Tag: National Basketball Association

T-Mac gets a tryout

Nearly eight years after Tracy McGrady beat the Spurs with this legendary , the former NBA scoring champ is now auditioning to join them.

The seven-time All-Star, still in search of a contract less than a month away from the start of training camps, worked out for team officials in San Antonio this week, .

McGrady, 33, is still looking for work after averaging a career-low 5.2 points in his lone season with Atlanta. As the Yahoo! report indicates, McGrady might soon have to decide whether to accept a make-good offer to join an NBA training camp this fall — the New York Knicks could be another option — or finish his career overseas.

It is not exactly clear how McGrady might fit into the Spurs plans. Though renowned earlier in his career as an elite scoring guard, the 6-foot-8 McGrady has found new life the past two seasons in Atlanta and Detroit filling the “savvy back-up point guard” role.

With the Spurs’ depth chart behind Tony Parker largely unsettled — Patrick Mills, Gary Neal and rookie Nando de Colo will all battle for time there — the notion of them taking a flier on someone such as McGrady isn’t totally out of the question.

He’d also likely fit into the payroll plans of the budget-conscious Spurs, having played last season with the Hawks for the veteran’s minimum of $854,398.

Spurs look to experience and the deepest bench in the NBA for the Western Conference Semi’s

The San Antonio Spurs can finally work off of one game plan and as of the final buzzer on the LA Clippers/Memphis Grizzlies set out to work at their practice facility on Sunday night.

Head Coach Vinny Del Negro knows exactly what his team is facing come Tuesday night at the A T&T Center.

“Different type of team, different type of series,”  Del Negro said during the  Clippers’ postgame interviews. “San Antonio has played as well, if not the most consistently, of anybody throughout the year. They’ve won championships for a reason. They’re not going to beat themselves.”

And they won’t.  Sure there will be those folks out there that say so much time off will only hurt their game and there is something to that but this is a team that strongly remembers their exit from last year’s playoffs and rest assured they will not let it happen again. Plus, the Clippers struggled against a Memphis squad with no stars.  To the Clippers, the Spurs must look like a stellar constellation.

The Clippers, meanwhile, are ever mindful of the four-time NBA Champions and feel they have a shot and one veteran of many playoff battles, Kenyon Martin, (whom the Spurs actively pursued in the offseason) has appreciated his young team’s growth.

“The thing about Game 7 of a series, if you didn’t learn anything from Game 1, then you don’t deserve to be here in the first place,” Martin said. “I think guys really, really embrace the moment.”

Be sure to get your tickets for a potentially explosive playoff series. a

ESPN’s Uni Watch ranks Spurs 2nd in NBA, 16th overall

As if the Spurs haven’t enjoyed enough success over the years, they’ve earned recognition from ESPN’s Uni Watch blog for looking good while doing it. The Silver and Black’s uniforms are and among North American professional sports franchises, according to Uni Watch’s Power Rankings. Paul Lukas writes:

The Raiders aren’t the only team that knows how to wear silver and black. In addition to the killer colors, the Spurs are also among the few NBA teams that have successfully incorporated a graphic image into their chest typography — a small element that goes a long way. Kinda wish they’d go back to the scoop-neck collar instead of the V-neck, but that’s a minor complaint.

It’s a very well-deserved spot for a simple, elegant uniform with just a hint of style thanks to the aforementioned graphic image. Which, as we’ve , isn’t always easy to pull off.

Not that the Spurs haven’t had any missteps along the way. There were those walking-TV-dinner silver alternates, and the ridiculous that only underscored doubts about the Spurs’ manhood during their many playoff prat falls in the 1990s.

But for the most part, it’s hard to beat not only the colors, which they were wearing long before black became such a ubiquitous presence in pro sports, but the clean execution, especially with the new logo. My personal favorite are these dating back to the days of George Gervin.