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The 2011 Spurs were heavily flawed. There's no reason to assume they could have taken down the team of destiny if they even made it that far.

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Such a homer...

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Everyone outside of Houston realizes they would have won eight straight if not for Jordan's gambl...retirement and poor career choice.

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Good possiblity ? Sure. Definite ? I don't think so. The Rockets were 5-1 against the Bulls during their first 3 title seasons. Houston matched up against the Bulls better than anyone ....

Maxwell/Jordan - Mad Max gave Jordan fits in most of their head-to-head matchups - obvious upper hand to MJ but Max played well
Horry/Pippen - same style of play - edge to Pippen but not much
Thorpe/Grant - virtual wash here too
Olajuwon/Cartwright - easily lopsided matchup
Rest of benches - fairly even from what I remember

A Rockets/Bulls Finals in '94 would have been epic - Dream vs MJ - you obviously give the edge to the 3 time champs but you can't deny that the Rockets would have given them hell before getting their 4th or 5th straight.

The 96-97 Houston team would have matched up very well against Chicago. ****ing John Stockton.

94 Rockets Title - Hakeem and a bunch of stiffs. I have no problem with that asterisk.

95 Rockets Title - Hakeem, Drexler, Elie as a premium defender, young Horry and Cassell. That's a solid f***ing team. Hakeem absolutely annihilated everyone during those playoffs. There's no way anyone was beating him that year. I firmly believe Hakeem was the best player on earth in 95. And I had Jordan posters all over my room at the time. Further, the Bulls never had what always killed the Rockets- great PG play. Gary Payton and John Stockton killed the Rockets over and over (mainly because Kenny "the Jet" Smith couldn't stay in front of a 4th grader on defense). The Magic handled the Bulls easily that year (was it a sweep?), and then the Rockets handled the Magic (easily). That 95 Bulls team, it wasn't very good. But we can play the asterisk game as much as you want.

Oh and as was earlier stated, at least 2 of the 4 Spurs championship years they were by far the class of the league. It's ridiculous they were on there

Artest, Joe Johnson, and Webber gave asterisk titles?

hahaha

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Took down a MUCH BETTER DYNASTY, with 2 of the top 10 players EVER in the league, on the SAME TEAM, one of the most clutch people in sports history ever (Horry), and arguably the greatest coach of all time. Nobody in the league was saying ANYTHING about how "old the lakers had gotten" until the Spurs punked them in the '03 playoffs,

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So much hyperbole and exaggeration. That '03 lakers team was neglected by the GM and full of spares with no bench. The spurs played a team that was giving playoff minutes to mark madsen, old ass brian shaw, devean george, stanislav medvedenko (WTF), and jannero pargo. Say those names out loud, then remind yourself that none of those players should have ever been allowed on a playoff court unless it was to mop up a spill. Please spare us your lavish revisionist history.

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yet injuries to Dirk and CWebb somehow matter?

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Yeah it ****ing matters, kind of like how it would matter if durant got knocked out of the WCF this year.

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The Suns weren't even the toughest competition in the playoffs that year. The Mavs were. And if I remember correctly, this series didn't even go to 7 games.

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Not the toughest competition? Dude, the series was tied 2-2 going into the game 5 suspension game (no one else won 2 games vs. the spurs that spring). Game 5 was a 3 point game with the suns being short-handed (they only played 6 guys, had a 4th Q lead, then being short-handed ran out of gas). The suns win game 5 and it's a totally different series. Absolutely a footnote title based on a retarded league rule, as well as the spurs getting to play an '07 cavs team that is one of the worst finals team ever (they started boobie ****ing gibson at PG. Seriously?) in the past 30 years.

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Sorry. I never bought the fact that the Pacers were legit this year. Ron Artest was their best player. I'll say that again. Ron Artest was their best player.

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Jermaine O'Neal, a two-way force in his prime, was their best player, and yes, the melee changed everything. That pacers team would have presented major problems for the spurs with jermaine o'neal going toe-to-toe with duncan, artest in his defensive prime slowing down ginobili, and either artest or stephen jackson having a matchup advantage depending on who bowen would have guarded. And if that pacers hadn't gotten through, it would have been the heat were it not for a dwyane wade injury in game 6 of the ECF. That heat team also would have presented problems with the poo-poo platter of nazr and rasho ****ing nesterovic trying to guard runner-up MVP Shaquille O'Neal, requiring a double-team and with bowen occupied with wade, all series long capable players eddie jones, haslem, and damon jones would have been knocking down open jumper after open jumper. The pistons were at best the 3rd best East team that year, and the spurs needed 7 full games and a rasheed wallace brain fart to knock them out. Easily another footnote title.

The '99 title is a footnote no matter who won the title. The play was atrocious and unwatchable that year, they should have just cancelled the whole season.

