quote:
I know this is just a game, but if you spend as much time as most of us arguing on this board, it's a significant part of our lives.
If there is one thing I've realized throughout this year's Playoffs, it's that I'm more emotionally invested in this game and in the Spurs than I am most other things in my life. It's not the most important thing of course, but it's important to me nonetheless.
I don't post on this board as often as most of y'all but I agree with how much emotional investment there is. I'm 99% sure my 5000th post on Texags was a post on this board, and I think it was defending Bruce Bowen. I even said I wouldn't post on it for a year when the Lakers beat the Spurs in the WCF in '08. It's pretty close to impossible to grow up in South Texas and not be a Spurs fan and to be so attached. I hate to admit it on an Aggie message board but as much as I love A&M, I'd say I'm more attached to the Spurs than the Aggies. Perspective is hard to come by...my overwhelming feeling is that I'm glad the Spurs had one more run in them. I thought they were done making LOB runs after the last couple of years. I figured another year of decline for TD and Manu was in the cards this year, and that TP would come into his own as one of the top 2-3 PGs in the league but that the team would suffer, as the front office would never dare rebuild around him if it meant shipping out Manu or Tim. Seeing the Spurs evolve from a primarily defense-minded team to a team that can play virtually any offensive style has been amazing and as much as I loved watching them win a bunch of 84-77 games, I admit watching them win a bunch of 103-94 games has been more fun. You hate to equate sports with life but it really becomes kind of a family thing. Talking Spurs with my dad the last few years of his life was one of the few things he could talk about with any passion, and when he died in 2011, it was during that Memphis series. I'll always wonder what he would have thought about that series. It almost feels like a curtain call for the careers of Tim/Manu and the Spurs dynasty...a "Travolta in Pulp Fiction" renaissance of sorts. This franchise has done a lot to try and stay in the top of the West and they've done a great job at it...maybe not to the fans' liking, and yeah I would have enjoyed more playoff success the last 6 years, but what they've done has been pretty damn remarkable. The players shuffle in and out but every year they're marked as one of the teams to beat in the West...rarely the favorite, but always in the conversation. Maybe getting old changes you, and you're just happy to watch one more swing at the champ, but as a fan, I think I want this one as much as I wanted that first one.
Plus, seeing Stern give his last LOB to Pop would be pretty damn awesome.
