SportsBoner.com

This “short” piece is an unwarranted, unimportant yet itchy soapbox oration over something that’s gone, over and will be forgotten.  It pertains to a column written by a writer I enjoy reading frequently and though I draw inspiration from him, he is certainly not infallible and though his opinion may not matter more than mine, it certainly draws more weight as it is his job and he has years of credibility, an established fan base and ultimately the unlimited resources and advertising power of ESPN.com.  As far as sports columnists go, the apex of such a career cannot be sweeter than a gig at The Worldwide in this age of blogging, 24.7 sports coverage, and endless opinions as well as banter abound.

However it is a tough job also as anything you say will be dissected, twisted and thrown back in you face.  Even if it’s just opinion, one is bound to be set up for criticism from every corner.  It comes with the territory and sometimes its just too easy and to tempting to pass up a chance to examine another’s essay.  Of course in comparison to the Sports Guy, the reaction from my piece will be minimal in conjunction to ESPN.com’s most popular column (curiously also the only one that doesn’t allow a comments section… hmmm).

As much as he is biased for the Boston Celtics and the Phoenix Suns the same way my man-love for the San Antonio Spurs are sometimes border-lined crazed, I just had to dissect his latest column.  One blurb stood out:

• Maybe the Suns didn’t win a championship, but we’ll remember them 100 times more fondly than the brutally efficient and hopelessly bland Spurs, who taught everyone over the years that the regular season doesn’t matter, transformed the NBA playoffs into a flopathon, revived the vile and fan-unfriendly Hack-A-Shaq strategy and did everything short of sending Bruce Bowen out on the court with a chainsaw and a taser. If the Spurs were the Team of the Decade, no wonder ratings dwindled until the league’s big comeback this season. The real shame is that all the mugging, acting, eye-rolling, flopping, rule-bending and hysterical shrugging obscured what should have been remembered as a throwback sports team, a shrewdly assembled roster of well-coached guys who played beautifully together, didn’t care about credit and revolved around the best power forward who ever played. Instead, we’ll remember them as the team that turned the NBA playoffs into the World Cup. Congratulations, fellas.
• (Important note: I don’t hate the Spurs nearly that much; I’m trying to work up a proper level amount of hatred for them for the inevitable Celtics-Spurs Finals that’s going to happen unless Doc Rivers screws it up … which is exceedingly possible. The Spurs are a difficult team to dislike but you can do it if you try hard enough. I’ve made some huge strides in the past week. Just indulge me. Thanks.)

That last excerpt provides an “exit strategy” for Mr. Simmons for when fanatics such as myself ream him figuratively for his exaggerated view of the Spurs in that he can claim it’s all in jest in reference to a bigger subject concerning a team that never made it to the Finals in half a decade of excellence in the regular season and maybe early playoff rounds.

First of all: The Suns won’t be remembered if they didn’t win a championship, much less even make it to one Finals.  In the scope and span of a century, no one hardly remembers the team that actually won the title of a certain year much less the 4th place team in that given year.  That’s why dynasties are quick to be declared yet easy to remember, when we clump titles together we are prone to remembering that team more aptly than one-timers.  (Example: Everyone remembers the Cowboy’s Dynasties of the 90s, and the Patriot’s of the 00s, as well as the Lakers’ three-peat from 00-02, but does anyone at first thought remember the Redskins winning the title in 1991? In twenty years, will anyone remember the Detroit Pistons winning a title in 2004, sandwiched between two Spurs’ titles?)  So point is if its even remotely easy to forget one and done title winners, how could anyone remember a team that didn’t even come in 2nd in that given year?

As for fondly: take it from someone who’s wasted a great deal of time roaming around sports message boards reading other drivel, the Suns are not that popular or beloved.  IF anything as unpopular as the Spurs are (and they are), the Sun’s (and some of their fans) constant need to whine and blame the refs, the league office, Robert Horry, and Robert Horry’s great aunt comes as a staple of their short offensive minded era.  I’ll admit it was (could still be) very exciting to watch the Suns play at breakneck speed, to make crisp passes, to involve everyone on the floor, and score in loads and loads complemented by touch passes, bounce passes, alley oops, and no-look-behind-the-back-who-needs-a-shot-clock-passes that leaves any fan wanting more.  So doesn’t it stand to say that since the Sun’s concerted effort to stray from that formula this year in picking up Grant Hill and Shaquille O’Neal makes it their fault and their fault alone for killing this wet dream of offensive-minded basketball?  So while teams like the Toronto Raptors, Golden State Warriors, and the Denver Nuggets have in some way or another adopted this philosophy from Phoenix’s pioneering ways, none of them have come close to a title, but only the Suns (the founder) have seemed to have left this exalted path.