[This message has been edited by cdhaggie07 (edited 5/3/2012 4:42p).]

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The '99 title is a footnote no matter who won the title. The play was atrocious and unwatchable that year, they should have just cancelled the whole season.

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This is the correct point of the 99 season. Doesn't matter if it was an even playing field. It was not NBA caliber basketball. Those teams cannot be fairly judged against other teams in normal years. Hell they could have decided to play indoor soccer or something instead of basketball and it would still have been an even playing field for all the teams. But it's not NBA basketball.

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People need to chill with this article. You can put footnotes on every Championship run. Each and every one.

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No, I can't think of any legitimate footnotes for 2011. No major injuries. No scandals. A reigning dynasty still at its peak that went down. All the relevant players were on solid playoff teams, not like some of those seasons like 2005 and 2007 when the top 3 players were trapped on horrible teams.

[This message has been edited by Internetfan02 (edited 5/3/2012 4:50p).]

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Jermaine O'Neal, a two-way force in his prime, was their best player, and yes, the melee changed everything. That pacers team would have presented major problems for the spurs with jermaine o'neal going toe-to-toe with duncan, artest in his defensive prime slowing down ginobili, and either artest or stephen jackson having a matchup advantage depending on who bowen would have guarded. And if that pacers hadn't gotten through, it would have been the heat were it not for a dwyane wade injury in game 6 of the ECF. That heat team also would have presented problems with the poo-poo platter of nazr and rasho ****ing nesterovic trying to guard runner-up MVP Shaquille O'Neal, requiring a double-team and with bowen occupied with wade, all series long capable players eddie jones, haslem, and damon jones would have been knocking down open jumper after open jumper. The pistons were at best the 3rd best East team that year, and the spurs needed 7 full games and a rasheed wallace brain fart to knock them out. Easily another footnote title.

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Really? Jermaine O'Neal against Duncan? Relying on Eddie Jones, Udonis Haslem, and Damon James to beat the Spurs? That's the best you can do?

You Spurs haters are awesome. Keep up the good work.

Ron Artest was easily the Pacers' best player that year. Dude was on pace for an MVP season. He was at the time the league's best defender and he was steadily putting up 25ish points a game.

That footnote is hard to argue for/against because that melee happened so early on in the season. But that Indiana team was definitely a problem match-up for anyone had they had their heads on straight.

[This message has been edited by Head Ninja In Charge (edited 5/3/2012 5:02p).]

nvrmd

[This message has been edited by TheDino (edited 5/3/2012 5:06p).]

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Everyone outside of Houston realizes they would have won eight straight if not for Jordan's gambl...retirement and poor career choice.

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Well, I'm outside of Houston. I do not think Chicago would have beaten Houston in a matchup in the finals. Jordan often played poorly against long shot blockers, since so much of his game (especially in his early years) was in getting to the rim. Houston gave Chicago fits in the few times they played, and Hakeem was at his best during that span.

Yes the Spurs were the best team those years. Even if those players were healthy or Phoenix didn't have the suspensions the Spurs should have been favored. So bottom line is the Spurs did not get challenged as much as they could have been. It's really just bad luck for them that the other circumstances were attached to their season. As Simmons said - it's not an asterisk, but you can't help interjecting these events when discussing those seasons. That plays into why the Spurs don't get as many historical accolades as other teams, and why those Spurs Finals series had such low tv ratings.

LOL

Footnotes for LAL's 1st two championships for the 2000s:


2000: Tim Duncan went down with a season ending injury 4 games before the playoffs started. The Spurs never really had a chance to defend their first title.

2001: Derek Anderson (Spurs 2nd best player at the time) got taken out by a bush league foul by Juwan Howard in the series against the Mavs. He played the LAL series at about 50%. He was the Spurs Ginobili of that time.

Derek Anderson was 50%.

I'm sure he would've stopped probably the most unstoppable player of all time (please try to argue why '01 Shaq was not the most dominant player of all time)

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No, I can't think of any legitimate footnotes for 2011

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HAHA

There's this guy who plays in San Antonio, his name is Manu Ginobili. He broke his friggin elbow the last game of the regular season, and it caused the #1 seed to bow out in the 1st round against their toughest potential opponent next to LAL.

Simple, it's no less ludicrous than the claims for 03-07.

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There's this guy who plays in San Antonio, his name is Manu Ginobili. He broke his friggin elbow the last game of the regular season, and it caused the #1 seed to bow out in the 1st round against their toughest potential opponent next to LAL.

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Caron Butler was out too. Didn't stop the Champions.

Denied.

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There's this guy who plays in San Antonio, his name is Manu Ginobili. He broke his friggin elbow the last game of the regular season, and it caused the #1 seed to bow out in the 1st round against their toughest potential opponent next to LAL.

