep breathing* WHO EVEN IS THIS BIZARRE, EARNEST SPANIARD HOPING TO TAKE THE PLACE OF THE TALL ONE? I HAVE SEEN HIM AT PRACTICE AND HE LISTENS TO OPERAS BY GIUSEPPE VERDI TO STEEL HIMSELF. HOW DOST THAT STRIKE FEAR INTO THE ENEMY’S HEART? IF I QUESTION ITS EFFICACY AT SHOOTAROUND, HOW WILL HE DEVELOP THE TOUGHNESS NECESSARY TO SLAY THE MISSILE-MEN IN THE OIL CITY, OR THE THUNDERING HOOFBEATS OF THE GERMAN AND HIS BALD GENERAL — OR WORSE YET, THE BEAR-CREATURES LED BY THE SPANIARD’S OWN BROTHER? WHAT WILL BE HIS PLAN? ONLY THE FUNGUS BRINGS ME TRUTH —
I know, I know. Coyote is getting a bit out of hand. Give me a second. *soft thud, groan of pain, another, louder thud*
As the poor beast alluded to, Pau Gasol was the Spurs’ biggest free-agent acquisition, on board for one guaranteed year and a second if Gasol wants it. Many found it an odd move for San Antonio, as head coach Gregg Popovich emphasizes defense and Gasol, in the past few years, has been one of the NBA’s most defense-challenged big men. His offensive abilities notably returned in his pre-Spurs two-year stint on the Bulls, which gives Popovich a readymade buckets option his frontcourt otherwise lacks, but the significance of losing Duncan’s ironclad presence under the rim can’t be denied. Trading versatile backup center, espresso aficionado and king of the fat guy layup Boris Diaw, while probably necessary to free cap space for Gasol, also fucks with the frontcourt.
San Antonio also got David Lee for the vet minimum. David Lee remains viable as a rim-running go-to scorer, which remains a valuable enough skill in the NBA. Lee is also a fucking defensive sieve, too old and stiff to be an pick-and-roll partner for Tony Parker, and honestly kind of weird-looking. I predict he will not be particularly funny in his scenes for the Spurs’ annual HEB commercials, if he even appears in them. What a total dorkwad —
*slightly dizzy Coyote howl* THE DEFENSE, BY GOD! WHAT WILL BECOME OF THE PAINTED-AREA FORTRESS THAT ALLOWED ONLY 92.9 POINTS PER GAME? HOW MANY TIMES WILL THOSE SUCH AS THE YOUNG WOLF-KAT FROM THE TUNDRA-LANDS OR THE DEXTEROUS DOMINICAN OF BOSTON SPIN THE SPANIARD LIKE A USELESS FUCKING TOP AND HIT HIM WITH THE GREAT POSTERIZING??? HOW LONG, O LORD, HOW LONG MUST I BRAY BEFORE THE FOOLHARDY R.C. OF BUFORD KNOWETH THAT HIS ACQUISITION PROCESS BE FOLLY? MY EYES SEE IT CLEARLY AS THEY SEE THE INDOMITABLE WILL OF A FIERY, ANGRY GOD: LA GENTE DICE QUE EL COYOTE ES UN BRUJO, MUCHAS VECES EL BRUJO ES UN COYOTE —
Jesus fucking Christ, Coyote. Get your shit together! *long pause* Anyway.
Despite all I and the mascot have said, I can’t stress enough that we’re talking about the fucking San Antonio Spurs. You can make a respectable argument that Gregg Popovich may be the greatest coach of all time, in any professional sport. (Don’t fucking @ me with American or international football coaches other than, frankly, Bill Shankly, and baseball managers simply don’t have the same function.) He has answers for every leaguewide trend that seems as if it might leave the Spurs behind: When pace-and-space slowly entered league parlance, Popovich had his squad take this method to its most confounding, pass-heavy extreme. Game 5 of the 2014 Finals showcases this perfectly — watch Miami build a sizable lead, then let it slip, then lose it completely and fail to staunch the bleeding, then get routed in hideous, stop-the-fight-he’s-already-dead-HOLY-SHIT fashion. Two years later, Pop and his assistants reinvented the team as a slow-paced halfcourt defensive powerhouse, reducing transition-based offense and taking far fewer 3s, and the Spurs were still 2nd in point differential and won a franchise-record 67 games. That they were stopped in the playoffs by the Oklahoma City Thunder doesn’t diminish the team’s achievement. Many measures of quality and success Pop has shown us have nothing do with #ringzzzzz — although he and Duncan collected one for each “z” in their time together, and Pop may claim another before retiring. He drives his players to give a shit in a way that even other great coaches — say, Rick Carlisle — cannot ever duplicate. If anyone can make a 36-year-old, well-traveled Pau Gasol care about defense again, it’s Pop. If anyone can make lemonade out of near-lemon Manu Ginobili as well as less experienced backcourt lemons like Jonathan Simmons and Dejounte Murray, it’s Pop. Christ, the guy finds utility in the glacial movements of Kyle Anderson, to say nothing of how versatile his schemes allowed Boris Diaw to be.
I haven’t even mentioned Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge yet. Others can break down the Xs and Os of their skill sets elsewhere — the TL;DR is as follows: The former may still not have hit his ceiling. The latter ain’t perfect but still has plenty to contribute on both ends of the floor —
LOST, LOST, LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOST, OUR PRECIOUS TIM IS LOST! AND I HAVE GROWN WEARY OF THESE FALLACIES. THERE IS NO LARGE ESSENTIAL TO READ THE NEWEST DISPATCHES ABOUT THE NOBLE BLACK PANTHER AND THE BAT WHO IS YET A MAN, NO GENTLE GALLIC GIANT WITH WHOM TO SHARE THIS BOTTLE OF 1961 BORDEAUX *cork unscrewing and popping sounds, copious wine guzzling glug glug glug* I CAN YET SEE THE BLOOD-RED PAINT SPLATTERED ACROSS THE CANVAS OF OUR NOBLE ORGANIZATION’S FUTURE. DO YOU NOT DOUBT THAT MY EYES HAVE SEEN IT??? WHEN THE GREAT “DEAD-LINE” RECKONING DOES COME IN THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY, MY THIRD EYE CAN CLEARLY BEHOLD THE GREATEST HOPES OF OUR CURRENT SILVER AND BLACK GENERATION MORTGAGED FOR “EXPIRINGS” AND “PICKS, OF DRAFTS” IF BY THAT TIME OUR PROUD GROUP HAS NOT WON A MAJORITY OF ITS CONTESTS —
OK, enough is enough. You took too much, man, way too much —
I HAVE NOT NEARLY TAKEN ENOUGH, TYPING MAN —
Fuck it. *silenced gunshot* He hadn’t gotten all his boosters. Might’ve had rabies.
2015–16 season record: 67–15, 1st in Southwest Division
Vegas championship odds: 11/1 per Vegas Insider, 3rd best in the league after the Warriors and Cavs
2016–17 win projection, courtesy of The Shocker’s BLUDOG-420 projection machine: 56–26. Mostly because anyone who thinks any other non-Warriors team (except maybe the Clippers) can win more than like 52 games is high as a fucking kite. They are higher than Rush fucking Limbaugh and Alex Jones put together after a bottle of Xanax and 16 Miller Lites. They are higher than the dead goddamn coyote if they think a Popovich-coached Spurs team — barring catastrophic injury — is winning less than 50 games. Speaking of which, can someone come get this corpse out of my room, please? It’s starting to stink.
