First, congrats to the Spurs for winning yet another NBA title, and making it look easy. I don't care what anyone says, four titles in nine years is a dynasty. Well done, guys.
Second, for those of you who thought these Finals had less zest than perhaps they might, Mac Thomason has a modest proposal.
Ban the coaches. Seriously. No coaching should be allowed during the game; the point guard can call the plays and the captain can call timeouts and make substitutions. Only active players and trainers can sit on the bench. The coach sits in the stands, and if he does anything to coach the team, it's a technical foul and he's asked to leave. He can meet the team in the locker room at halftime; that's it. (I'm borrowing this rule from tennis, which allows only limited contact between player and coach during the match.)Nobody goes to a sporting event to watch someone coach; they go to watch the players. Let the players play.
It's not a radical proposal so much as a silly proposal.
A less-silly proposal would involve ditching these East-West brackets and coming up with some sort of seeding system, so that the best matchups aren't in the early rounds. Everyone lost interest in this thing when David Stern tipped the true finals series (Suns-Spurs) in favor of the Spurs.
Posted by: Kevin Whited on June 16, 2007 9:15 AMNobody goes to a game to watch the coach, but I'd be curious what someone like Shaquille O'Neal thinks about the difference a coach makes.
Silly idea to ban the coaches, but given the run the Spurs had this season, they may as well have banned the refs. My hat goes off to them for what they've accomplished in the past decade, but they made it damn near impossible for me to be a fan of them this season.
Posted by: Greg Wythe on June 16, 2007 11:31 AMFirst, banning the coach, in my opinion bad idea, especialy in an highly emotional game.
Second, the Spurs won game one in Phoenix! Thus giving the spurs the home court advantage. What David Stern did was make the right call. What the NBA does not need is an all out brawl on national TV.
Finally, the NBA needs to stop marketing individuals, Kobe, Shaq, or LeBron. It's a team sport, an individual will lose to a team every series.
Posted by: Jose on June 16, 2007 5:29 PMUhm... And the Suns won Game 4 in SA, reclaiming the home court.
I'm waiting for all the "The rule's the rule" San Antonio fans to start screaming in outrage whenever Timmy doesn't get a T for his little stunned eyes after every foul. That's a "zero tolerance" rule too, you know...
Stern may have followed the precise letter of the law, but it was an unfair call, and one that tainted this entire playoffs. It may have been correct, but it certainly wasn't right.
I love my Spurs so congrats to them.
If I was Bruce Bowen, I'd have also put my knee into Steve Nash's groin if he'd been guarding me that tight. It's called creating space. Big men do it with their elbows and whenever some one gets knocked out because one cracks their skull, invariably it leads to the same debate. But your basketball coach will tell you to do it all the time. Let one person take an elbow like that or let your player continually be stripped of the ball.
Let's also not even talk about the Bowen "kick" in the Achilles, lest we also agree that he is- as other people have put it- a ninja with supernatural reflexes and speed.
In the five games the Spurs-Suns played at full tilt, the Spurs were 3-2 in them. Somehow everyone seems to forget that.
Which means that for the Suns to have advanced, they would've had to have won both Games 5 and 7. Something I don't necessarily find very comforting if you're a Suns fan.
I hate the idea of scrapping the East/West Conference brackets, it's stupid. The easiest way to do this is to re-seed in the 2nd round. If you re-seed, then both the Spurs-Suns matchup this year and the Spurs-Mavs matchup last year takes place in the Western Conference Finals. Plus it would've led to an amazing 2nd Round Suns-Warriors series.
As far as the dynasty thing goes. The only major argument I've heard from everybody is their inability to win titles back to back... except even the 80s Lakers only did that once and that was at the tail end of their run. And just how many times did the 49ers take back to back crowns in the 80s and early 90s? Yet they're seen as the gold standard in the NFL. As Hubie Brown has stated, title number 4 is really where you delineate great runs and dynasties.
And with title 4, the Spurs are a dynasty.
Posted by: Roger Garza on June 19, 2007 3:36 PM