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My thing is I'm just tired of the Spurs. I don't hate them, don't want them to fall flat, don't deny their ability, etc. I'm just tired of the Spurs.

Simple as that. Sorry if that offends anybody, but its just how it is for me.

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Hey, no offense but why do you gravitate to Spurs threads? Go play with the mavs and rockets.

Not sure if y'all ever read the comments under the espn boxscore section but my goodness there are some incredibly uneducated basketball bandwagon fans
Its unreal
Spurs have been good for along time and have never got much national respect, especially from opposing teams
Maybe if they beat the heat, that will change..
Nah, probably not just more excuses on how the spurs are boring, old, etc.
Go Spurs Go!!!

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My thing is I'm just tired of the Spurs. I don't hate them, don't want them to fall flat, don't deny their ability, etc. I'm just tired of the Spurs.

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So why do you keep posting about them? Move on to the French Open or something.

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It went 6.

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Backdoor sweep.

#3 is a legitimate gripe whether you agree with it or not. The best PG in the NBA got injured and without Harden still had the #1 seed in the Western Conference. Perkins does blow ass though and although Martin isnt as good as Harden, he is still a decent 6th man.

At the end of the day, the spurs are in the finals though. They needed some things to go their way to make it there and Westbrook getting injured was definitely one of those things.

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I want to see if the old guys got one left in them

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People who keep saying the Spurs are old typically are just repeating what the talking heads on TV are saying. The facts are a bit different though. Interestingly enough, the Spurs aren't even in the top 5 in age (http://en.hispanosnba.com/teams/comparison). In fact, based on that chart, San Antonio is tied with Chicago and Brooklyn as far as age, but you never hear those two teams referred to as "old". Oh yeah, and the Miami heat check in at #2 on the oldest teams.

Sure, Duncan and Ginobli are old. Parker isn't particularly old, but he does have a lot of basketball years under his belt considering he's been playing since he was 19. But the truth is that the Spurs have gotten a lot younger and faster since their last championship in 2007 with guys like Leonard, Green, Joseph, and Splitter. If you want to call #20 and #21 old - fine - but say that. To characterize the entire team as "old" is just plain wrong.

Their core players are old. I don't care what the average age of their role players are.

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My thing is I'm just tired of the Spurs. I don't hate them, don't want them to fall flat, don't deny their ability, etc. I'm just tired of the Spurs.

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What are they doing to make you tired of them? Besides just winning a lot of games, the Spurs are just not an in your face kind of team.

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Their core players are old. I don't care what the average age of their role players are.

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Their core players are Duncan 37, Parker 30, Manu 35/66, Leonard 21, and Green has worked his way into the core at 25. It's not a young core, but it's not as old as people think.

So 2 guys makes the team old. Got it.

Duncan is old but his game sets up well for him to continue to contribute. He plays fewer minutes every year as well. Parker really isn't old at 31 and likely has a few more years of prime left. Manu is old but he is less important than he used to be.

Leonard, Splitter, and Green are all young and all start. I just don't see the logic on how the Spurs are at the end of the line after this season unless Duncan retires. They also have a great salary situation. Duncan and Parker are both signed at $22.5 mill combined. Manu's salary of $14.5 mill ends this year and he will likely re-sign for no more than a few mill. Leonard is locked up for 3 more years and cheap. Splitter and Diaw are both less than $5 mill each. They should be able to have enough to go out and get another contributor this offseason, not a max player, but a starting level talent.

I've been putting off that discussion until the playoffs are over, but the Spurs are very well set up for the future aside from the obvious "at some point Duncan and Pop are going to ride off into the sunset".

The disaster is if they both go at the same time.

I feel a lot better now about Duncan's departure than I did two years ago. Pop leaving will be a huge blow, but not devastating. I can see the Spurs being a 4-8 seed after Duncan, and maybe a couple of pieces away from a contending team.

Ultimately we need the next superstar player. As we've seen with teams like Denver, you need a superstar to keep things going. Tony has some years left but not many and we'll need someone else.

