Less than 48 hours and one unrelated storybook ending separated the two scenes involving Kobe Bryant and Phil Jackson. One was warm and fuzzy, perhaps only because the aging warrior was no longer a threat. The second was sad and unpromising, with the evidence suggesting the aging warrior is no longer a threat. On Saturday night, the Spurs celebrated the career of Bryant, who was visiting San Antonio for the final time as a player. It was touching tribute to an
Age has finally caught up to Dwyane Wade, to an extent. The longtime Miami Heat superstar is putting up career lows in field goal percentage, effective field goal percentage and true shooting percentage, while his scoring average and PER are at their lowest rates since his rookie season 12 years ago. However, that doesn’t mean Wade is still not a really good player— just one slowly in decline, now 10 days after his 34th birthday. That’s natural for someone who’s played over 35,000
The good news for the San Antonio Spurs is that Tim Duncan, who had soreness in his right knee, was unable to play Monday night when the second-best team in the NBA lost to the best team by 30 points. The bad news is that to compete with the Golden State Warriors, the Spurs would have needed the 25-year-old Tim Duncan who averaged 25.5 points, 12.7 rebounds, 2.5 blocks and won the 2002 Most Valuable Player award. The 39-year-old Duncan, who
This week, while NBA coaches pick the All-Star reserves, the NBA will pick the All-Star coaches. Neither task is as easy. David Blatt’s dismissal as coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers has added a bizarre twist to next month’s All-Star Game in Toronto. The Cavs have the best record in the Eastern Conference, which means their staff was on track to coach the East All-Stars. But Blatt has been replaced by Tyronn Lue, who will coach just five games before the deadline of
Seldom has a team with a nine-game winning streak, 16 victories in its last 17 games and an overall record of 34-6 generated so little excitement. That’s outside of San Antonio, of course. Spurs fans are aware as any of the Ripleys-Believe-It-Or-Not 36-2 start of the Golden State Warriors, but they have every reason to be excited and optimistic about their chances to win a sixth NBA title. The Warriors are defending champions, but the Spurs are only a year removed from winning
After Monday’s 106-79 road win over the deliriously dysfunctional Brooklyn Nets, the 33-6 San Antonio Spurs have matched the team’s best start through 39 games in its storied franchise history. The Spurs have won five championships since Gregg Popovich took over as coach during the 1996-1997 season, but have never started the regular season with more wins than they have right now. And San Antonio isn’t just beating teams, it’s steamrolling opponents at a level not seen anywhere else in the league. The
In case you didn’t notice, the transition into a new era for the San Antonio Spurs hit a milestone of sorts this past weekend. For the first time in 1,360 career games, Tim Duncan did not score. Coming off a three-game absence – one for rest and two due to knee soreness – the no-brainer Hall of Famer played just 13 minutes Saturday, missing all three of his shots and failing to get to the line. And it was no coincidence that in
In the classic war movie Apocalypse Now, Marlon Brando plays a decorated American colonel who has abandoned the war in Vietnam to set up his own dystopian military conclave in Cambodia that features random missions, animal sacrifices and human beheadings. Martin Sheen plays an American captain sent on a classified mission to assassinate the colonel. When Sheen arrives at the camp, he is asked if he believes the colonel’s methods are unsound. And Sheen replies, “I don’t see any method at all,