ROWDY TIME SPORTS

Warning: The following has been written from the perspective of the extreme bias of a die-hard fan and may or may not be intended to be taken seriously.

Last year, seeing the Dallas Mavericks NOT be in the playoffs was painful. Now that they’re back, I’d say the time has come to not be objective. The playoffs are supposed to be about passion, so the time has come to be biased as all get out.

So I’m putting that all out at the risk of severely ticking off a few acquaintances and even a few relatives.

I am sick to death of the San Antonio Spurs.

I want the Mavericks to win this series almost as badly as I wanted to beat Miami in 2011.

If disaster occurs and the Spurs advance, I will root against them in the next round and the round after that. And if we get another Spurs-Heat Finals – well, that’s like choosing between Godzilla or Gigan; it doesn’t matter because whoever wins is going to devastate your city.

I hate the Spurs fans and how they claim their team represents all the good in the NBA. No, they don’t. They represent what’s wrong with it.

I hate the fact that the Spurs built this run of championships by the shadiest, most underhanded way possible: They intentionally tanked a season. How David Robinson, who is supposed to have such high moral standards, agreed to ever play for the Spurs again after they forced him to sit out the rest of 1997 with “back issues” I’ll never know. The Spurs should have been stripped of that draft pick and several others for what they did, and instead they got one of the last number one picks to actually be a franchise player. As a result, teams tank left and right nowadays to try and get the next Tim Duncan despite no such player being available, flushing all credibility for the league down the toilet.

Oh, and Duncan? Yeah, I’m sick of him too. His legion of fans in San Antonio love to claim how he’s this class act. This is a guy who believes he has never committed a foul in his life. He’s probably still pouting over that blocking foul he picked up in an AAU game 20 years ago.

I’m sick of the Spurs’ offense, which can best be described as “Cure For Insomnia.” The Spurs have the talent to be one of the most high-flying teams out there, and yet they intentionally try to play the most boring, sleep-inducing brand of basketball in history. Are the rumors true that every Spurs player gets fined if they score 100 in a game, even if they win? The way they play, they might as well go up and down the floor waving middle fingers at the crowd to say “we don’t give a f*ck about you.” They’re lucky to be playing in this era, where you can win with defense and absolutely nothing else. The Lakers and even the Celtics of the 80s would put up 150 on them every night.

I hate how Greg Poppovich is considered some great genius. Especially because he sits players on select games, once again proving this is a team that completely doesn’t care about the people that pay their salaries. Pop, you do know that there’s a very good chance that someone, especially when you go on the road, is watching your team for the first and maybe only time in their life and did so in order to see Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobuli (though for the life of me, I don’t know why), and you frequently deny them that chance on the claims that you have to keep players rested for the playoffs? If these guys aren’t conditioned enough to handle a full 82-game schedule like so many others are, maybe it’s time they pack it in.

I hate how their fans whine and complain that the league is out to get them because they’re “small market.” Excuse me? You ended up winning the draft lottery twice in 10 years, and you think the league is conspiring against you? Your star player whines every singe time he gets whistled, yet he almost never gets T’d up. You’ve brought home the trophy four times, and yet you constantly claim the league is actively trying to deny you?

You didn’t lose the title last year because of biased officiating or any other act on the part of the league to ensure LeBron and Co. got another ring. You lost it because your coach was stupid in Game Six. You had the chance to step on the throat and end it in that game, and what does Pop do? Start the fourth quarter with his worst lineup possible, allowing the Heat to creep back in. Then, in a tighter contest late, he keeps Duncan on the bench when you need defense and rebounding more than ever, leading to TWO offensive rebounds on missed free throws that turned into three pointers for Miami. You got complacent and didn’t go for the kill shot, like the Mavs did to that same team two years earlier.

When the Spurs lost in the first round in 2011, it looked like it might be the start of the end of this dark era. But sadly, thanks to a lack of good young talent flowing in to challenge the status quo, this old, unentertaining bunch gets to keep plodding on and turning more and more people over to hockey.

So please, Mavericks. Shock the world and send the Spurs home whining and crying just like you did in 2006.

Because I’m just sick of them.

Filed under: articles, Mavericks | Tagged: basketball, dallas mavericks, nba, playoffs, san antonio spurs |