Game Six of the Thunder and Spurs: Zeus Goes One on One with Cronos

In any driveway or gym, the human eye is a keen observer. Youth bears witness to technique and instinct without even knowing: dribbling, shooting, pump faking, jabstepping, slashing. The slashing is key. And with every successful drive to the basket, a young athlete learns that not only can he do what his father does but he can do it quicker--precision be damned--gashing his way through an invisible veil, making the realization of the moment feel as effortless as a bulldozer burning through spiderweb. Driveways are full of big gaping holes between the past and the present.

Al Horford Has Angel Wings: Identity, Injuries, and Hope in the NBA

"We'll be alright once we get _________________ back."

What sports fan hasn't at some point uttered the above statement, whether out of confidence or sheer desperation? The imagination of sports fans exists in a realm of hypotheticals, what ifs, and naive wish fulfillment. Injuries to significant players flatten the playing field, allowing both wealthy and impoverished fans alike to create a parallel universe where, with one crucial addition, anything can happen. It’s the absence of a player that brings them down, and this absence also allows them to imagine the previously unthinkable: that a team whose achievement has grown stagnant can still shatter glass ceilings.

A Look Inside the Mind of Gregg Popovich and Ginobili's Broken Hand

Gregg Popovich's face, pockmarked and scowling, looks like it has seen things that would keep most men up at night, stirring in their bed sheets, pacing over their floorboards, wondering about what it would be like to be inside of a refrigerator, when the door shuts, and the light goes out, and everything is cold.

George Hill: Keeping Hope Alive

Now that the George Hill era in San Antonio has come and gone we can say that it went exactly as we expected. He never delivered a championship or even an All-Star performance, but then again, what twenty-sixth pick from IUPUI ever does? What does IUPUI even stand for? Did we ever even find a position for George Hill? And the true answers to these questions are the paradoxical existence that is a team at the end of a championship run: Being drafted at the end of the first round to a team like the Spurs comes with all the mystery and pressure of being asked to perform necromancy, when to be picked by any other team would merely be a free pass to let the dead rest. When a team is on the rise, it relies on picking the right cornerstones at the top of the draft, but the more a team rises into the League's higher altitudes, it requires late round picks to prolong its oxygen supply, and George Hill was the Spurs' last breath.

San Antonio Spurs Preview: "Second Story Sunlight"

In an effort to gear up for the NBA season (even though the season started last week), we will view the upcoming season through the eyes of Edward Hopper. Feel free to add your thoughts on the 2010 Spurs in our comments section.Ms. Jefferson jerks in fright as a bat flaps out of the woods and into the crisp night air.

"Nasty little bloodsuckers, aren't they?" quips Senor Ginobili, never lifting his eyes from his newspaper.

"Yeah," comments Ms. Jefferson faintly; her attention diverted to trapping the sounds of the bat's wings.

"When I was younger, I would venture into those woods alone, and snatch those creatures out of the air with my bare hands. I would walk into a clearing and just stand there with my eyes closed, waiting. When I caught one, I would bring it back to the house and show my father. I would tell him, 'Pops, look what I hunted down for you in the woods,' and he would tell me, 'Manu, you are a foolish boy. One day you will get bit, catch disease, and die way too young.' Well, I'm old now and not a scratch on me. Fathers only know so much, eh?" He puts the paper down on a table next to his glass of wine.

Ms. Jefferson does not know how to respond. Her Argentine lover is an odd man. If he weren't wealthy, she would say he was crazy or call him mad and be done with the whole affair; but his bank account can afford the label of eccentric, so she puts up with his stories of catching bats, the often depressing words of his father, and his elderly friends, who laugh too hard at jokes that are no longer funny. She's even come to accept his thinning hair and the bald crater its left on the back of his head. After all, it's Senor Ginobili who saved her from disappearing into the drab Milwaukee skyline.

She stood on the corner, eyeing her reflection in a rain puddle, tinted red and green from a traffic light when a Rolls Royce pulled up to the curb. The window rolled down, and a Spanish accent rolled out, "Excuse me. I require a tour guide."

She told the voice from the car window, "As long as you got the money, you call it whatever you want."

"No, really, I need a tour guide. I'm here to view the city's gutters and down spouts." Ms. Jefferson took this for a euphemism, hiked up her skirt, and got inside the luxury car. Inside the Royce's dark interior, she did not get a clear view of her client's, her patron's, her future lover's face, but he greeted her with a story, as if they already knew one another and all the characters were familiar to her.

"Pops always believed one could tell the most about a city by how its citizens handled their rain water. He would say, 'Manu, any city can stay dry in sunshine, but, son, I want to live where people stay dry when it floods.' My father always spoke like that, and I always listened to my father; but, unlike him, I prefer a city whose spouts and gutters overflow, causing unpredictable torrents from rooftop to sidewalk. I thrive on sudden downpours actually."

