Tag: New York

Phil Jackson still hammering Spurs about 1999 ‘asterisk’ season

Spurs Nation has held a special grudge against Phil Jackson for a long time.

It’s not just because he always seemed to end up playing the Spurs in a competitive playoff series with the Lakers.

Most Spurs fans have never forgiven Jackson for branding the Spurs first title team in 1999 as an “asterisk” team because they won the championship after playing in a truncated 50-game schedule after tghea lockout.

Now with the league in the midst of the same kind of work stoppage, Jackson is talking about the Spurs first championship again. He’s remembering that season in a way that he believes would be bad for the league after the lockout ends.

Jackson told the Chicago-based Waddle and Silvy Show about his and how different that 1999 season was from a normal one.

And yes, Spurs Nation, he has another not-so-subtle tweak about that championship season. (Hat tip: Sports Radio Interviews.com/Project Spurs.com)

“You want to have a season that is comparable to what it is like to play a season of basketball,” Jackson said. ” The year they patched together [1998-99 season] when they played 50 games they lost more than a third of the season and then they rushed to play those games into a magnified schedule and it questioned the teams that were really going to have a chance to win it like Indiana and Utah.

“New York finished 8th that year and obviously an up-and-coming San Antonio team, which turned out to be quite a great team, but those were the teams that ended up in the finals. When teams would play 18-19 games in the last month of the season it broke down some of the older steady teams because of that impact of a heavy schedule.

“I always kind of term that as an asterisk season out of this fun at poking fun at San Antonio. In reality it changes the complexity of how you play the game and what you make your team up with. You have to have young players and you have to have healthy players to win. So they want to have a representative season and we have some terrific teams in the NBA right now and there are some teams that are very, very good. It should be interesting to see how a lot of them come out and a lot of teams don’t want to lose that opportunity.”

A shortened season will pose some unique challenges for Gregg Popovich and the Spurs this season. They are much older than that 1999 team, so a shortened season would be favorable in that sense. But cramming multiple games into too short of a period with a lot of back-to-back games could be catastrophic for an older team.

It will be interesting to see. But whoever emerges as the champion will have to battle the same stigma the Spurs have faced since that first title because of playing a less-than-complete season.

TP, TD work out with Spurs rookies

While the fate of the season hangs in the balance at negotiating sessions in New York, Tim Duncan and Tony Parker are taking their elder status with the Spurs rather seriously.

Duncan and Parker aren’t wearing their suits arguing with David Stern, Adam Silver, Peter Holt and the other representatives of the NBA owners.

Instead, they were working out Tuesday with Spurs rookies Kawhi Leonard and Cory Joseph in San Antonio.

Parker had a couple of pictures of the workout andon his website. The work can’t do anything but help their acclamation into the NBA.

While other NBA teams have conducted organized workouts, the Spurs haven’t taken that step. The main reason is because the team is scattered around the world and many of them have been taking part in international hoop pursuits over the past few weeks.

But Duncan and Parker showing Leonard and the Joseph the ropes was a strong sign of leadership. It should only help them once the lockout ends.

NBA lockout won’t keep Parker from playing

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

Spurs point guard Tony Parker has made his lockout fallback plan official.

Should the NBA’s ongoing labor standoff postpone the start of the regular season, Parker has signed to play with ASVEL Villeurbanne, the French League team of which he is part owner.

Parker announced the decision, which had been telegraphed for weeks, Wednesday morning on his Twitter account.

In Parker the player, Parker the general manager got quite a steal. The three-time All-Star, slated to earn $12.5 million in the NBA this season, will play for $1,995 per month in France.

“I’ll be playing nearly for free,” Parker told the French daily L’Equipe. “If I play the entire season, we’ll go for the title.”

Whether the 29-year-old Parker actually appears in an ASVEL uniform at all largely will be determined at the collective bargaining table, where NBA owners and its players union face a Monday deadline to settle their dispute before regular-season games must be canceled or delayed.

If a new CBA is reached in time to save the start of the season, Parker will be obligated to remain in San Antonio for Spurs training camp.

Speaking at his basketball clinic in San Antonio over the weekend, Parker said he wanted to inform ASVEL of his intentions as swiftly as possible, with his decision based on the progress of the NBA labor negotiations.

“I don’t want the French team to play the beginning of the season, and then I come,” said Parker, who last month led France’s national team to the country’s first Olympic berth in 12 years. “That would not be fair to them.”

As the MVP of the 2007 NBA Finals, Parker is the most prominent NBA player to agree to a lockout deal abroad since July, when Deron Williams, New Jersey’s All-Star point guard, signed to play with the Turkish team Besiktas.

He’s the third player under contract with the Spurs to secure a lockout deal abroad, joining center DeJuan Blair (Russia) and guard Danny Green (Slovenia). Spurs guard Manu Ginobili has a similar offer to play in Italy, but has yet to agree to it.

In accordance with the NBA’s agreement with FIBA, the sport’s international governing body, Parker’s deal with ASVEL contains an out clause that would return him to the Spurs once the lockout ends.

As a member of the ASVEL ownership group, Parker — who carries an official title as the club’s vice president of basketball operations — will be responsible for insuring his own NBA contract against injury while playing abroad.

With the status of NBA negotiations in the eye of the beholder — creeping closer either to resolution or Armageddon — it is unclear when Parker would return to France.

Bargaining talks broke down Tuesday in New York with no deal in place, resulting in the scuttling of the remainder of the preseason schedule.

ASVEL — based in Villeurbanne, a city of about 140,000 in southeast France — opens its season Oct. 14. If NBA players still are locked out at that time, Parker expects to be in uniform.

Late last week, Parker left little doubt as to which option he preferred.

“I’d rather start (Spurs camp) right now,” he said.