quote:
That video is greatness. The Spurs are special. In this year of high turnover, lack of loyalty, and self focused society the Spurs stand out.
They are owned by a combat veteran who was awarded the silver star and multiple bronze stars. Their GM is an Aggie. Pop himself is an air force vet. What is funny is despite a ton of international players I relate to them more as an American and a Texan than any other professional franchise by a huge margin. I feel that I identify with them, almost like I do A&M. No other sports franchise is even close to this level of caring for me.
I love that the players take less money to win. I love that they are loyal to each other and that they focus on the team first. I love how involved they are in the community.
And all of that doesn't even mention what they do on the court. Their ball movement style of play in an isolation league is extremely special to watch. It helps that they have three hall of famers including the best power forward to have ever played the game, but I love that any of about 8 players could be the teams leading scorer any given night. I love that nobodys and role players come into the culture, work hard, buy in and become major contributers.
I agree that once Pop, Duncan, Manu and Parker hang it up, it is going to be dang hard to keep watching the NBA. Leonard gives me hope, that I might be able to hold out a bit longer.
Well said. I appreciate them even more now as a parent of two boys (and, to lesser extent, as coach of several of their various youth sports teams). I had this conversation with a buddy over the weekend where he was falling into the typical trap of not liking the Spurs because of Dallas allegiance and being blinded to what the Spurs are truly about. We have similar values so I pointed out to him all of the ways that the Spurs embody what is good about sport and don't embody what we dislike about pro sports--- basically all of the stuff we try to teach our children as parents and our players as youth sports coaches, but which they don't see a lot of on TV:
Teamwork. Discipline. Self-sacrifice. Respect for opponents. Substance over style. Performance over hype. Hard work. Perseverance. Loyalty. Coachability. Not to mention the fact that they are generally a good group of guys (certainly by NBA standards) and play a beautiful brand of basketball. It's all of the stuff people claim they want out of their "sports heroes" and teams but rarely get.
It's been an incredible run. All that's missing is the Capstone.
[This message has been edited by DTP02 (edited 5/21/2014 10:08a).]
