San Antonio Spurs are the NBA Champions! Again! Congratulations!

San Antonio Spurs are the NBA Champions! Again! Congratulations!

San Antonia Spurs has been my favourite NBA team for a very long time, mostly because of Tim Duncan – one of the best basketball players of all time. I have always liked Duncan for his calm and professionalism. Many people have called him boring, but winning an NBA Championship is not about excitement, but about getting the job done. And Duncan lead the Spurs to 5 NBA Championships! And to 16 regular seasons with at least 50 wins!

On the site:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Duncan
I found a good comment made by Duncan himself: “If you show excitement, then you also may show disappointment or frustration. If your opponent picks up on this frustration, you are at a disadvantage.”

Here’s is a link to a very interesting, eye-opening article about Tim Duncan as a person:
http://www.poundingtherock.com/2014/6/15/5811100/nba-finals-spurs-tim-duncan-mystery-revealed

Tim Duncan alone couldn’t have achieved so much without a significant help from his teammates, obviously. Kawhi Leonard, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Boris Diaw, Danny Green, Tiago Splitter, Patric Mills, Marco Belinelli, Matt Bonner, Aron Baynes, Jeff Ayres and Cory Joseph – they all did a great job this year. The best job, however, did Gregg Popovich, who was able to coach the San Antonio Spurs into a perfectly-working team. This is what basketball is all about: team play. Here’s a San Antonio Spurs 2014 tribute:


And here’s what a 37-year old guy from Argentina was able to do in the game 5 of the NBA 2014 finals:


Here’s why Kawhi Leonard was named NBA 2014 finals MVP.




Kawhi Leonard seems like another great franchise player for the San Antonio Spurs. When Duncan was drafted in 1997 the biggest such player was obviously David Robinson. But there was another player then who spent almost his entire NBA career with the Spurs – Sean Elliott. I just had to mention him, because he was the author of the Memorial Day Miracle. It happened in the game 2 of the 1999 Western Conference Finals, during the 1999 playoffs which ended with the first NBA Championship for the San Antonio Spurs. Elliott really pulled off a miracle then – he had to catch a very difficult inbound pass (almost intercepted by Stacey Augmon), keeping his right foot from stepping on a sideline (he placed the foot in a slightly unnatural angle), but it got him off balance and he had to dribble once not to be called for travelling, then he had to launch a 3-pointer still balancing over the sideline and keeping his heels from touching the line (he jumped using only the fronts of his feet) and he had to shoot the ball in a very high arc not to be blocked by Rasheed Wallace (who jumped VERY high, but was too far away). And the shot went in! A miracle!


Sean Elliott was a good shooter, but he was also known for his explosive style of play close to the basket. Please, take a look:


(Monday, 16 June 2014)