Takes from blog brothers: Spurs get mention in George Will column

I’m back after a week of vacation and it seems that we are no closer to a solution in the NBA lockout as we were when I left.

The cancellation of the first two weeks of games last week will likely be followed by the announcement of more missed games as soon as later this week. There appears to be little chance to see games on Christmas — the traditional start of the NBA season for many casual hoop fans — unless some remarkable work is done behind the scenes by David Stern and Billy Hunter in the next 48 hours.

The NBA’s lockout has become a topic for editiorial pages across the country as both sides appear to be entrenched in their positions.

George Will, the Washington Post’s fine editorial columnist, figures that the NBA lockout is such a strong topic that he even in the middle of his beloved baseball playoffs.

Will mentions that the Spurs are an anomaly in sports after winning four NBA titles during a nine-year period despite playing in a small market.

And he also describes what appears to be the central difference in the two sides.

“Labor-management disputes test the two sides’ animal spirits and pain thresholds,” Will writes. “The former favor the players, who — owners frequently forget this — have climbed to the narrow peak of their profession’s pyramid because they are ferocious competitors who loathe losing at anything.

“Owners, however, have higher pain thresholds because they have longer time horizons: They do not have short careers; they do have deep pockets.”

Here are some other Spurs-related tidbits from around the web from the last several days. Enjoy them.

  • Judy Battista and Pete Thamel of the New York Times mention the Spurs’ losing season when they pondered the Indianapolis Colts’ opportunity to perhaps grab Andrew Luck with Peyton Manning sidelined. 
  • The Houston Chronicle’s Jonathan Feigen notes that small-market franchises like the Spurs have been successful in the modern-day NBA — despite Stern’s claims that a new contract will .
  • The Bismarck Tribune’s Lou Babiarz notes that the Spurs are among six NBA franchises .
  • Kimberly Nordyke of the Hollywood Reporter.com reports that among NBA players during the lockout.
  • The New York Times’ Howard Beck notes that the to claim their 2007 NBA title.
  • The Charlotte Observer’s Rick Bonnell explains whyin a new economic era.
  • Dave Shireley of Deadspin.com , describing them as “well-coached, vaguely exotic, still pretty good, but too old to do any real damage.”  (Warning: The title of the story probably isn’t suitable for work, but it’s still an interesting analogy.)
  • The purist side of Phil Jackson never accepted what he termed as the in the lockout-shortened 1999 season, the Orange County Register’s Kevin Ding reports.  
  • Deadspin.com’s Owen Good enjoyed  playing the Spurs in the .  

Creating a monster: Olajuwon trying to refine LBJ’s inside game

The rest of the NBA should be very afraid.

The news that LeBron James has turned to postgame guru Hakeem Olajuwon could help refine one of the league’s very best players in an area of his biggest weakness.

Forget about the perimeter game and the passing. If James ever added a consistent inside component, he might fulfill the promise of becoming “The King” for the NBA.

It was almost painful at times to watch James attempt to score against the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA Finals.

Give him credit for .

“Right now I’ve just been focusing on being a better player, working on my game every single day,” James told the Associated Press in comments reported by Pro Basketball Talk.com. “Like I said, the Dallas Mavericks were a great team and they deserved to win that championship. And I’ll just use that as motivation coming into this season.”

That has taken him to Houston, where he’s working with the Hall of Famer Olajuwon to bolster his inside play.

Olajuwon practically refined post play during his career, which included an MVP in 1994 and two NBA titles.

“I look at what he was able to do throughout his career,” James said. “Unbelievable talent. Multiple champion. Just to see how he was able to dominate in the low post, for me as an individual, I just try to look at some of the things I feel I need to get better at and hit home at it. Our team becomes better if I continue to get better and that’s what it’s about.”

Finesse added to James’ bullish strength could be a deadly combination.

Consider the rest of the NBA to be duly warned if the work with Olajuwon improves James’ game.

Defending NBA champs on playoff precipice

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

DALLAS — First, the Spurs fell, a 61-win No. 1 seed ousted in the first round of the NBA’s Western Conference playoffs.

Soon, the West’s No. 2 seed, the two-time defending champion Los Angeles Lakers, may join them as idled observers, a legendary coach sent to early retirement in the process.

Dallas has a 3-0 lead in the best-of-7 Western Conference semifinals series that resumes today at American Airlines Center.

The Lakers are the 99th team in NBA history to face such a daunting deficit, defiance seemingly their final refuge. The first 98, after all, failed to overcome. But Lakers star Kobe Bryant insisted he has no doubt his team can be the first, starting with today’s game, and issued a warning to any teammate that might not share the belief.

“I’m going to keep this train moving,” he said, “so you’re either going to be on it, or in front of it. But the train will keep moving.”

The Mavericks have outscored the Lakers in the fourth quarter of each of the first three games because they have kept Bryant from dominating. In the final five minutes of Dallas’ 98-92 Game 3 victory, Bryant missed all four of the shots he attempted and committed two turnovers.

Meanwhile, center Andrew Bynum, on the brink of a breakout game after scoring 21 points through the first 3??1/2 quarters, did not touch the ball.

“The last five minutes is when I go to work,” Bryant explained, “and I didn’t the last game. I’ve got to get the ball and make those plays.”

Lakers coach Phil Jackson has hinted all season that he will retire at season’s end, whenever that may be. Veteran Lakers such as Bryant and Derek Fisher, starters on the five Lakers teams Jackson has coached to NBA titles, don’t want to get swept and have that be Jackson’s final experience.

“It means more to myself and Derek than anybody else on this team, the history that we have,” Bryant said, “but you try not to think of that. You just try to think of the game.”

In a pre-practice meeting, Jackson told his players to forget about him and any legacy issues, then fell back on a longtime playoff ploy: Complaining about the officiating, hoping the referees working today’s game will notice.

Jackson said his All-Star power forward, Pau Gasol, has struggled in the first three games of the series because defenders are breaking a rule.

“I’ve resisted this the whole playoffs, but the NBA used to call it ‘knee up the butt,’?” Jackson said. “You couldn’t lift your knee off the floor to run a guy off the post. They’re doing it every time. They’re taking him out of the post so he can’t get a post-up.

“We didn’t complain about it against New Orleans, but the Mavs are doing the same damn thing. So we’re kind of resigned that they’re not going to change the rules. .?.?. I mean go back to what they used to have as a rule.”

Meanwhile, the Mavericks quietly go about their business of making the two-time defending champions look old, and in the way.

“We’re up against an opponent that’s very experienced and has got a lot of weapons,” Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle said. “We’ve got to stay on task.

“I feel like they’re going to play better, and we’ll have to play better, too.”