In the span of two weeks, the Spurs and Lakers fell out of the 2011 playoffs, and with aging stars, coaching problems, and the rise of other talented teams and the rise of the super team, the days of the Bryant-led Lakers and Duncan-led Spurs have reached their conclusion. It was these two teams that dominated the conference for 12 years, with the Lakers winning the West 7 times (and 5 finals), and the Spurs winning 4 times (and a title each time). The Lakers and Spurs exemplified basketball at its best. One team had the stars, the highlights, the celebrities. The other team played the best team basketball of the new millenium, with great role players surrounding a star the size of hundreds of suns. The Lakers and Spurs also had the best two coaches, two men who combined to win 15 of the last 20 titles (that statistic is staggering). The post-Jordan era took a couple years, but it became the Shaq/Kobe/Duncan era, and while the first has already seen the luster of his star shy away, the Kobe and Duncan eras are now finished, and what an era it was.
It was interesting the way both teams lost. The Spurs somehow went 61-21 this year despite their best player being Manu Ginobili, and them having no great player and 11 average to good ones. Their era, in all honesty, ended in 2008, but they have been able to hang on with the collective brilliance of Popovich, Duncan, Parker and Ginobili. They fought and clawed their way against the Grizzlies, the best 8th seed maybe ever and a team that has a legitimate shot at winning the title, and eventually lost in 6 games, but went down swinging with an amazing comeback in Game 5 in San Antonio, not allowing for their era to end on their own court. The Spurs always fought. They won their games with braun, not flash. They won four finals, one in a sweep, one in 5 games, one in 6 games and one in 7 games. They won in every way, winning defensive grudge matches against the defending champions Pistons to outgunning the 62 win "Seven Seconds or Less" Suns one round earlier and then two years later. They just won, and that's all their leader, Duncan, wanted to do.
Quiet man led a quiet team. The 4 title banners behind him were loud enough.
The Lakers were a team of flash and great ability, but always had odd, sometimes combustible chemistry despite having a coach who was fixated on the zen of things. From the Kobe vs Shaq days, where they feuded on and off despite combining for a three-peat. Then Kobe wanted out time and time again, before the Lakers were gift-wrapped Pau Gasol and made it to three more finals and back-to-back championships. It all ended much like the previous Lakers, getting ousted embarrassingly by a team that played more like a TEAM. For the Kobe/Shaq Lakers it was against the underdog Pistons. This time, it was against the underdog Mavericks, who really never should have been underdogs (more on them later this week). The teams may have changed, and the level of total embarrassment may have been different (this was a sweep), but all the elements were the same, and were so very Laker-ian. There was infighting, which this time came out as Bynum said that the team had trust issues. In the end, they quit on their coach and on their legacy.
The Lakers and Spurs are both great, great franchises, but they represent different things. The Lakers have been about the star, the celebrity, as shown by the line of rich, famous people that showed up to Laker games, to the Lakers love of signing tall, big men. The Lakers always wanted that feeling that they were the biggest team in size and in stardom, and most often, they were right. But this always came at a cost, as the Lakers were never the hardest working team, the team that was best at fighting. Everyone wanted everything on the Lakers, everyone wanted what being a winner in Los Angeles offered, and no one was willing to actually fight for it when it wasn't obviously there to be taken. Other than their dramatic, possibly scandalous and definitely lucky win over the Kings in 2002, they were the favorite in every series in their runs to the NBA Finals. They were never further than two games worse than their playoff opponent in their title runs. In fact, after Shaq left (the guy who was responsible for the Lakers not getting the #1 seed from 2001-2004 but turned it on to monstrous size in the playoffs), the Lakers made the finals three straight times but were the #1 seed each time. In years they weren't the #1 seed, they won just one playoff series (this year, against New Orleans who was basically a one man team). The Lakers never wanted to fight, they wanted to win and win with style. And they did, a lot.
At their peak, they were the most dominant 1-2 bunch of the decade.
Obviously, I feel like the Spurs were a team that fought more, but really, that because they had do. They never got that second great player, the way the Lakers did. If you look at the rosters that the Lakers and Spurs had over the last 12 years, three of the four best players to play on those teams were Lakers, with Kobe, Pau and Shaq joining Tim. (Robinson was basically Andrew Bynum level in 1999 and shell of himself in 2003). The Lakers had the better teams. They were the better destination. They didn't fight because they didn't really have to (I should say, this isn't to say they never did. They have won four dramatic 7 games series since 1999, Portland in '99, the Kings in '02, the T-Wolves in '04 and the Celtics in '10 - and didn't have home court in the middle two). The Spurs fought because they did. They were a machine that had to work to run smoothly, but when it did, there was nothing better.
