San Antonio Spurs

[tackielarla]

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ehehheheh........ well we just have to wait what will be the decision of the spurs... ikaw vote ka nga si wallace mapunta sa spurs?

"Do we even need to discuss this?" - Pop

[MalditohoN]

hahahahahah! btaw no, ang coach sa spurs ba kay joker.... kad2 gani 1st game nila sa suns kay gfoul si shaq sa 1st quarter... pinakanonsense.... heheheheheh!

but Popovich is one of the greatest coach...

[mab]

^^

agree kaau ko bro!

[tackielarla]

Parker earns place among NBA’s elite
Mike Monroe

PHOENIX — There was a moment in the Spurs' victory at New Jersey on Tuesday that made All-Star guard Tony Parker flash back to his rookie season.

The Nets were outplaying the Spurs in the first half, and Devin Harris, now an All-Star himself, was outplaying Parker, as he sometimes did in his days with the Dallas Mavericks.

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich called an angry timeout, and Parker suddenly found himself nose-to-nose with his head coach — close enough to count the hairs in Popovich's silvery beard — while getting a high-decibel reminder about his shortcomings.

Parker listened intently, nodded his head, and smiled. Then he responded with the offensive aggression that has made him a Western Conference All-Star for the third time in his career.

“I reacted just like he wanted,” Parker said. “After the game, I told him, ‘After eight years, Pop, I still react to that. You should do it more often.'”

Parker understands the positive role Popovich's negative feedback has played in his development. Parker has grown into a point guard whose play keeps him in the All-Star mix every season. Today's game at the US Airways Center will be Parker's third All-Star contest in four seasons. He believes it would be his fourth straight appearance had he not missed 14 games because of an injury early last year.

At age 26, it is clear that Parker has established himself as one of the premier point guards in the game. He has earned the respect of the coaches who have voted for him as an All-Star reserve and opposition guards who have to contend with his basket of skills.

“Chris Paul, Tony Parker and Deron Williams, they're all so fast,” says Denver's All-Star point guard Chauncey Billups, back in the Western Conference after six seasons with the Pistons. “And you know what they say: Speed kills.

“Guys that are fast and can handle the ball like those guys are dangerous.”

Billups recalls playing against Parker for the first time, when he was still with Minnesota and Parker was a 19-year-old rookie whose pro experience had been entirely in the French league.

“He was quiet and timid a little bit, but you could see the skill level there,” Billups said. “Now, he's a perennial All-Star and a Finals MVP. He's done just about everything a point guard can do, and he's still young. He's going to continue to do it. He's become a great player.”

Tim Duncan, Parker's perennial All-Star teammate, remembers his first opinion of Parker, too.

“Put it this way: It was not very high,” Duncan said. “He was super-young and the only thing he had going for him was he was incredibly quick. But he was all about proving himself.”

Before he could prove himself to the rest of the NBA, he had to prove himself to Popovich. The Spurs coach recognized something special in his 19-year-old draftee, and challenged him, often at ear-splitting level, to respond to the challenge.

What Popovich quickly discovered was a player whose fortitude matched his physical gifts.

“Tony gets credit for living through it,” Popovich said of a tough love approach intended to discern Parker's emotional constitution. “It was the only way to find the answer as to whether he was going to have thechutzpah to be a hell of a player in the league.

“When a coach gives you the ball immediately when you're 19, I better find out quickly if I'm making the right choice or not.”

Parker, it turns out, was anxious to be tested.

“First of all,” he said, “in Europe we have a lot of coaches who scream. So, when Pop got on me, I thought, ‘He wants to make me better,' and I knew that was good for me.

“Sometimes it was hard. I would ask myself, ‘What does he want from me?' But I never thought it was bad for me. I know my personality. Sometimes I get a little nonchalant, so I knew it was good for me.”

As Parker's confidence grew, he became one of the league's most aggressive point guards at the offensive end because Popovich demanded it.

Once that aspect of his game was well established, Parker set about filling the biggest hole in his game: perimeter shooting. Now he is one of the league's most accurate shooters among guards, at 49.4 percent, and has the green light to fire away, from anywhere, at any time.

Parker had a 55-point game this season and is on pace for a career-high scoring average. But he believes his best years are still to come.

“In 10 years,” he said, “I don't want to look back and say 2009 was my best year. I feel I can play a lot better and I can definitely have a bigger impact than now.”

His goal in today's All-Star Game: Just have fun.

“In the regular season you have goals, because you want to help your team,” he said. “Here, I just want to enjoy the experience with the guys and see them in a different atmosphere, because there's no pressure.”

Pressure, Parker knows, is a coach who wants you to play at your very highest level.

[mrxxxx]

If they will get wallace ..mo samot spurs cge ra ka daog....ayaw lang sad oi ...give chance to the poor once oi

[kamikaze426]

Grabe sa suns fans oi.. all star game na gani gi boohan man ghapon si duncan ug parker. lagot gyud sila hehehe

[tackielarla]

Well, we HAVE beaten them in playoffs everytime for tha last 5 years or so. I guess that's what we would like to consider "a show of respect".

[tackielarla]

'Old' Spurs emerge as a contender -- again
By Steve Luhm
The Salt Lake Tribune

All-Star point guard Tony Parker has one word for everyone who thought age might finally be catching up with the San Antonio Spurs.