I think Kawhi will be a great player but he's not going to be the superstar that gets us to the Finals after Duncan leaves.

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Lets see, so far this morning I've heard:

1. "ugh, not again they are so boring"

2. "I'm sick of them"

3. "Lets be honest, they wouldn't be there if Westbrook is healthy. They got swept last year."

I'm not sure if its blind hatred or plain stupidity.

1. The Spurs are a top 3 offense and a top 3 defense. I guess they are boring because they score too much.

2. It has been 6 years since they were in a finals. How is this repetitive? Meanwhile everyone wants to see Lakers vs Celtics every year.

3. This is not the same team as last year. I firmly believe these guys beat the Thunder. Splitter, Leonard and Green are all much better and Duncan/Parker are hyper-focused. Besides, last year was not a blowout series. It went six and was very close.

Most are giving the Spurs props but the haters can't even recognize an accomplishment for what it is without disparaging it in some way.

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Do you have a link to substantiate any of that?

Because.....I don't know......I honestly think you made most of that that up.

I don't know anybody that hates the Spurs. If you all play Miami in the Finals I promise you the majority of American (including me) will be rooting for you to win.

I have a theory about Spurs fans that I've had for a long time. It plays out every year on this board.

The Spurs basketball organization is the epitome of excellence. This is a franchise that's been a 50 win team for all but two seasons since 1989.

That is unreal.

The Spurs have won 4 titles and have done this while playing against the toughest competition imaginable.
They've played against the Shaq/Kobe Lakers and beat them twice in the playoffs (1999, 2003).

They've gone up against the Suns, Mavs, Kings Kobe/Gasol Lakers.....and year after year kept putting a great team on the court.

The issue I think a lot of Spurs fans have is that deep down (many of you wont admit it) you guys hate being a small market team.

This leads to a couple of things that I see about Spurs fans.

Complaining about lack of National attention.

This is very real.

I didn't realize how big of an issue this was until I started posting on the RealGM NBA Boards and realized that it is dominated by fans of East Coast basketball teams.

All these people on that site act like the Miami and Boston teams from the past few years were just these amazing juggernauts, while sorta ignoring what San Antonio has accomplished over a much longer time frame.

You would never get any of these people to admit that Tim Duncan's Spurs are more successful then the Larry Bird Celtics of the 1980's.

There are not a lot of San Antonio people that post on that site....thus the Spurs stars and teams dont get posted about all that much.

This creeps to the National media. All I ever hear about on ESPN are the teams from Boston, Miami, New York, LA....etc


The second thing that I see is a little bit trickier and its why Im giving the OP some s***.

The Lakers, Yankees, Dallas Cowboys, Duke Basketball, USC football, Miami Hurricanes (when they where good)....these are all championship caliber franchises.

There is no doubt that the Spurs belong in that category of franchises.

The difference between those teams and the Spurs is that they all have national and worldwide brands making them infinitely more popular.

The Most popular teams also tend to be the most hated....and I think this chaps a lot of Spurs fans.

Hated teams (like the Miami Heat) have a lot more buzz then a small market team that no one dislikes.

The Mavericks are more hated then the Spurs, despite not winning anywhere as much.

The Mavs haven't even been good the last two years.
The Spurs are in the Finals, and yet there are still threads from Spurs fan talking about how much they dislike the Mavs.


Deep down I feel like Spurs fans want to be hated on the same level that people hate the Yankees, Cowboys or Lakers.

They constantly complain about people "hating" on them when there is little evidence to support this.



This also leads a lot of their fans going out of their way to be overly obnoxious so people can develop a dislike of them.

There is really nothing to dislike about the San Antonio Spurs organization.



[This message has been edited by Kellso (edited 5/29/2013 1:35p).]

Obligatory note here about long post and words.

You are right about a lot of Spurs fans disliking the lack of national attention. If this team played in LA or NY there'd be non-stop talk about them especially considering your point about sustained excellence.

This is true of most smaller market teams though. The Pacers and Grizzlies are in the same boat to name a couple.