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Wait so now the only reason the Spurs didn't win it all last year is Ginobilis minor injury? That was so bad that he still led the team in scoring?
Ginobilis bad elbow didn't help Memphis dominate the interior. This must be another troll post.

Dude broke his elbow and missed game 1 altogether. It was obvious the entire series that he was struggling with only being able to use one arm.

Shhhh. Derek Anderson was gonna stop the big philosopher.

Of course Manu was gonna stop ZBo and Gasol

Lol poor Spurs fans still upset over the Grizzlies beating them last year.

And the national media is so biased against the Spurs that they never mention Ginobili's injury as a main factor in the playoffs last year.

Media never mentioned Rudy Gay playing 0 minutes the entire playoffs.

dallas FINALLY wins a title, and all of a sudden, as if by some magical form of **** magic, their title run was absolutely flawless and ALL FOUR of the spurs titles were tainted in some way, shape or form.

the troll of the year, for sure.

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#10 2005 Spurs* (Artest melee, Wade injury, Joe Johnson injury)

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So, beating the defending champion in the finals is asterisk worthy?

Spurs owned the Suns, Joe Johnson wasn't going to change that, period...


"First in Sight, Ready to Fight"

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A reigning dynasty still at its peak that went down.

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Anybody with half a brain could tell that the Lakers were nowhere near championship caliber last year.

The 2003 Lakers were one shot away from taking the Spurs out...(if that Horry shot goes down, the Lakers win that series)...

Nice revisionist history there, of course, if I were a Mavs fan I would want to forget all those playoff failures through the 2000's as well...

"First in Sight, Ready to Fight"

I'm not convinced the people beeching even read the column.

Here's his intro, footnote, & analysis for the 07 Spurs.

Intro

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Even before they swept Cleveland in the Finals, I wrote a column calling them "the best Spurs team ever," "the second-best playoff team since Jordan retired" and "the most brutally efficient group in years." For the record, the three best NBA champs of the past 15 years were the '01 Lakers, '97 Bulls and '07 Spurs, in that order.

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Footnote

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The Footnote: Big Shot Rob's last great shot! blah blah blah

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The Verdict

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The Verdict: Nobody loved watching the Seven Seconds or Less Suns more than me, and if Nash's Suns were ever beating Duncan's Spurs, it was happening that spring. Three things jump out at me, though. First, San Antonio won Game 1 in Phoenix. Great teams never blow Game 1 at home. It just shouldn't happen. Second, the Spurs led Phoenix by 11-plus points in the fourth quarters of three of the last four games; in the other (Game 5, when Phoenix threatened to go Ewing theory on us without Diaw and Stoudemire), they trailed by as many as 16 before roaring back to win. And third, the Suns had everyone for Game 6 — with their season on the line, no less — and got blown out of the building (trailing by as much as 20 in the fourth quarter). Even though the Suns could have stolen that series, they weren't better than San Antonio. So I'd almost give this a footnote for the footnote: If anything, the Diaw/Stoudemire suspensions became a little overrated over time.

(Would I ever in a million years say this in front of a large crowd at a Phoenix sports bar? No.)

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Summary: yea, Horry decked Nash and that sucked, but the Suns weren't going to win anyway. Yea, that's really negative.

The dude wrote up footnotes for 24 championships since '58 or so. That's only 54 years, which means he had a footnote for (almost) every other title.

I disagree vehemently with his '99 bit. Yes, it was a crappy regular season, but I don't think you can extend the whole "nobody was in shape argument" to the playoffs. The season still began in Feb, which gave everybody a full 3 months to get used to their teammates and get back into the swing of things.

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Of course Manu was gonna stop ZBo and Gasol

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The Spurs lost 2 of the first three games by 3 points each (they won game 2). Manu didn't need to stop ZBo or Gasol, he just needed a steal here and a goal there early on in the series and SA would have had a 3-0 series lead.

[This message has been edited by atfarmer (edited 5/3/2012 7:15p).]

I like that of the 24 teams he wrote up, he found room for 2 Showtime-era Laker teams but not one of the Celtics teams in that era. At the very least, the 1980 Celtics deserved a footnote of some sort for getting offerred up the Rockets that season.

I don't think the sports guy can write something bad about the 80s era celtics. His keyboard would spontaneously combust (or a blood vessel in his brain would rupture) before he finished typing.

[This message has been edited by john32f (edited 5/3/2012 7:38p).]

Spurs were lucky it was a 6 game series and not 5.

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Media never mentioned Rudy Gay playing 0 minutes the entire playoffs.

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They play a lot better without Rudy Gay.

Did you watch the game last night?

One game means nothing. When z-bo is 100% and they are running the offense through him with Gay on the bench, they are a MUCH better team.