LOL the hubris to ignore all the actual evidence to stick with the thoroughly debunked notion that the Spurs purposefully tanked, and your reasoning and evidence boils down to 1. My dad had season tickets to the Rockets in 1983 and 2. They tanked because I said they did.The Original Houston 1836 said:Guitarsoup said:Yeah, the career ending injury to starting PF Charles Smith, the blown ACL on Sean Elliott, the herniated disc on 6th Man Chuck Person, the back injury in the olympics and the broken foot in the season for Robinson were all probably faked.The Original Houston 1836 said:
Don't forget about tanking a season for Tim Duncan!
I never understand why Spurs fans won't just admit they tanked.
My dad and I had season tickets in 83-84 when the Rockets tanked for Hakeem, and it won them 2 titles. Did it suck to watch them play guys along with Sampson who werent' that good? Yeah sure, but the titles were so much better for it.
Spurs put on a master class of tanking and got a generational talent and won - what 5 titles? 6? You should be proud of them for caring enough to lose on purpose to give the franchise an incredible dynasty.
The Spurs (and Rockets, Pistons, Hornets, etc) all tanked for Wemby. The Spurs didn't tank for Duncan. They had awful and unavoidable injuries in a season they planned to make the playoffs and they got lucky in the lottery. The Spurs actually won at a higher rate down the stretch than they did the rest of the season.
The Spurs even fired their coach during the season (something they should have done long before when RudyT abused him and it was clear he was not an NBA level coach.)
Robinson's back was never the same after the 96 Olympics. And his broken foot was the same injury that ended Yao Ming's career. Is it your contention that the Spurs should have rushed Robinson back from those injuries and jeopardize the rest of his career to try to win maybe a few more games in March or April when they were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs? Yeah, that worked out well for Yao in Bejing, didn't it? That would be brilliant. But maybe that would have kept guys that went to Rockets games in 1983 from saying they tanked.
Chuck Person was never the same after his back injury on the airplane. He had surgery for the herniated disc and went from one of the top vote getters for 6th man to shooting .360/.330 the rest of his career. The Spurs knew Chuck would miss the season with that injury, which is why they talked Dominique Wilkins into coming over to be the 6th man. Signing a HOF player that still has some juice left isn't a tanking move.
Sean Elliott was never the same, and that was before his kidney transplant. He lost his explosiveness. He was a 20ppg wing that made the AS game the year before. After that knee reconstruction, he didn't have his explosiveness and was a 9-11ppg player.. then he had a kidney transplant two years later. As a Rockets fan you should remember that the rockets tried to trade Horry for him, but failed him because of his kidney problem prior to this. It was already a problem for him two years before he blew out his knee (I think the 3rd or 4th time)
Spurs had traded JR Reid and a 1st to get Charles Smith. His knee injuries ended his career that year at just 31yo.
Four of the five best players on the Spurs had catastrophic injuries that year. None of them were able to play back to the levels they had previously played at before their injuries. For some reason, to you, that is tanking.
Hope you enjoyed the games with your dad.
