The Good Kind of Mentally Twisted

An article by Mike Monroe in yesterday's San Antonio Express News points out that George Hill has missed "nearly every shot he attempted in the three games he played in the Las Vegas Summer Pro League this week."

Coach Popovich used the term "mentally twisted," to characterize Hill's shooting slump.

But, in what seems like a diliberate flaunting of his own mad genius, Popovich thinks this is great: because Hill has shown he can defend at an NBA level, and seems to recognize the amount of work it's going to take to start putting the ball through the hoop at this level.

Lafayette Lever was a similar style of 1-2 combo guard in the 80's, and averaged 18.9 points. 8.9 rebounds and 8.0 assists one season with the Denver Nuggets, despite coming into the league without much of a shot. Laver agrees with Pop:

“I made a bet with a bunch of scouts in Orlando (at the pre-draft camp). Some of them said George wouldn’t even get drafted. I told them I was sure he’d go in the first round. I’m just as sure he’s going to be fine for the Spurs, because he’s a basketball player and he knows how to play and he competes and he defends.”

There you go. You heard it from Lafayette first.

On Wind and T. Boone Pickens

A few weeks ago I relayed what I thought was--from an ecological standpoint--an exciting story about how the AT&T Center will now be fully wind powered.

Well it turns out, once again, that the Spurs were just a little ahead of the curve. A couple days ago, My Way News ran an article about how Texas is becoming a pioneer in the use of wind energy. Utility officials just okayed a $4.9 billion plan to construct new transmission lines from the breezy plains of West Texas to other parts of the state.

West Texas is most famous as the heart of the Texas Oil Industry; but now'days the oil derricks that speckle the landscape have taller, cleaner neighbors. It's a welcome change in the landscape, if you ask me. And it's an especially promising sign of the times when a billionare oil tycoon named T. Boone Pickens is dumping resources into creating a 200,000 acre windfarm that will eventually produce enough electricity to power 1.3 million homes. Propa'.

And to follow up on the Manu Olympic Games mini-saga, it was announced yesterday that, yes, he will be on the Argentina squad after all.

I mention that, mostly because I've kind of committed to including a picture in every post here, and Manu dunking is a lot more fun than the pictures I found of T. Boone Pickens.

Vegas Babies

This week in Las Vegas, Nevada, a bunch of NBA teams will suit up their youngest, least proven players--along with a lot of players who may or may not ever make a roster spot on any NBA squad--in very plain versions of their team's uniform to compete in something called the NBA Summer League. Last week some teams met in Orlando to do the same thing, but the Spurs weren't there. We played our first game of the Summer League yesterday against the Memphis Grizzlies.

The Spurs won 78-76 (recap here). Ian Mahinmi scored 18 and pulled down 8 rebounds; George Hill debuted as a Spur with 17 points, 8 rebounds.

At the end of the first quarter, O.J. Mayo, the high school sensation and rookie guard out of USC, hit a last second 69-foot two-handed heave to score 13 of the Grizzlies 17 first-quarter points.

Darrell Arthur, whom I talked about getting the draft day shaft and falling all the way to the Hornet's 27th pick (before being traded to Memphis), made me look even smarter, and led all scorers with 23 points in this game.

These games don't mean anything. It's just a good chance to see some of these lesser known players get some burn against each other. Sometimes players will rule the Summer League, and fall completely flat in the NBA (Marco Belinelli was a perfect example last year--37 points in his Summer League debut, breathless comparisons to Larry Bird by respectable NBA journalists...then a total flame out in the regular season [source: True Hoop]). The same goes for a team's record; the Knicks went undefeated last Summer, but were one of the worst teams in the league this year [from same article].

In less interesting news, the Spurs have evidientally done some realligning of their front office. A guy named Rick Pych has been promoted to "President of Business Operations," while Greg Popovich will take over as "President of Spurs Basketball," while, of course, remaining the head coach. R.C. Buford will likewise remain the General Manager, but will also take on the role of "President of Sports Franchises." This means he'll be in charge of the WNBA Silver Stars, the American Hockey League San Antonio Rampage, and Austin's own Toros of the NDBL.

Like I said, not all that titilating, but if you consider how many guys in other front offices and head coaching positions around the league came from the current Spurs system (Danny Ferry in Cleveland, Steve Kerr in Phoenix, PJ Carlisimo in...Oklahoma, and Avery Johnson...well, nowhere at the moment, to name a few), it's a name worth taking note of. Pych will probably be a GM for some other team in a few years. Which will also barely be blog-worthy. But give me a break, it's the Summer.

Oh and now Manu says he thinks he'll be able to play in the Olympics. I'd be surprised if he didn't to be honest. I mean, it's Manu. Come on.

Farewell to Bones: "Mangos Don't Do That, Manu."

The Spurs have announced they will sign Roger Mason Jr. to a two year, $7.5 million dollar contract. Mason, entering his 5th season in the league, is a 6-5 defensive-minded guard who averaged 9.1 points per game with the Wizards last season in Gilbert Arenas's absence, and shot 40 percent from 3-point "land." He sounds like a good Spur, and he doesn't tie up a lot of cap space.

But with this addition comes a far greater loss for the Spurs--a loss that can't be quantified by statistics. That's not to say that Brent Barry's on-court contribution won't be missed. But what we're really losing (to the Houston Rockets. Brent Barry signed with them as a free agent this week) is--and I'll defend this point--the funniest active player in the NBA. Seriously. Gilbert Arenas is funny; Shaq is funny...but for my money, Brent "Bones" Barry is the most funniest of them all.

