Grieving Renewal

Over the last ten years, no one has ever made money counting out the Spurs, and it has frustrated hordes of people. San Antonio is a team that seemingly everyone loves to hate. Casual basketball fans think that the Spurs are boring. Dedicated NBA heads think that the Spurs' success stifles many other forms of the game, coming at the expense of change. There are people who hate Manu Ginobili, and the Spurs through association, because he flops. There are people who, while grudgingly acknowledging Tim Duncan's brilliance, nonetheless hate Duncan's unassuming demeanor and outwardly imperceptible swag. People have hated Robert Horry because he's Horry; Tony Parker because he's French; Brent Barry because he's white. "Cheap" strategy, maddening luck, inexplicable referee munificence--Spurs haters say that San Antonio has benefited from it all.

I've long stood out as an unabashed Spurs admirer. Even among my friends, it's a point of differentiation in which I find pride and others find confusion. And I won't pretend as though some of the criticism isn't warranted. There have, indeed, been ugly games, obvious flops, and patent luck. But of which successful team can that not be said? In fact, of which team has that not be celebrated? Very often, the conventions of sports thinking dictate that we praise teams that "find ways to win," play with a certain craftiness, and "make the most of opportunities." The Spurs, for some combination of the reasons stated above, aren't afforded as much critical deference. They're granted latitude, and writers have been forced into respectful reflection due to the franchise's sustained excellence, but the tenor of the conversation about San Antonio has regularly lacked the ebullient tone which one suspects would have been attached to several Suns titles had there been any during the peak years of Nash, Amare, and D'Antoni. The Spurs' success has largely been treated like Eeyore winning election as Prom King year after year.

Though most passionate about the Knicks and ever devoted to Tracy McGrady (this makes me beyond depressed), I have derived tremendous enjoyment and definition from San Antonio. Like most people, I've had moments when the Spurs' success has baffled me. "How can they win with this team," I'd wonder. But rather than allowing the initial bewilderment to ossify into something bitter, I've gone the other way. Precisely because the Spurs have won with a style and a roster that can both appear pedestrian on the surface, I have filled the comprehension void with my huge admiration for Pop, Duncan, Manu, and Parker. My skepticism has given way to an appreciative amusment: they win because they are just that good. But unlike the Tiger Woods tautology, there is obvious explanation; it's not that the Spurs are revolutionary, it's that they renewed the game's foundation through sublime execution.



San Antonio's triumph has been the elevation of basketball professionalism. The Spurs' culture dictates that each member of the team understands his job and consistently performs its duties at a high level. They might as well give out Dharma Initiative jumpsuits embroidered with titles like "Shooter" or "Defender," because that's what you are on the Spurs. To wit, the shooters find their prescribed spots, balance the halfcourt sets, stretch the defense, and make their shots. That's the job. Do the job, trust in the system, and watch your jewelry collection grow. One might argue that Duncan, Manu, and Parker break this mold by doing much of many things, but I'd argue each simply has a more nuanced and demanding role commensurate with his distinct, elevated capabilities. Along with competitive wages, San Antonio job perks include: spending time among a brilliant CEO (Pop) and a modest, funny, worldly all-time great (Duncan); coming to a drama-free work environment; being treated as a grown-ass man; and, perhaps most importantly, not being asked to do more than you can. On the Spurs, you'll be challenged, for sure, but you won't be asked to work above your pay grade, or to take on challenges unfairly left for you to conquer.

The Spurs' business is basketball, and as an organization, it has devoted itself to being a leader in the sector's basic, enduring elements. Pick-and-roll, drive and dish, pass out of double teams, funnel penetrators toward the help, close out and box out--excelling at those fundamentals is how the Spurs have earned a profit. I think they'd be the first to tell you that seven-seconds-or-less basketball is an exciting, volatile niche in the industry, and one with obvious but still-inscrutable growth potential. But they'd also point out that in the long run, the San Antonio method has reaped steadier returns and has outperformed even the best attempts to realize the potential of something with such a high risk and high reward. (We should note, of course, that the Spurs, to their credit, have even been able to win by occasionally relying on their own seven-seconds business unit to drive sales, albeit temporarily.)

