San Antonio Spurs

The San Antonio Spurs are a wonderful team during the regular season, and they used to be great during the postseason, but that was many years ago when they were more attuned to the league’s grueling schedule and much younger.  However, they have found a way to fly under the radar and be a wonderful regular season team.  The only problem is, they’re so old that they will probably flame out during the postseason because of their age.  How do they avoid that?  How do they stop themselves from becoming the elderly Atlanta Braves of the late 90′s and early 2000′s?  Well, the first thing they need to do is come up with a backup plan.  Remember how they got Tim Duncan?  They had to pick first in the draft.  Then, they still had to have David Robinson on the roster so that he and Duncan could play together.

Lots of rest for the hall of famers.

I thought that there was no way that the Spurs could possibly manage enough minutes to keep themselves from being an old and tired team for the rest of this season.  However, last night, they basically sat everybody in order to get rest, but, in doing so, they also ended an eleven game winning streak.  So, they must not be doing so badly, right?

When you head onto the web and you’re looking at sports stories, you don’t want to see anything that reads like, “Ginobili hurt again.”  Basically, that’s like the webpage telling you, “Manu got hurt again.  Is he going to retire already?”

The sad tale of the Spurs is not much different from the sad tale of the Celtics.  Whereas, all the Celtics superstars are REALLY old, the Spurs superstars are a combination of old, injured, and rundown.  Manu is hurt.  He’s just hurt.  When he stops playing, he’ll still be hurt.  Tim Duncan is old, and Tony Parker is rundown.  This team literally has nothing left in the tank.  We could pretend that they are going to be able to pull it together, but, a team that’s this old and this hurt really has no chance to manage their minutes effectively and keep winning.

The Spurs are starting to look like regular teams.  They’ve been so good for so long, but they have made moves the past couple seasons that have put them in position to look pedestrian as we enter the season.

They are, according to reports, planning to use their amnesty of Richard Jefferson (who was supposed to be a great get for them but didn’t work out,) and they have been talking to Caron Butler.

Now, I like Caron Butler, but when you feel the need to amnesty a really nice signing and talk to Caron Butler to help your team, and you’re the Spurs, then there is a serious problem.