The Hoop and The Harm

Although not as big a deal as Pau or Shaq, Damon Stoudamire joining the Spurs may turn out to be a big factor late in the playoffs. Although Damon hasn’t been on a playoff team in a few years, he was a major part of the 2000 Portland Trail Blazers. That team had to suffer one of the worst all time fourth quarter collapses to be kept out of the finals. Damon brings a lot of experience to a team full of veteran players. Even though the Spurs are not in need of anything to be contenders for the championship, this move shows that they are not interested in anything less than another ring.

Just a quick note about the parallels I can see from today’s Mets fans and last May’s Mavs fans. Both teams had strikingly similar finals/world series runs followed the next year by historical and embarrassing flame-outs that fell way below expectations and shocked the sports world. More than anything today, I hear the same cries from Mets fans for various players and managers jobs that Mavs fans had last May, but I think the Mets could learn a lesson from the Mavs and not blowup the team just because of their recent meltdown that led to missing the division title by 1 game. For the most part, this team is the same team came within one out of the World Series last year and was far and away the best team in the NL. And up until the last few weeks, they continued to look the part. Time will tell whether or not the Mavs were wise to basically stand pat this off-season after their equally disgusting meltdown against the Warriors in last year’s playoffs, but at this point I gotta believe that was the wise move. I mean let’s get real. The mavs cruised to 67 wins last season and were 2 and a quarter games from an NBA title the previous year. This is the only roster to have beaten the Spurs in the playoffs in recent years. So on the eve of training camp in Big D, things are looking good, and believe me Mets fans, with some patience in the off-season, a similar fate awaits.