Spurs of the Moment

Tiago Splitter has a strained plantar muscle in his foot and will miss a week or so. Well that sucks, and hopefully this isn’t the beginnings of the dreaded plantar fasciitis. Stay tuned, but I think he will be back in time for a couple of pre-season games.

Meanwhile, Tim Duncan is apparently in great shape and ready to ride “until the wheels fall off“. The only real question has been exactly when are the wheels going to fall off? Well, not this season it seems. Once Tiago’s foot stops aching, he will be able to provide more support for the Spurs frontcourt along with the veteran McDyess and the emerging talents of DeJuan Blair.

After a summer that included conditioning drills designed to minimize stress on his knees, Duncan is prepared for a truncated ration of regular-season playing time. He hopes for a better start to the Spurs season that won’t scuttle coach Gregg Popovich’s plan to lessen his workload, which is to include an occasional night off in the second game of back-to-back sets.

Some of you may recall that the plan last year was to rest Duncan in the second of back-to-back games, but that didn’t quite pan out while the Spurs were fighting for a playoff spot.