• but we’ll remember them 100 times more fondly than the brutally efficient and hopelessly bland Spurs

This is simple: There are three types of fans in my opinion:

1. Your hardcore fans who root for the sport as a whole, though they might have a favorite team, they plainly appreciate said sport in general and may even dabble in gambling as well as fantasy sports to further coke them up on said sport.
2. Then there’s your super fans, fans who root for their team, and their team only.  They don’t bother to watch other teams unless there is nothing else to watch, or they feel the need to “scout” the competition, or they want to validate their manhood by not switching to Grey’s Anatomy during commercials.
3. Finally there is the biggest demographic of all, and the one in which the suits at various corporations across America target ruthlessly: the casual fan.  These fans like the specified sport, hold allegiance to no specific team unless its through fair weather means of a storied franchise such as the Dallas Cowboys, New York Yankees, or the Los Angeles Lakers to name a few.  These type of fans make up the largest number and ultimately drive the engine that is TV ratings for certain sporting events.

Guess who matters most when it comes down to events such as the Super Bowl, or the NBA Finals? Not the hardcore, who watch anything sports-related as it is.  It is of course the casual fans, and to a lesser extent the super fans who will watch only if their team is playing.

So when it’s the San Antonio Spurs (a grossly small market team compared to other TV powerhouses) in the Finals year in and year out, it’s no wonder that the NBA and ABC/ESPN are depressed.  The only draw they get are the few hardcore fans, and the super fans of San Antonio and it’s absentee supporters.  That leaves a multitude of other super fans of other franchises (like the Lakers, Celtics, or Knicks) not interested in a “boring” Finals match-up, in the dark, and of course the ever important casual fans who would not be interested in “bandwagonning” onto a team that wears black and white.  Some argue this bland uniform color is a far cry from the pink/yellow/who-knows-what technicolor paint that was the fiesta theme of the Spur’s team color back in the day.  However it was unique and I kind of liked the flair that it displayed.  If uniform color is important and directly related to a team’s popularity, then San Antonio is as popular to basketball as NASCAR is popular to inner-city communities.

My argument on this matter of the stigma that the Spurs are boring in the way they play is substantiated by several things: If worrying about defense before offense is boring, then it must be really really exciting to exit early in the playoffs year after year and leaving your fan base utterly frustrated.  Every championship team from the NFL to MLB to the NBA has some sort of above average defense.  Thankless, often forgotten and in the shadow of their offensive counterpart, defense always wins championships.  The cliche lives on!  Ask any NFL Super Bowl champ, has any team won the big one without a stout D? Has any World Series champion lack quality starting pitchers and ice-veined closers?  Why should it be different for the NBA?

Though a certain team can be great offensively, anything from bad luck, the laws of probability, and even a good defense can derail a well-tuned scoring machine.  However defense will always keep you in a game, gives you a puncher’s chance in the end to land the winning hit.  Any team with a respectable defense that plays to its potential will keep it from being blown out on a regular basis.  An offensive team, however can go cold, and without a decent D to back them up, will get blown out on occasion more than a defensive team.

To take this a bit further, in essence aside from their small market handicap and a “superstar” who refuses to grab the limelight (who is instead overshadowed by a fan/PG’s wife/actress of a prime time soap), how are the Spurs boring in fundamental terms?  They dunk the ball, they shoot the three, they run the fast-break as well as anyone whenever they set their mind to it.  If dunking, and shooting threes are aesthetic elements in basketball considered to be exciting, then how do the Spurs get labelled as boring?  It’s not like they are all sitting on the court Indian-style, and using the Force or some sort of psychic energy to shoot the basketball through the hoop.  Now that would be boring.

• The real shame is that all the mugging, acting, eye-rolling, flopping, rule-bending and hysterical shrugging obscured what should have been remembered as a throwback sports team

Yes that is correct: because San Antonio is the only team that mugs, plays physical, rolls their eyes at refs, draws technicals, flop, and bend the rules right?  I mean all 29 other teams in the NBA are boy scouts and yes-men when it comes to arguing calls with referees right?  It’s not unfair to label them as such, just premeditated bias.  That may be a bit extreme, but remember I am driveling here.

Again Bill Simmons is entitled to his opinion and such as it is, will get more press for it in spite of many who will agree with him and others who may not see eye-to-eye with him.  Just because the national media automatically condemns an unprofitable small market team boring, does not mean someone like Simmons who claims to be a basketball purest should jump on popular opinion (shoved down our throats by the media).  The beauty of opinion.  All in all just like defending the mole-butted-hairy-ear-cousin you took to the dance (you, not me!), my arguments will fall on deaf ears, but nonetheless it’s interesting and compelling to defend one’s point and draw some sort of fodder to insert an extra blog entry into the month of May. :)