"Letting them Play": Officiating the Last Seconds of an NBA Game

Officiating an NBA game is hard.

Heck, officiating any sort of organized sport is pretty difficult. Someone is probably going walk away from some play unhappy. At some point in time during the game there will be a guy that thinks the dude with a whistle is an idiot.

The NBA game of basketball moves so quickly that it's difficult to get all the plays. Invariably, something gets missed. Yet there are rules to the game for a reason. I'm not advocating we become hidebound and call every single rule, but I think the whole concept of "letting them play", especially in late game situations is, well, frankly kind of dumb. You undermine yourself.

Unfettered Optimism: The Emergence of Kawhi Leonard

Kawhi Leonard is my new favorite player.

I didn't follow basketball much growing up. Sure, I watched the Jazz-Bulls finals in the 90s (rooting for the Mailman) and part of the Lakers' finals runs in the 2000s. One team that really stuck with me though, for some reason, was the starting 5 of the 1999 San Antonio Spurs championship team. As I grew older, I began to respect a player like David Robinson much more. That lead me to Tim Duncan. I was enamored with the seemingly simple way Duncan played. The footwork, the rebounding, the post-play, it was simple, but elegant, it was all stuff you would hear about how to do in a basketball camp.

Even as the team transitioned to being the Tony Parker show, I still staunchly held to the long-held ideology, that if the Spurs ever needed a bucket, you could just throw it into Duncan in the post, and everything would work out fine.

Spurs Trade Deadline Speculation Mania

So the trade deadline is coming up (this Thursday) and there are trade rumors and speculations flying around. That means that the Spurs will likely be noted for how they will not do anything and thereby successfully have navigated the NBA trade deadline. That being said, it doesn't mean that the entire Spurs nation and beyond isn't speculating what brilliant move that R.C. Buford and Gregg Popovich will come up with.

Why are we considered "boring"?

A blowout is a blowout right?

Then why is it that we are so fascinated by the Warriors destroying the Suns or Nets but not the Spurs obliterating the Jazz or Hawks? I mean let’s think about it, let’s take a look at the last 5 games where both the Spurs and Warriors have the same exact record 4-1. The Warriors played the Nets, Pacers, Celtics, Bucks, and Suns. The score differentials were +16, +8, +5, -13, +25 respectively. Sure, we can give them some slack for most of those games being away, sure we can say that they had a back-to-back (and their loss came on the second night of one), but I don’t think those things are huge mitigating factors, and besides, if you are gassed on the second night of a back-to-back after going to double overtime in the first game, it’s both a credit to the opposing team and kind of your own fault that you got the two extra periods anyway. The Spurs played the Raptors, Lakers, Hawks, Jazz, and Wizards. I would posit that the strength of schedule based solely on the opponents is comparable. The point differentials were -3, +22, +25, +37, +19. I mean, that’s crazy. Look, I think both teams are great, the margin of difference in point differential is less than 0.2 so I don’t want to take anything away from either team, but I am curious as to why people would be more willing to watch a Golden State 50 point victory over a San Antonio 50 point victory.

Unfettered Optimism: From BoBo to SloMo

Look, let's be honest, if you're nickname in college is "Slo-Mo", which is universally short for "slow motion" I'm not entirely positive that it's a compliment. I know this is supposed to be one of my super optimistic, "Spurs are going to be awesome" posts, but I want to get out of the way first, that I have many rather significant reservations about this year's draft pick Kyle Anderson. I don't deny that he perhaps has the unique skill-set that the Spurs may be looking for, that is, a big man who can sort of play like a point guard, and thus many pundits have been hailing the Spurs' draft pick as the second coming of Boris Diaw. Now, I'll be the first to admit, that there are times when I get overly optimistic, and while Boris Diaw 2.0 isn't exactly some claim to superstardom, I want everyone to just slow down for a second. I know the Spurs just obliterated the Heat in the Finals, and I know that the Spurs have a strong history of finding diamonds in the rough of the late first-round of the draft (i.e. Tony Parker, George Hill, Luis Scola, Leandro Barbosa, etc...), but let's take a step back and take a look at what we have here before we start handing out any accolades.

Buying in to the System

If the 2014 NBA Finals did anything, it was to once again reveal to us how amazing the concept of "system" basketball is. We often forget of how important the role players on each team are, in any championship team, the Spurs didn't rediscover this, they've known this all along, all 2014 did was to re-emphasize that point by the popularizing of role players like Boris Diaw, Patty Mills, and Danny Green against arguably three of the biggest superstar names in the NBA in recent history in LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. After a struggle against the Dallas Mavericks in the first round, which ended up being a brilliant chess match between Rick Carlisle and Gregg Popovich over 7 games, the Spurs handily defeated three teams that arguably had the hottest stars of the league. First it was the unexpected but dangerous duo of LaMarcus Aldridge, arguably one of the best if not the best PF currently in the league, with a mid-range game that makes him neigh unguardable at 6-11, and the up and coming PG Damian Lillard. After that, the team that was pegged to be locked in the next 5 NBA Finals with the Miami Heat, after their summary decimation of the Spurs in 2012, the Oklahoma City Thunder, featuring an unparalleled scorer in Kevin Durant and a blistering combination of athleticism and energy in Russell Westbrook (incidentally, the Thunder have not made it back to the Finals since). All of which led up to the first Finals rematch since Michael Jordan's Bulls faced off twice against a John Stockton and Karl Malone led Jazz in 1995 and 1996.

Spurs Still Looking Strong

Coming off of a convincing 2014 NBA Championship, it's really hard to think of how the Spurs could get significantly better. With most of the big free agent names accounted for, and the Spurs not being a landing spot for any of them, free agency for San Antonio fans essentially boils down to who make the Spurs' much speculated but typically irrelevant 15th roster spot.