Spurs of the Moment

The Spurs traded Curtis Jerrells to the Hornets on Monday, about a week after releasing Kirk Penney. On Tuesday they released James Gist. The Jerrells trade makes sense for both teams. New Orleans could use another backup for Chris Paul, and some added backcourt depth, especially with Marcus Thornton struggling and about to lose minutes to Marco Belinelli. Apparently Dell Demps, who left the Spurs front office this summer to become the new Hornets GM, liked Jerrells enough to swap a 2nd-round pick for him. As for Penney, well I guess he wasn’t impressive enough on defense. He can shoot, but the Spurs have shooters. It’s the defense that needs to be tweaked. I am a little surprised though – not that he was cut, but that he was first to go. Gist was never gonna make the team.  I was gonna look up his pre-season numbers but no one cares.

That brings the total of Spurs players to 15, but Pop said he was thinking of cutting it to 13 earlier this pre-season. So who is left? Gary Neal, Bobby Simmons, Alonzo Gee, Marcus Cousin, and Garrett Temple. The Spurs could keep them all and just leave 3 on the inactive list or assign to the Austin Toros D-League team. However, if they cut two more than I would expect … crap I have no idea what to expect. I don’t even know if I have a preference for who they should keep except for Gary Neal who lit it up in the NBA Summer League. Incidentally, he is the only one who has a guaranteed contract, so I doubt that he’s in any danger. Temple’s chances improve with Jerrells gone, and since Parker was so injury prone last season I could see them hanging on to him. The rest I have no idea. Let’s just move on…

Tiago Splitter has yet to play a game for the Spurs, so Pop has declared DeJuan Blair the starting center for the Spurs opener. Also, the Spurs picked up the 4th-year option on George Hill’s contract.

The Spurs officially re-signed Richard Jefferson to a new contract yesterday. RJ got the long-term security he was after with a new four-year deal worth $38.9 million, and the Spurs got some relief in the salary cap (and luxury tax) departments.

The sentiment from RC Buford, Coach Popovich, and Spurs fans who were a little too quick to dismiss RJ (myself included) is that RJ should be improved this season and the Spurs are lucky to keep him around with fewer similarly talented small forwards on the market each day.

“I think he’ll have a better year next year,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “He’ll be a lot more ready to understand whatever we might do.”

The Spurs believe Jefferson’s value wasn’t accurately projected in his statistics — “I think he played more efficiently than his numbers might have shown,” Buford said — and remain hopeful that he might become more comfortable in his second go-round in the system.

Let’s hope so, because by all accounts a starting five of Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Richard Jefferson, Tim Duncan, and Tiago Splitter – plus the likes of DeJuan Blair and George Hill off the bench – should be a 50-win team capable of going all the way.

On a side note, the Hornets hired Dale Demps as their new GM. Demps was the Spurs’ vice president of basketball operations.

The Spurs have won seven of their last eight games and are on a three game winning streak again after that debacle against Cleveland. OK, so they only played the Clippers, T-Wolves, and Knicks, but as the Knicks showed our North Texas Nemesis, if you don’t come to play, there are no easy wins in this league – not even against the cellar dwellers.

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The Good News: The Spurs have won four straight games, are 36-24 (12 games over .500), and are in 7th place in the West still – 5.5 games ahead of Houston (9th) and Memphis (10th).
The Bad News: Tony Parker is out for the next six weeks with a broken hand.

That’s the short and sweet version of events, but I feel compelled to elaborate. Let’s start with the wins.

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The Spurs won the second game of a back-to-back, played defense, and shot 50.6% from the field. On the one hand, I’m very happy with the win. On the other hand, I shouldn’t be so shocked when they play well – especially against a team that is 9th in the West and is missing their best player. Then again, screw it, I am gonna enjoy the win since it’s all the Spurs basketball we are gonna get until Friday when they play the Hornets again.

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The Spurs beat the Suns yesterday 113-110. I will get into the gory details but first, the big story: Jason Richardson, of all people, missed a dunk in crunch time that would have tied the game with 42 seconds left. Two-Time Slam Dunk Champion Jason Richardson. Had 20 points in the game Jason Richardson. Had no one in front of him Jason Richardson. Missed A Dunk. As if we needed any more proof that, for whatever cosmic reason, the Spurs will always inexplicably own the Suns. Read more »

I’m going to try not to go crazy. I’m going to try to be coherent. I’m going to try to stay optimistic. I am most likely going to fail at one or all of those things. This Spurs season is getting depressing. Read more »

Tony Parker and Tim Duncan had their way with the Hornets yesterday and the Spurs cruised past New Orleans 97-90. The Spurs led by as many as 21 points in the game, and they out-rebounded the Hornets 50-38. The Spurs players were aggressive all day and ended up making 24-of-38 free throws compared to only 10-of-12 for the Hornets. That, plus the Spurs shooting 7-of-18 from downtown, pretty much kept the Hornets on their heels the whole game. Richard Jefferson missed his first game in forever with back spasms, which I am going to take as a positive development for two reasons:
1) It helps explain his ineptitude in the previous two games when he was a combined 3-of-13 from the field including an 0-for-6 outing against Memphis.
2)The Spurs played well without him in the lineup and it might convince Popovich to try bringing RJ off the bench for a few games, a move which could help in the overall chemistry of the team.

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It seems there is a rumor going around that the Spurs offered up Tony Parker for Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets. I don’t buy it, and it seems that most people don’t either.

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The Spurs lost their last two games to a couple of perennial losers. Not good. The only solace I can take from this ordeal is that both games were on the road. Still, you like to think the Spurs can beat Charlotte and Memphis regardless of where the game is.

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