The word "hater" doesn't necessarily refer to someone who hates your team; sometimes it's someone who doesn't recognize your team's achievements or consistently underrates your team. There's not really a national dislike of the Spurs, but ask 10 random NBA fans (or even writers) to name the best all-time NBA franchises and they probably say LA, Boston, Chicago, NY, and at best include the Spurs among teams like the Pistons, Pacers, or even Heat. The Spurs are clearly either 3rd or 4th by any rational metric, and since the merger it's a three way battle for 2nd.

Any hate left on this board is mostly the remnants of the three way battle between the Nowitzki Mavs and the "almost there" Yao/McGrady Rockets, it's just that most of the Mavs and Rockets fans have stopped engaging in trash talk. There's not much more than the occasional desultory barb tossed back and forth now, but up until a couple years ago many Mavs fans HATED the Spurs and many Spurs fans HATED the Mavs right back. I was in CS during the height of the rivalry, I saw/heard/read the back and forth.

I pretty much agree with Kellso's take but I still don't think it's the small market that's the biggest driver. The Duke example is a good one, and University of Miami to a lesser extent. There's nothing big market about Duke. If Lebron were to find a way to force his way into the Spurs roster then they would become a hated/overly popular franchise instantly.

Agree to some extent. Team popularity can be explained through three variables: market size, personalities, and novelty. Sometimes big markets can afford to bring in personalities, which creates a monster. Sometimes two personalities team up, which creates a monster. Memphis had no market and no personalities, but they jumped onto the scene with the upset a couple years ago and seemed poised to make that big run with a style ESPN isn't used to talking about. Will they still be on the radar next year?


The Spurs personality is to have no personality. They are in a tiny tv market. They'll get homilies when people remember them, but mostly be forgotten because there's nothing sexy about showing up to work, winning without ever touching the rim, and going home.

[This message has been edited by Ulrich (edited 5/29/2013 2:37p).]

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This is true of most smaller market teams though. The Pacers and Grizzlies are in the same boat to name a couple.

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They would need to be good for at least another ten years, with three or four championships, to be anywhere near the same boat.

I don't think it's just about being a small market team, I think people still have an idea in their mind that the Spurs are boring because they were a defensive team during most of the 00s, and because of the quiet and low key nature of both Duncan and Robinson throughout those years.

But even then, if you transplant the Spurs to NY, they'd be legends. I think it's a combination of a lot of factors.

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But even then, if you transplant the Spurs to NY, they'd be legends. I think it's a combination of a lot of factors.

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Screw that....NY is too easy.

If the Spurs where located in Boston, Philly or DC you would never hear the end of them on Sportscenter.

If the Spurs were in New York, the media would probably be calling for heads to roll after losing to the 8 seed 2 years ago and then losing 4 in a row last year after being up 2-0. You would have had idiots at the draft booing picks like Parker, Manu, Splitter, etc... Spike Lee might annoy Duncan so much that he would have wanted to leave and play somewhere else.

Be glad they aren't in New York.

[This message has been edited by keithd03 (edited 5/29/2013 4:28p).]

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If the Spurs were in New York, the media would probably be calling for heads to roll after losing to the 8 seed 2 years ago and then losing 4 in a row last year after being up 2-0. You would have had idiots at the draft booing picks like Parker, Manu, Splitter, etc

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I don't see any of that bothering Pop or RC at all.

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Spike Lee might annoy Duncan so much that he would have wanted to leave and play somewhere else.

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If Garnett talking trash to Duncan about his dead mother didn't affect him, I seriously doubt that anything Spike Lee had to say would affect him.


Noted wise man Ron Artest once said about Duncan:

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I remember one time Kevin Garnett was mushing him, and shoving him in the face; and Tim Duncan didn’t do anything, he didn’t react. He just kicked Kevin Garnett’s ass, and won the damn championship. You know what I’m sayin’? That’s gangsta. Everybody can show emotion, dunk on somebody, scream and be real cocky; but Tim Duncan is a…he’s a pimp.

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Spike Lee? Meh.

Who am I to argue with Ron Artest?