The lasting memory of the Phil/Kobe era shouldn't be Odom elbowing Nowitzki while the team was down 26 with 9 minutes to go, and Bynum thugging JJ Barea just one minute later, but the fact that they were down 26, well maybe that should be the lasting memory. This was the fourth time that a Kobe led team lost spectacularly in a clinching game. Kobe basically took control of the Lakers starting in 2002-03. First, they lost by 28 at home in Game 6 to San Antonio in 2003, then lost by 31 in game 7 to Phoenix in 2006. Then the two real embarrassments, the 39 point loss in Game 6 to Boston, and finally this 36 point loss in a sweep, the first of Phil Jackson's career, much less Kobe's. When they went down, they went down hard. Luckily for them, they barely went down.
Head to head, the Lakers won four of the six playoff series between the two teams, winning in 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2008, and the Spurs winning in 1999 and 2003. They never had a memorable series, and the only real lasting memory from these meetings was Derek Fisher's shot with .4 seconds left (a shot that gave the Lakers a 3-2 lead instead of San Antonio going up 3-2). Instead of really knocking heads with each other, they did it against the rest of the West. It is amazing that in an era where the Western Conference seemingly got better year after year, two teams were able to win the conference 11 times in 12 (and Dallas needed a lot to get by San Antonio the one year that broke the trend). There were some legitimately great teams in the West over the years, from the 2002 Kings to the 2004 T-Wolves, and 2005 and 2007 Suns. All of them fell to the Spurs and Lakers, all of them had home court, but still couldn't beat the two titans of the West.
Most of their playoff series were really one sided (only two lasted more than 5 games) but there still was one epic moment.
The Spurs were probably the champion that will be more easily forgotten, but they are the most important. At a time in the NBA where everyone is nervous that superteams will take over the NBA (if it hasn't already happened with Miami), and everyone is as nervous that small-market teams will never be able to really compete and never be able to lock up their stars. San Antonio is the answer to both questions. Parker and Ginobili might be borderline hall-of-famers (I would say Ginobili has a better shot than Tony), but there's never been a team that won as many titles in a short period of time with just one true Hall-of-Famer. They were a small market team, and they had success, and they locked up their best player. Not only any best player, but one of the 10 best players in NBA history. The Spurs showed everyone that the small town formula could work, that being housed in a city where free agents don't inspire to be isn't the death knell to title hopes. It takes luck, like getting an all-time coach and all-time player, but these aren't impossible hurdles. It's probably more likely to do that than to ever get players of the level of Dwyane Wade and LeBron James to team up again under the new CBA salary cap. The NBA isn't doomed if teams learn the lesson that San Antonio taught us for 10 years.
Age is the greatest equalizer in sports. Age cripples players long before their desire to win goes away (and for everything I wrote about the Lakers never fighting, Kobe learned sometime around 2005 that the hard work had to be there, that winning was everything and although he wasn't always the hardest fighter, if he thought his team had a chance, he would die to win). It is happening to Roger Federer right now. He's at a point where winning one set off of Rafa Nadal when Nadal isn't playing close to 100%, is seen as a great result. It's happening in a way to Tiger Woods, who is seeing all of these twenty-something rise up at once and collectively make his run at Nicklaus exponentially more difficult. Despite their brilliance, it is happening to Duncan and Bryant. Big men decline quicker and more obviously, but in reality, the performance by Duncan and Bryant in 2011 were really similar. Duncan couldn't stop Zach Randolph. Here is a man who averaged a 35-15-5 against Shaq and Dirk in the 2003 playoffs, and he couldn't stop Zach Randolph and Marc Gasol consistently. Then there is Kobe, who destroyed everyone off of the dribble for years, and he got two layups in the entire Mavs series when being guarded primarily by Jason Kidd. The fact that those two had to play extended playoff seasons year after year after year didn't help either. These two all-time great players will be connected by their immense will to win championships, and by them dominating an era that after Jordan left, needed some domination.
The two best players of their generation loved each other... which didn't make for great drama, but did make for a great story.
The Lakers and Spurs were equals. Their coaches were the two best in the game. Their best player were the two greatest of a generation along with Shaq (at least one of those players was in every Finals since 1999). There was amazing respect between those two franchises, and it would have been perfect if they got to meet this year, but life moves on. Kobe Bryant hails Tim Duncan as "the best power forward ever" and "other than Michael, the best player I've ever played against." Tim calls Kobe "the best player of the decade, easily" (although I, and some others, would dispute that). Kobe hasn't always been a Saint (lest us forget that rape case back in 2003), and Tim hasn't ever been someone willing to let people embrace him the way so many would like to, but they are both classy enough to have been the two people to carry the NBA from the Jordan era to the present. There teams have also been able to carry us through the years where we waited for that next Jordan to come. Now we are still waiting, but take a moment and think, when will the next Spurs and Lakers come? Could it be the Bulls and Heat in the 2010's? Possibly, but I doubt two teams own a conference like this again. Even the Colts and Patriots had the Steelers (and Steelers fans would say that the Colts are the "other" team, winning one less AFC Title while being admittedly more year-to-year great). The Mavs always won 50 games, but only once made the Finals and only twice (not including this year) made the Conference Finals. The Lakers and Spurs were not a true rivalry, since there was no hatred, but still they went together perfectly, and it ended in the perfect way, with them both bowing out quickly, in the fashion that defines them.
