Acid Rain

I’ve been ruminating on a post about CLUTCH, but as fate would have it there have been no inspirational instantiations since TD sent the Suns to a fiery grave (and how painful!). So while those ideas ferment I’m going to try to tackle the Spurs as the perfectly negative image of excitement. There have been few teams that raise such bile among fans of any sport in the past decade or so. Sure you can talk about the Patriots or the Yankees, maybe Manchester United, but these teams, while hated, all drew their power to repel from something outside of the game, whether that be insufferable fans, senile yet wealthy management or a rancid combination of the two. The players, on the other hand, were always innocent bystanders to the corrupt logos of the team.

But the Spurs. By all accounts these guys should be a team that we can tolerate winning: they have a dominant big man who can step outside and dance in the paint, they have a lethal duo at guard, arguably the best 2 slashers to be paired together since Jordan and Pippen, they dig deep into the international ranks to find interesting bodies (Scola, and the two guys they have waiting in the wings), and they have some great defensive stoppers (TD and Bowen), and they have clutch (Big Shot Bob).

Yet there is something about each of these guys that is the slightest bit off, kinda like a cute girl from the trailer park, something you can’t quite put a finger on but that is nonetheless seriously off putting. We can point to the obvious flopping and whining about no calls, the wide eyed incredulity followed by sulking down the court that starts to get under skin. Similarly, their style follows this pattern of passive aggressive needling; rather than asserting their will on the powerless, the Spurs play the role of the meek inheriting the earth, walking around as the victim only to overcome at the last instant. There is something of Janus in these guys, refusing to embrace who they could be because their skin is so damn malleable.



We hope for greatness in the great, we WANT to see Jordan leading his team to 70 wins and then rolling through the playoffs. We want to see teams winning to win, for the love of the game, because it feels good to see a zenith. But the Spurs attack that very notion of dominance with the guile of Karl Rove, waiting in wings and culling the margins to win while losing. Maybe the best parallel is Bush with a 30% percent approval, yet MOTHERFUCKER IS STILL PRESIDENT. But that is taking something away from the Spurs: they’ve mastered their craft yet will shoot their friends in the face just to remind us that they’re still there.

Bring Back the Living!; Raze NEW Orleans!; Raise New Orleans!