I think the Spurs are showing in this postseason why Danny absolutely should be bringing back PP and Garnett. The "age factor" which has seemed like overriding factor going into this off season for the Cs in terms of how decisions should be made has never been the biggest factor for me and is even less so after seeing this run by the San Antonio Spurs.
Look at the main parts of the rosters:
Tony Parker Rondo
Danny Green Courney Lee
Manu Ginobili Paul Pierce
Tiago Splitter Barndon Bass
Tim Duncan Kevin Garnett
Kawhi Leonard Jeff Green
Gary Neal Jason Terry
Boris Diaw Jared Sullinger
Matt Bonner ? Insert Player
Certainly many will argue many of these matchups, but I think when you step back from the rosters as a whole, the Cs are not that far off from having a very comparable roster.
There is a huge difference in talent at the top. Duncan was first-team All-NBA. Parker was 2nd team All-NBA. Parker and Duncan were 6th and 7th in MVP balloting, and also both top 10 (6th and 9th) in regular season PER.
So by any measure you want, the Spurs had two top-10 players. That's why they won 58 games and are cruising to the finals.
KG and Pierce, while still very good players, are just not comparable at this stage. As a point of comparison they were 38th and 40th in PER.
When healthy Rondo is terrific, but next year he is returning from an ACL injury, and you just have to recognize that he will probably not be playing at his pre-injury level for some or all of the year.
Put it all together and we just won't have the talent. I think the rest of the Spurs roster is also more talented than ours, but that is secondary to the talent at the top.
It's easy to say that the rest of the roster is just "better" than the Cs based on how they are currently playing, but each Cs player has demonstrated the ability to play at the same or even a higher level than a comparable player on the Spurs. Jeff Green for example has shown flashes of being a go-to player. And Garnett was playing his best basketball of the season at the end.
I don't think you can look at PER stats to find the answers because this Cs team was definitely dysfunctional, but the dysfunction is correctable. Plus, looking at how the playoffs played out for us, I think the impact of the absence of Rondo certainly is the biggest take-away. This would have been a very different playoff run with Rondo on the floor.
Like I said earlier, we can go round and round on the different elements of the Spurs and the Cs rosters. and frankly each one of these debates (ie Tony Parker vs. Rondo; Duncan vs. KG) has been beaten to death. If you step back and look at the rosters as a whole, however, I think that we certainly have the core elements (like the Spurs) to have a Title contending team.
We just need Danny to stick with it AND make some better decisions in filling out the rest of the roster.
The top 3 teams in the league this year - MIA, OKC and SAS - all have two top 10 players. This is not just by PER. It is based on that, on All-NBA teams, on MVP votes...pick whatever criterion you want.
Next year we will have zero.
Pierce and KG are somewhere in the 30-40 range. Who knows where Rondo will end up, but even if he comes back in top form he's probably top 20 at best.
I don't see how fuzzy statements about rosters "as a whole" tell you anything useful. It's pretty simple, the Spurs' best players are significantly better than our best players, by any objective measure you can think of (including results in the W column).
Every champion in the modern era except one has had a top 10 player on its roster, and nearly all champions have had two players at that elite level. That's how you win in the NBA.
I'm actually not against running it back, for what that's worth. But I think hoping that we can contend for a championship with our current roster plus a minor piece or two is...optimistic, to say it tactfully. And Danny has said essentially the same thing.
Topic: The Spurs show we should run it back (Read 23754 times)