And with that Ms. Jefferson knew she had found a different kind of client than the typical Midwestern drunk who would take her back to a shabby apartment and split a twelve pack of PBR with her. A night with Senor Ginobili was like looking through a kaleidoscope. Her world was changing, and she now sat with her Argentine lover on a porch in south Texas, attempting to not startle at the nocturnal migrations of bats, searching the night for prey, like rats, mice, and mosquitoes.

Senor Ginobili downs his wine, and rises from his chair, leaving an indention where he's sat reading all night. As he stands, he can feel all the years of bull fighting, fencing, and rock climbing creak through the timbers of his knees. He reaches out and runs his fingers through Ms. Jefferson's hair. He leans into smell it; its scent screams just twenty years old, and makes his knees feel less stiff while other parts of him grow rigid. He walks over to the bedroom doors. "Ms. Jefferson, I think it's time we retire." He swings the door open and gestures with his arm for her to enter. She rises like moonlight from her chair and floats across the porch, stroking his cheek with her hand as she passes. She disappears into the darkness of the bedroom. "Manu, I've been meaning to tell you. I'm thirty, not twenty."

Her voice is strange to him. He can't place it. She's lost to him like a minotaur buried inside of a maze. Wings whisper at his back. He spins around and flashes his left hand up to his chest, seizing the bat from the air. He flings it over the railing and walks inside the bedroom. Blood drips from his hand onto the carpet. Senor Ginobili's been bitten; rabies is coming to a boil inside his veins.

The Mall Walkers: Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili

While most stories out of San Antonio this offseason have focused on the team's new acquisitions, the Associated Press is now reporting on the health of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.

Despite the additions of Richard Jefferson and Antonio McDyess, the Spurs' success this season depends on the health of their big three, which is why all Spurs fans are happy to hear that Duncan and Ginobili have taken up mall walking this offseason.

Ginobili described the experience as, "tough at first cause no one really knows how one's ankles and knees will hold up on the escalator, but I just have to stay focused and use tunnel vision...no orange juliuses or cinnabuns...they go right to the hips."

Fellow teammate Michael Finley introduced Duncan and Giniobili to the idea of mall walking, claiming that it's the reason he's still playing basketball after all those years in the ABA: "it's a great physical and mental workout. Verne always tells stories about when her husband Rupert was over in the Pacific, fighting the Japanese, and I just try and relate those to playing against the Lakers. Verne really puts things in perspective."

Asked if mall walking might increase one's chances for further injury, Duncan responded, "that's why we stretch."

Some critics of the Spurs hear that the team is doing laps at the local mall, a hobby normally reserved for the elderly, like Finley, and wonder if the team will be in the physical condition required to compete at an NBA level, to which Spurs coach Greg Popovich responds, "I tried going a few laps with them, but I tuckered out and wound up sitting on a bench outside of Panera, so you tell me who's out of shape."

Ginobili laughed when asked if the story of his coach was true, "yeah, we went pretty hard on him at the start, hoping he would get tired. As soon as he was out of sight, we hopped on the rascals and raced to the arcade."

Dunk of the Week: Hilton gets Spurred

I have been harsh on him in the past, but I have got to give it up for Manu on this play. He starts the play off by burning his defender thanks to a nice pick from Tony Parker, gets the dish, flys through the lane, and finishes by absolutely posterizing Hilton Armstrong. If this play is any evidence of his improved health, the western conference should be put on notice. With Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, the out of nowhere skills Roger Mason has been displaying, Manu, and a younger bench; this team has what it needs to be a true test for any team in the league and should be considered a contender for the championship.

San Antonio Spurs' Manu Ginobili...

played his first game of the 2008-09 season tonight, finishing with 12 points and 4 rebounds in a win against the Memphis Grizzlies. George Hill led the way with 20 points. Roger Mason chipped in with 18, and Tim Duncan was his usual self with 14 points, 11 rebounds, and 4 blocks. Manu, you were missed--Rakim sounds much better over Eric B.'s scratches than he does going acapella. 

The team is now 7-6 and 6-2 since Tony Parker went down with an ankle injury, meaning they've recovered from a 1-4 start that could have been disastrous, yet another reason of many showing that we take Tim Duncan for granted.  The other 95 reasons were nailed to a church door and started Protestantism.  

Anyway, I digress.  Welcome back, Manu, one of the most unique players in the history of the game, which on second thought, makes Manu much like another unique individual, who has also been on hiatus:


You either love them or hate them.

I think I have a man crush.