Kellso,

I don't have a link to any of that but I didn't make it up. I heard it all on the morning radio shows, that would be either The Dan Patrick Show or The Herd. There was one of the guys on Dan Patrick who was just sick of the Spurs and said they were boring. Collin Cowherd claims they are only winning because Westbrook got hurt.

I really don't care if anyone loves or hates the Spurs. They get a ton of respect from basketball savvy pundits. I was just venting about some of the semi-educated sports personalities out there. It was funny because Cowherd has PJ Carlisimo on the show later and he asked him if the East was really better than the West this year and the West was just flashier and had us duped. PJ said nope, the West was brutal tough and he wished he could say the East was better since he was in the East at New Jersey.

I'm not a fan to complain about lack of national exposure. I know a lot of fans do, Aggie fans do it all the time. Scoreboard ends up being the ultimate exposure. That's what the Spurs focus on and that's one of the things that makes it fun to be a fan of theirs.

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[Cowherd] asked him if the East was really better than the West this year and the West was just flashier and had us duped.

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The West won 75 more games this year. The two seed in the East would have been a 6 seed in the West. The 8 seed in the East would have finished 7 games out of the playoffs in the West. The 8 seed in the West would have been a 5 seed in the East. And lest you think that it's "only" the top 8 teams in the West that are clearly better than the top 8 in the East, the East had the three worst records in the league this year.

This Mavs fan is cheering for the Spurs, especially if they end up playing the Heat in the finals.

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The Mavs are not more hated than the Spurs by any means

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C'Mon bro. You cant be serious.

The Mavs have sucked the past two years.

The Spurs are in the Finals for the first time in 6 years.

Yet today this thread is started by a Spurs fan.

http://texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=2313761&forum_id=52

There was a 100 response thread on the Mavs a few weeks back....and I have to repeat that this team is not even in the playoffs.

I think your post kinda illustrates what Im talking about.

In some sort of weird way I really do think a lot of you wish the Spurs where as hated as Mark Cuban and the Dallas Mavs, or on a larger level the Dallas Cowboys.

A lot of the dislike of the Mavs has everything to do with the city they are located in, and the whole Coke and Boob job crowd that populate Mavs games.

The Spurs team and franchise are a bunch of nice guys. It also helps that no other large city is envious of San Antonio.

Tim Duncan is the quietest, most polite star player in the game, and your other star player was a freaking Naval Academy officer.

There is nothing to dislike about the San Antonio Spurs organization.

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A lot of the dislike of the Mavs has everything to do with the city they are located in,

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I think it has more to do with the Ribby and Muy and Hostile_Aggie and all those people. I really don't care about the city of Dallas. Dallas hate as a city is a Houston vs Dallas thing. SA doesn't really have that.

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There is nothing to dislike about the San Antonio Spurs organization.

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Hate for the Spurs over the years has been credited to Bowen being dirty and Ginobili flopping. I can certainly understand that.

Plus people, especially unsuccessful people, tend to hate the successful.

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And the Spurs really aren't even a small market team even though everybody likes to label them that. San Antonio is the 7th largest city by population in the United States. Sure, the media market is a little smaller because they don't count San Marcos, New Braunfels, and Austin in the San Antonio market, but they are still not small like OKC, Memphis, Utah, Sacramento, and New Orleans whose cities have no other large population centers around them.

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http://www.tvb.org/media/file/TVB_Market_Profiles_Nielsen_Household_DMA_Ranks2.pdf

I know you didn't just pull we are the 7th biggest city line?

Yes they are a small market team. Where is San Antonio's football or baseball team?


According to the Nielsen list....of teams that have Professional franchises only Oklahoma City, Memphis and New Orleans are smaller television markets.


For those of you that wonder why the Spurs don't get more press coverage....it has everything to do with playing in one of the smallest media markets that has a pro sports team.

Austin isn't connected to San Antonio.
It is a separate media and metropolitan market.

I never had a problem with the Mavs until Cuban bought them. I just can't stand that guy and I hope they lose every single game while he owns them.