Author: katadmin

Parker is top-ranked Spur in ESPN rankings

Every Spur is now accounted for in NBA’s individual player rankings with Tony Parker’s appearance at No. 16.

His 12-spot jump from No. 28 in last year’s rankings is a fitting reward for probably the best season of his professional career, in which he finished fifth in the MVP voting after the Spurs finished first in the Western Conference.

A quick review of as a team:

No. 16, Tony Parker

No. 25, Manu Ginobili

No. 27, Tim Duncan

No. 95, Kawhi Leonard

No. 149, Tiago Splitter

No. 151, Stephen Jackson

No. 155, DeJuan Blair

No. 160, Danny Green

No. 162, Boris Diaw

No. 171, Gary Neal

No. 198, Matt Bonner

No. 309, Patty Mills

No. 458, Cory Joseph

No. 488, Derrick Byars

NR, Nando De Colo

Seems like a pretty fair representation of where the Spurs are at. A good top-end trio surrounded by eight other players in the top 200. Not as flashy as the Lakers, who have four in the Top 20 — take a guess who — but still a very, very respectable roster.

Screamin’ A. gets pwned

Nobody has ever accused professional loudmouth Stephen A. Smith of taking himself too seriously.

OK, lots of people have, and there will be even more after Smith failed to immediately grasp the satiric nature of a about an imaginary sex education conversation between him and his imaginary 9-year-old son:

Sensing the 9-year-old is now old enough to engage in a heated debate on the subject, Stephen A. Smith reportedly decided Monday that his son is finally ready for the sex argument.

“It’s a big milestone in every father-son relationship to sit your child down and dispute his pathetic ideas about the birds and bees,” said Smith, fondly remembering his own father belligerently talking over him when he got the sex argument as a boy. “He’s at that age where he’s starting to hear some things about sex at school, so it’s important for me as a parent to corner him on his logical inconsistencies and force him to admit he doesn’t have the experience to know what the hell he’s talking about.”

Smith said he is ready to have the argument as soon as his son gets home from school and can get in front of a camera.

Never one to let a perceived slight go unchallenged, Stephen A. responded in kind on Twitter.

It took about a half hour before the joke sunk in. :

Haaaaa. The got me. I didn’t know it was on Satire! Got it. Peeps got jokes. It’s cool!

On the subject of jokes, here’s a fantastic impersonation of Screamin’ A. from a few months back.

Report: Spurs sign Brown to non-guaranteed deal

The Spurs have signed journeyman forward to a one-year, non-guaranteed contract, according to .

Brown (6-foot-8, 235 pounds) was originally drafted in the second round by Charlotte in 2009. He was picked up by the Knicks after the Bobcats waived him midway through his second season. Brown, 25, returned to Charlotte last season, averaging 8.1 points (51.8 percent shooting) and 3.6 rebounds in 22.2 minutes per game. His 14.7 PER was just a hair under the weighted league average. The bad news — it came while playing for one of the worst teams in history.

Writer’s note: I consider myself a pretty educated NBA fan, but I literally cannot tell you a single thing about Brown other than his stats look fairly decent for a castoff type. His (admittedly dated) scouting report at  describes an athletic, undersized tweener who lacks polish. Here’s a more recent assessment from something called .

At any rate, I certainly like this pickup better than the corpse of Tracy McGrady, who reportedly worked out with the Spurs earlier this week. Maybe he’ll thrive in a winning atmosphere — provided he makes it through training camp, of course.