In awe of this franchise.

[sixers_610]

I have to say.. year after year, the Spurs amaze me. Popovich might be the most underappreciated coach ever (just the way he likes it). Regardless of questions year after year about age and perceived "less talented" roleplayers, the team finds guys that fit, and it just works.

You are very lucky. And not to mention, a classy fanbase.

[Nolan]

Well thank ya sir.

[Donald Kaufman]

I consider ourselves very lucky as fans. Playoffs every year, some first round exits but mostly 2nd or better, playing some great teams along the way (Shaq & Kobe's Lakers being the biggest treat for me personally).

And 4 years after our championship window apparently closed for good, we're looking good for another deep run.

Very little to complain about.

[Black_Jack21]

Very spoilt fans here.
Had the opportunity to watch true greatness in TD

I love this team and find myself following spurs like teams in other sports. Tight defensive teams that don't attract alot of the spotlight but get the job done and get it done properly.

They way this team stays loyal to it's players is also refreshing.

It will be a sad day when the team as we know it breaks up.

[sixers_610]

It may not be considered "exciting" basketball in the eye of the media, but what's more exciting than winning, seriously?

Sent from my BlackBerry 9810 using Tapatalk

[Donald Kaufman]

I really don't get the "boring" tag we're given. Maybe when we were a lockdown, grind-it-out defensive oriented team of the Bruce Bowen days, maybe then I could see why we get that label. But this team I see as one of the best in the league to watch play.

I honestly think the boring tag is from ignorant people that don't really watch this current version of the team.

[batmana]

The boring tag was very trendy when we were a lockdown defensive team with Bruce Bowen and in Timmy's prime. And frankly, many people have barely watched Spurs games over the last couple of seasons and they either believe we are still boring, or are shocked to find out that we actually play what they now consider a more "attractive" basketball.

I never found our game boring and the infamous 2005 Finals between us and Detroit, labeled as the most boring ever, were the most enjoyable for me.

[co_laper]

Well.. I understand it and I'd even say I agree that we're actually boring.

You can't question it in the old days because there was nothing entertaining about our play. You can't just say you're winning, therefore you're exciting/attractive. The old days, our offense was like 4 down. And come on, Tim Duncan's post up is not nearly as exciting as Hakeem's. I get a kick of watching Dream posting up because he moves like a 7 foot Jordan.

Even during 2005 when it was arguably the peak of Manu's career in terms of his contributions to the team, Manu brought some flash, but that was it. Duncan was still Duncan. We were scoring 80 points a game. Manu was only getting 30 minutes a game. There wasn't enough entertainment from one single person to make the team exciting.

This season, you can argue that our ball movement is a thing of beauty, but that gets old. There was a time during the season that I was simply in awe with our passing. But after you watch the same thing over and over again, it gets boring. After all, our passing aren't fancy passing like the old Sacramento Kings. We're like that team in the playground consist of old guys, only we're not actually that old. But if you watch the team play and cover up the faces of everyone on the roster, you would think that this is an old team playing from their style.

I think it was game 1 or game 2 where Manu and TD was dunking. It was the same game that Manu missed his wide open Dunk. Anyways, I don't deny that Dunks gets me up. It gets the average fans up when there's dunks. And there's no denying that dunks do get the crowd fired up. Well, we hardly ever dunk. And when we dunk, our crowd gets fired up. But compared to other teams, our dunks are lame.

Team basketball isn't really a thing of beauty for the average fan. I think our current Spurs team most resemble the 2005 Detroit Pistons team in the sense that we're not exciting and we play a team game. Detroit wasn't exciting.

Heck, on the defensive end, it's usually blocks that could get exciting. Huge blocks are highlight reel stuff. And well, when we block, there's nothing exciting with it. There's no big blocks where we swat it out to the third row or emphatic blocks like the old Mutombo days. When Tim Duncan blocks a shot, the first thing that goes through your head is "was that a block or did that guy just lost the ball?"

For me, our team has never been exciting. But do I love watching them play? Ofcourse.

[Donald Kaufman]

So you love the team, but you're bored whilst doing so? Makes sense.

[co_laper]

Well, I'm sure when the team stops winning and there will be a time when we're fighting for the lottery, our team won't play as well as they do now. In fact, like most bad teams, we'll play really really bad and ugly. Are you saying you won't love the team then? I know I will.

Yeah, I love the team, but are they exciting on the floor? No. This Spurs team play a beautiful basketball in terms of fundamentals, but that doesn't neccesarily makes it exciting... It just makes it beautiful.

[Donald Kaufman]

Yeah, will love the team no matter what.