Scoreboard.

After an outbreak of early-season injuries, the Spurs exit the All-Star break looking like one of four teams with a legitimate shot at an NBA championship.

Old?

So is Bruce Springsteen.

So is the U.S. Constitution.

But they're both doing fairly well, too.

"I like the direction we are going," said Parker. "I think we're in the right track. We're playing very good basketball right now. We've had some big wins on the road -- Utah, Boston. So we're going in the right direction. We just have to keep it going."

San Antonio trails the Lakers by 6½ games in the Western Conference, but the Spurs have opened a four-game lead in the rugged Southwest Division and looked primed for another deep playoff run.

That's why Parker smiles when asked about those who thought the Spurs, who have won four championships since 1999, were too old to contend again.

"People always say that about us," he said. "But it's OK because we know whatever happens, we're always going to be solid.

"We have a great core, a great organization, a great system. So we really don't pay attention to that. We just go out there and play hard and see what happens."

Tim Duncan remains the leader of the Spurs. He averages 20.8 points and, in a league without Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, Duncan would be mentioned in every MVP discussion.

"Some people believe they can beat San Antonio this year," said Utah Jazz coach Jerry Sloan. "But now they have to go out and prove it. And that won't be easy. … I would hate to count them out [because] San Antonio knows how to win. Those players -- especially Duncan, Parker and Ginobili -- they believe they're going to win."

Maybe that's why the Spurs are 9-3 this season in games decided by three points or less.

And why they are 4-0 in overtime.

Still, Parker admits the Lakers have been the West's dominant team during the first 3½ months of the regular season.

L.A. is 42-10, which puts the Lakers on a 66-win pace.

"At this point," said forward Lamar Odom, "we feel like we're not going to beat ourselves. You are going to have to beat us."

According to Derek Fisher, the Lakers' consistency has been a key to their success: "We haven't had very many nights this year when you can look back and say, 'They just weren't there. They didn't compete. They didn't give everything they had.'"

After the Jazz scored a 113-109 win over the Lakers last week, Fisher still found a silver lining.

"In the past, I think the Jazz would have probably found a way to crack that game open and run away with it," he said. "But I think we showed some mental and physical toughness to keep ourselves in the game."

[menderouv]

Just as he usually does after games at US Airways Center, Spurs forward Tim Duncan walked toward the winning locker room Sunday afternoon, ice bags on knees that he admits ache after every game.

Another All-Star Game behind him, Duncan headed for the final 31 games of the regular season wondering how the Spurs’ roster will be shaped for the stretch run.

The trade deadline will come and go Thursday. Some of Duncan’s teammates might go with it if another star comes to join him in his quest for a fifth championship ring.

All weekend, Duncan had heard the talk about a four-for-one Spurs swap with New Jersey that would land Vince Carter. The Nets forward is still enough of a star that his presence on the Eastern Conference All-Star roster Sunday would have been no miscarriage of basketball justice, and Duncan knows it.

What Duncan had not heard, as of Sunday night, was Gregg Popovich’s voice.

Duncan has earned consultation rights when the Spurs consider major moves. Popovich jokes that his star pivot man is the de facto boss of all things Spurs. But he is serious about sharing important decisions with the team’s most important player.

“Pop comes to me with some stuff, but not everything,” Duncan said. “I don’t even know if that (proposed deal) is something of truth. I don’t know anything about it, honestly, so I don’t know what it means.”

Duncan says he would love to have Carter as a teammate, and why not? At age 32, Carter remains one of the NBA’s most productive small forwards, averaging 20.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 4.9 assists.

Duncan hedges when the price for Carter reportedly includes Roger Mason Jr., Bruce Bowen, George Hill and Fabricio Oberto.

“I’d hate to see that many guys go,” Duncan said after an All-Star appearance he enjoyed, largely because of its brevity.

If general manager R.C. Buford can find a way to get Carter from the Nets without including so many rotation players — a Robert Horry sign-and-trade could be part of such a solution — it is easy to imagine Duncan giving such a deal the blessing Popovich likely would seek.

Know this: Duncan may hate the thought of four Spurs going to New Jersey to get Carter, but legitimate Western Conference title contenders are panicked at the thought of Carter teaming up with Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili.

Duncan structured the contract extension he signed before the 2007-08 season to give the Spurs some salary cap flexibility in the talent-rich summer of 2010. He gave up about $3.3 million that season.

Carter will make $17.5 million in 2010-11, and that means the Spurs would have roughly $50 million tied up in three players: Duncan, Parker and Carter.

Manu Ginobili, an unrestricted free agent, would still have to be re-signed after making $10.7 million next season, meaning the Spurs would have limited resources to fill out their roster without becoming luxury tax payers.

In effect, Carter would be the free agent Duncan’s magnanimity enabled.

“The point of my deal was to try and get a high-caliber free agent in that year,” Duncan said. “I tried to clear some cap space so we could use it.”

Carter, even at age 32, still qualifies as a high-caliber use of such flexibility. Knowing teams that seek to leapfrog the Spurs on their way to the top of the West are losing sleep counting the ways Carter, Duncan, Parker and Ginobili could cause them nightmares is reason enough for Duncan to rest easy.

[tackielarla]

Spurs playing the Knicks right now! Let's go spurs!