I have found this unflinching confidence and steady devotion to the craft of basketball something ultimately seductive. The appeal of the Spurs is not the results, but that the results validate this meticulous process. As exciting as it is to conceptualize how basketball can be changed through new styles, or through new player archetypes that introduce combinations of skills and ranges of motion previously unseen, it can be equally captivating to observe an old-world outfit modernize through excellence and dispense with the notion that it must blow up a model that has worked. The tension created by this process is captivating. Just what, exactly, is required to win if you want to play a fundamentally fundamental style bereft of certain modern amenities and conveniences? I harbor so much esteem for the Spurs because they are everything that can be great about basketball; they are a collective that is proud to be a team and recognizes how an organization, in total, can be greater than the aggregated value of its individual components. That will never change in the NBA, and so closely cleaving to this mission statement has served San Antonio well.

That the team does not apologize for what it is while knowingly embracing its most-hated-on status only enhances its appeal. It's unquestionably cool. For example, as I laughed uncontrollably about it in the middle of a conversation this weekend, I realized that my most favorite moment of the season came on its opening night when Pop flashed Shaq the double thumbs up after San Antonio played Hack-a-Shaq just seconds into the game.



That is the essence of what these Spurs have been: perceptive, smart, funny, defiant, and proud. Just as others fail to understand why I root for San Antonio, I struggle to grasp why more people don't love this organization.

Now might be the time when everyone can finally make some money betting against San Antonio. Almost a year ago, I wrote that the steady undoing of these Spurs had likely begun. Manu was injured, Duncan was slowing, and the professionals who had led their industry were suddenly failing to perform at the level demanded by the unique model San Antonio has cultivated. This season, despite the now habitual residence toward the top of the Western Conference, the Spurs were clearly infirm. Duncan was, indeed, not fully the same. Manu endured another season of injuries that have likely conspired to effectively end his career playing as he once could. And, the supporting elements were still not right. (Were Lloyd Bentsen an NBA analysts, he'd surely note that Roger Mason, for example, is no Robert Horry.) I picked Dallas to win yesterday, and I won't be surprised at all if they win this series. Everyone's pets die. (So I'm told, at least. I hate animals and have never had a pet.)

Something funny has happened as I've girded myself for San Antonio's demise, though. While I'd like for the Spurs to win, and as much as I relish San Antonio as a concept, I am completely at peace with these Mavericks vanquishing Pop and Co. Frankly, it would be almost poetic. Perhaps not stylistically, but certainly when considering each team's essence.

After years of manic tinkering, reactive decisions, and impulsive risks, always trying to be at the leading edge of the industry, Dallas came into this season relative staid, somewhat forgotten, and widely dismissed. Many people thought the Mavs would fail to make the playoffs, and it was generally accepted that the team was this almost grotesque amalgamation of mismatched parts, the ruins of all those hurried decisions and ever changing new directions. Kidd-for-Harris was a bust; Dirk was slightly impotent ever since the Golden State series; Howard was a rebel to America. There was even this pervasive notion that Rick Carlisle was a coach resigned to adequacy and perpetually failing to get over the hump, no matter how many times he worked up enough steam to at least mount its front side. Dallas wasn't supposed to be a factor.

The Mavericks, instead, have coalesced, and now play with this assured calm. And don't mistake calm as a synonym for plodding or boring. It's not a stylistic designation; it's one of identity. Suddenly, Dallas just seems to get what it is, and more importantly, it likes itself. I'd imagine that being marginalized was a key component in this odd renaissance of collective self-esteem. The Mavs are much more a team than they have been in the past. Far from a series of players colliding as each seeks out an identity, and far from a group in the throes of constant upheaval, Dallas is actually content to be what it is. (Someone who has more closely followed Dallas all season could perhaps make the case that the entire process of arriving at this emboldening equilibrium was personified by Jason Terry accepting his bench role and then emerging as the best sub in the Lig.) Suddenly, Dallas is very much like San Antonio in this regard. And as such, I am suffering this bizarre sort of Stockholm Syndrome. I should hate the Mavericks for stealing away my moments with Pop and Timmy, yet I secretly love Dallas thanks to the identity metamorphosis.