I don't know, I guess I find the ball movement and team play exciting, in the sense that I'm enjoying watching the Spurs play. Back in the days of Bruce Bowen etc., I still loved the team but they were definitely not exciting. I appreciated the defensive style but I could definitely see the criticism we got in terms of playing an ugly style of ball. The 2007 finals were the epitome of that to me. They're regarded as one of the worst finals in recent memory and although I'm glad we got another ring, I tend to agree with the haters on that one.

But now, with the depth of our team and the up and down style we're running, my feeling is if you don't find our team exciting then I have to ask which teams you actually do?

[co_laper]

This year I haven't followed many teams because I've only watched the Spurs. I mean, this is my first year having NBA Team Pass so I've picked the Spurs and watched all 82 games where in the past I only watch what the Spurs when I get to watch them on those illegal web streams. The timing is just not right to watch the Spurs on live games because in Indonesia, games start at 6 AM. I can't wake up that early and then go to work especially since I always sleep late. Before I watched like at most 15 games a year I guess.

So about our offense, the only thing of beauty in our team, i honestly feel like after watching the whole season, our offense is predictable. It doesn't make it easy to defend because Parker/Manu are truly great at pick and rolls and the spacing of our team just kills people. But over this season, I've seen every single play the Spurs make in Utah atleast 500 times I guess. 66 games, about over 5300 plays during the season. Yeah I would think out of that 5300 plays we made, there were like 500 of the same exact plays happening before. You see guys in the general board who watch this team for the first time and they're like "wow this is the best ball movement i've seen in years", and in my mind I'm like "well that's been happening since what? game 10 of the season?".

And come on, you know how when you play basketball, sometimes you make the fancy pass like Jason Williams and how amazing it look when it connects? That one play will get you talked about by everybody. Just like dunks, fancy passings get the crowd up like crazy. Passing/ball movement is basically our forte right now. That's what we do best and there are far too few great passes unless it's Manu's passes.

Just look at it this way, you see how say.. Clipper crowds get up and loud after dunks, and then you watch Spurs games and you almost never see the crowd gets up like that and that loud because the dunks/passes/blocks/or any of the stuff that gets the crowd up rarely happens.

Again, not saying we play an ugly style this year. it's a beautiful style offensively. Definitely the best of this Duncan era, but exciting? No... Exciting and beautiful is just too different terms in my opinion. This is not what exciting is.

[Donald Kaufman]

Yeah that's true, I get what you mean about the difference between say us and the Clips. The Clips definitely have more wow moments, whereas we're efficient and smart with the ball, which is obviously not as exciting.

[twinthunder3]

Aside from the boring tag, this team is truly amazing. You guys have role players that know their role.

[The Duke]

The management needs alot of credit, they do the little things right that make big impacts.
Scout and draft well
Make trades that benefit them
Strong leadership both from Coach and TD
Preservation of Cap

Spurs is a model organization and the best run (top to bottom) franchise in the last 2 decades.

I dont know how anyone can be bored of how the Spurs play basketball. Frankly, they have been the easily team to watch, as what they do on the court "makes sense"

[SaveTheHens]

I find it hard believing this team will ever be "bad", unless there's no turnover of strategy in management. This isn't a team like Miami who's star's have aligned (somewhat of a pun I guess), this is a franchise that puts the time in and comes out with a product year in, year out. The biggest thing I think people don't realize is the development of players this franchise is responsible for. Tim Duncan may have developed into the star he is regardless, but they've turned late draft talent like Tony Parker and Ginobili into allstars.

I think us fans look at a player's success and attribute that success to that player alone. Maybe only 60% of their success in this league is due to their actual efforts, the other 40 comes from outside factors that help them achieve greatness. An example could be Rondo, a late draft pick who wasn't terrible but didn't show any signs of brilliance. Big three come along, teach him the ropes, and now he's a top PG in this league. For the Spurs I think the franchise really puts an effort into the development of the player and really putting a player in a role to succeed.

[co_laper]

My biggest worry is when Pop decides to hang it up.

I think we have a good replacement for when Duncan and Manu retires. But what happens when Pop retires? Pop is a father figure to the players. I have trouble seeing coach Bud as that seeing that he's really young. He's more like a friend than a dad. And that's a big big difference.

[batmana]

How about coach Manu?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzGY9aAdgmQ

Seriously, I would expect Bud to replace Pop if he decides to call it quits in the following 5 years. If he stays longer then maybe Bud will be the leading assistant forever and never become the head coach.

[Nolan]

Bud 's going to replace Pop. He's already turned tons of jobs over the years so I doubt he did all that if didn't know he was in line to take over for Pop.

Its really hard to say if he'll be good but he'll get the first shot at taking over this team.