McDonald: First-Round Ouster Has Spurs Dazed (And: What To Watch)

[duncan228]

First-round ouster has Spurs dazed
Jeff McDonald

There are times when Bruce Bowen can still feel the euphoria. He can hear the pop of champagne corks. He can feel the confetti falling on him from the rafters. He can see himself hoisting the Larry O'Brien trophy.

He is a champion again.

On Wednesday, standing in a crowded interview room just off the Spurs' darkened practice gym, Bowen had one of those memories again. This one was bittersweet.

“When you've had the taste of the best of the best, and you remember how that feels to be holding that trophy at the end of the Finals, it's a great feeling,” Bowen said. “It's also a feeling you long for again.”

Bowen and the rest of the Spurs would experience no such sensation this season. Instead of a fifth championship river parade, the Spurs' season ended with the earliest locker cleanout day in recent memory.

For the first time since 2000, they are out of the playoffs in the first round. Dallas applied the death grip Tuesday night, with a 106-93 victory in Game 5 on the Spurs' home floor.

Across the NBA, the Spurs' early exit was trumpeted as a farewell knell to their decade of dominance. As Spurs players gathered one more time Wednesday to bid their goodbyes and begin their offseasons, the agony of defeat had not faded.

“I'm still just in shock,” said guard Roger Mason Jr., whose first season with the Spurs ended as quickly as his last season with the Wizards. “I signed on here with the expectations to be playing for a championship. You don't expect to be going home this early.”

When the shock wears off, sometime mid-summer, perhaps Spurs players will come to appreciate the season for what it was — flawed, injury-plagued, but special in its own right.

Manu Ginobili's lingering ankle woes kept him out of 43 games, including the playoffs. Bedeviled by sore knees, Tim Duncan was playing on one leg by season's end. As such, Tony Parker was asked to carry a bigger load than any human being should be capable of carrying.

In the end, it was an accomplishment that the Spurs went 54-23 — just two games off the previous year's pace — and won the rugged Southwest Division for the first time since 2005-06.

“We're all disappointed when we don't win the whole thing,” coach Gregg Popovich said. “But it can't go without notice that these guys did one of a job this year, and I'm really proud of them.”

Of course, the Spurs have never really been about division les. Their job, and their joy, is to win NBA championships.

Work toward returning to that apex began immediately Wednesday.

The Spurs' front office will spend its offseason looking to refurbish a roster long in the tooth, but short on depth, youth and athleticism. They will look to retool around the Duncan-Parker-Ginobili core, hoping of course that Ginobili returns to full strength.

They have three draft picks to work with — all in the second round — and a little room on the payroll to add free agents. They will have decisions to make about free-agents-to-be Drew Gooden, Ime Udoka and Jacque Vaughn, as well as Bowen and Fabricio Oberto, a pair of veterans whose contracts next season are only partially guaranteed.

Whatever alterations the team makes, Popovich said, they will not be wholesale changes. He made it clear he believes the Spurs' Big Three still has some life left — even with Duncan recently celebrating his 33rd birthday and Ginobili looking 31-going-on-41.

“At some point, we won't be looking at role players — we'll be looking to bring in stars to replace stars,” Popovich said. “That's not the situation yet.”

The goal — and perhaps now it's just a pipe dream — is to have fewer moments like the Spurs had Wednesday.

After addressing the media for the last time this season, Bowen re-entered the dim practice gym and walked past the four banners that signify the Spurs' championships.

He is proud of those banners and the part he played in hanging three of them. But they make it awfully hard for him to be satisfied on a day like Wednesday.

“It creates an environment where if you don't get there, it's hard to say, ‘Oh wow, we had a great time this year,'” Bowen said. “You want to get there again. That's just a byproduct of the compe ive nature each one of us has.”


What to watch

Spurs beat writer Jeff McDonald lists three Spurs developments to keep track of during the offseason:

1. Vive la France

Tony Parker remains committed to leading the French national team in an Olympic qualifier this summer, news that should make Spurs fans — still stinging from the loss of Manu Ginobili for most of the season — shudder. Unlike Ginobili, Parker is on the south side of 30 and isn't carrying a pre-existing injury into the tournament. Still, there is always risk.

2. Roster renovation

The Spurs are sure to try and tweak their roster over the summer, in search of depth, youth and athleticism. Ime Udoka, Jacque Vaughn and Drew Gooden will be free agents. Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto, Kurt Thomas and Matt Bonner all have contracts that are easily tradeable. It's safe to say some combination of the above will not return next season.

3. To cut, or not

Tim Duncan battled tendonosis in his right knee for the latter half of the season. Others who have had a similar condition have found surgery to be beneficial. It remains unclear whether surgery or rest remains the best option for Duncan. The Spurs just hope he is feeling better at the beginning of next season than he was at the end of this one.

[whottt]

Ime Udoka, Jacque Vaughn and Drew Gooden will be free agents.

Kurt Thomas, Matt Bonner EDIT and Michael Finley all have contracts

Brilliant! I mean couid it be any better?

FU Pop

Seriously, I see this and I almost begin to wonder if Pop wants to destroy his own creation.

What in the is he doing?

[intlspurshk]

I hope this playoff failure can trigger a wholesale change which could be blessing in disguise and no more old players like Mcdyess or Sheed. In fact, only 2 team members are worthy to keep indeed