The main evidence of this I have observed in the form of post game interview quotes. A recent jewel came after Tim Duncan hit his 3-pointer to send Game 1 of this year's Spurs - Suns playoff series into a second overtime: "It's about time he did something like that," deadpanned Barry.

Then after game 5 against the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals, Barry responded to the NBA's admission that a foul should have been called on his last second shot attempt that could have tied the game: “That’s awesome because Doc Brown is waiting for me outside, and we’re going to get in the DeLorean and fire up the flux capacitor and we’re going to go back and shoot a couple of free throws.”

Brent Barry is also responsible for nicknaming Manu Ginobili "El Contusion."

He's also responsible for a series of surprisingly well-produced short musical parodies starring other Spurs players this season. They were part of an entire evening of entertainment that he volunteered to produce and emcee for this year's "Spurs Tux n' Tennies" fundraiser event for the Spurs Foundation. He was injured at the time and obviously had plenty of free time and energy to pour into this endeavor. The highlights included Robert Horry spinning around a hillside as Maria in a perfect, if slightly disturbing, send-up of The Sound of Music; the same can be said of Bruce Bowen in a shot-by-shot recreation of that famous Flashdance scene. Manu Ginobili dolled up as Evita Peron and lip-synched "Don't Cry for Me Argentina," and Matt Bonner continued the gender-bending trend as Little Orphan Annie. Actually Tony Parker was the only player that I recall assuming a male character, as Danny in a Grease spoof (Eva took some time off from her serious acting work to play Sandy).

Unfortunately these videos haven't been formally released on the net anywhere. A handheld video of the screen at the event was up for a while on someone's blog, but has since been removed. So for now you'll have to take my word for it: pretty funny.

In the stead of those clips, I'll post a few H-E-B commercials featuring Brent doing some funny stuff with Tim, Bruce and Manu. If you live in San Antonio you have probably had your fill of these spots already, but I think they are way way better than local grocery store commercials staring atheletes have any right to be.









Happy Trails, Mr. Barry. I'll look forward to some humorous quotes after the Rockets lose to the Spurs next season.

While I was Sleeping

Blogging aint easy, but it's neccessary.

But obviously it isn't neccessary either, so what is it? Well, I'm still figuring out what this blog is, or if this blog is (over the previous 10 days, this blog was not). It was very easy to keep up with when I had a desk job and nothing to really do for most of the day. But now I'm couch surfing and waiting for my sweet new Dell job to start up, and somehow I'm actually more busy than usual. It's not easy being homeless, I guess.

Here's the rundown of what's been going on. Sadly, not much of it is real cheery news:

Spurs Court and Fail to Sign Free Agent Corey Maggette


For most of the week, it looked as though the Spurs were the front-runners to sign the atheletic 28 year old 6'6" Small Forward, Corey Maggette. It didn't happen. Maggette is reportedly signing with the Golden State Warriors.

That stinks for the Spurs, because as the Spurs waited on Maggette, they appear to have missed out on other free agents such as Mikael Pietrus, who has reached an agreement with the Orlando Magic.

But if you're a Clippers fan (I know, you aren't), it's been a far more depressing series of events. Only two weeks ago, the Clippers were being talked about as having returned to playoff contention in the Western Conference after they signed Baron Davis from the Golden State Warriors. But today it's also been announced that Elton Brand, the Clipper's star Power Forward, has reached an agreement with the Philidelphia 76ers. So now, with Maggette leaving as well, they're left with Baron Davis, promising 2nd year player Al Thornton, and--seriously--that's about it. They're going to be one of the worst teams in the league again next year. I love it when teams that have been really hopeless for decades suddenly get good. It freshens up the landscape of a sport--like when the Tampa Bay Buccaneers won the Super Bowl a few years ago. But it just seems like there are some teams in the NBA for whom that is never ever going to happen. The Clippers may fit that definition better than anyone.

So now the Spurs will pursue J.R. Smith, and a bunch of 2nd tier free agents such as Roger Mason, Jr, Carlos Delfino, Jarvis Hayes, Eduardo Najera, and James Posey.

The good thing about these players, is that they would not tie up much cap space, and next Summer, we'd be able to make a serious run at whoever the top free agents are after this season.

The bad news might be that these aren't really impact players. They can all play, and some might add elements that were missing from the Spurs game against the Lakers--especially Smith--but will it be enough? That opens a whole other debate...a good one I think: do the Spurs really need to make drastic changes to have a chance at the title this year? They were awfully close...and seeing the way the younger Lakers players folded against the Celtics, I think the Conference Finals could have easily gone a different way. A healthy Manu would have made a particularly interesting difference.

Which brings us to news item 2 from the last 10 days:

The Spurs Don't Want Manu to Play in the Olympics

In what should be unbelievably fantastic news for the USA Men's Olympic Basketball team, the Spurs are asking Manu Ginobili to sit out the 2008 Olympic Games unless his left ankle, which slowed him down so much in the Spurs Western Conference loss to the Lakers, is completely healed. Ginobili led Argentina to a gold medal in the 2004 Olympic Games, and is scheduled to carry the Argentine flag in the opening ceremonies of these Olympics.

This is a tough one. When these guys play in the Olympics or FIBA, they end up spending almost two solid years doing nothing but playing top-level basketball games. That takes a big toll on their health. Which takes a big toll on their NBA team. We'll see how it shakes down.

And when it does you can read about it right here at Odd Years. No more than 10 days late, I promise.