While my favorite topic to discuss is NFL Football, I would like to deviate from my NFL predictions to talk about an interesting story in the world of sports.  Now that the Spurs have won their 4th title in 9 years, people are trying to decide two things.  1) Are the Spurs a dynasty, and 2) If they are, where does their dynasty rank among the rest of the NBA dynasties. 

The first question I do not believe is very hard to answer.  Yes, the Spurs are a dynasty.  In the last 9 years, the Spurs have won 4 titles, the Lakers won 3 titles, and the Pistons and Heat have each won one.  Furthermore, the Heat won their title with Shaq, who was the major centerpiece of the Lakers 3 titles.  Seeing Shaq and Duncan have won 8 of the last 9 NBA titles, how can the Spurs be anything but a dynasty?  The Lakers and Spurs have been the two best teams in the NBA's Post Jordan era.  The Spurs have more titles than the Lakers, but the Spurs have never repeated, much less won three in a row.  Never the less, 4 titles in 9 years should qualify a team to be a dynasty.

However, just because they are a dynasty doesn't mean people should lose their minds when trying to evaluate this team.  I read an article by Mark Kreigel on the Fox website, titled, "Spurs Should be Given Their Due."  I'm fine with that.  They are officially a dynasty right now.  That's fine.  Mark Kreigel goes on to write, "A team deserves to be judged in the context of its era. Hence, a comparison between, say, Larry Bird's 1984 Celtics and Duncan's 2007 Spurs makes for little more than a spirited debate at the bar. All that can be proven is this: Bird has three rings, Duncan has four."  He also states, "It says here that Tim Duncan's San Antonio Spurs - who last night won their fourth championship in nine years - have now posted the third best run in NBA history."

I understand that Mark Kreigel is a much more respected journalist that I, but if he really believes that this is the third best run in NBA history, he really needs to go back and watch some old game film.  I'm not exactly sure which NBA he has been watching.  Maybe he slept through so much of this years playoffs, that he forgot just how bad it was. 

First off, you can't even compare teams from the 1980s to the teams of today.  It isn't the same era nor is it the same game.  The 1980s was basketball at its finest.  Today's NBA is basketball at its worst.  Here are some numbers that will illustrate what I am talking about.  Let's look at the 1984-1985 playoffs.  The Lakers played 19 games on route to an NBA title win over the Boston Celtics.  The Lakers averaged 126.3 points per playoff game on route to that title.  The Celtics averaged a mere 113.1 points per game in their 21-playoff contests.   To put that in perspective Golden State Warriors led the post season in scoring with a 106.3 points per game, and the Run and Gun Suns averaged 104.1 points per contest.  Those were the only two teams in the playoffs to score over 100 points per game, and neither made it out of the second round.  In 1984-1985, the lowest scoring team in the playoffs was the Washington Wizards, who averaged 101.8 points per game.  This year, the Rockets protected the rear with 87.3 points per game. 

This era is pathetic.  People point to the Pistons as the team that brought defense to the NBA.  At least they played offense too.  The 1988-89 Pistons averaged 100.6 points per game and the 1989-90 Pistons averaged 101.8 points per game during the playoffs.  That was good for 12th out of 16 teams in those playoffs.  In today's NBA, that would be considered a scoring flurry. 

People, ask, why are the Spurs boring?  It's not just the Spurs that are boring.  The NBA is boring.  It is fitting that a boring team is the best team in a boring era.  There is no scoring anymore.  The Spurs averaged 95.7 points per game, good enough for 6th in the postseason this year. 

Now I'm not one of these people that will pretend like every team scored 115.0 points per game in the 1980s.  From 1980-1990 there were 15 teams that averaged less than 95.7 point per playoff contest.  13 of them lost in the first round.  The only two teams to advance past the first round were the 87-88 Bulls, who averaged a playoff worst 94.8 points for 10 games, and the 1980-81 Kings who averaged a playoff worst 91.7 points for 15 games.  To put that in perspective, there were 9 teams that had a worse scoring average than 91.7 per game, or over half the playoff field this year. 

Every year, people speculate as to why no one is watching the NBA playoffs.  Maybe, it's the late start times.  Maybe it's that the 1st round lasts longer than the NBA regular season.  Maybe, it's the fact all the good teams are in the West.  Maybe if we got rid of East vs. West and seeded all the teams according to record, people would watch.  I have an idea.  Why don't we get some players that can actually play professional basketball?  Maybe if we got some real players in the NBA, people would actually care again.

The 1980s were great.  You had Magic's Lakers.  You had Bird's Celtics.  You had Thomas's Pistons.  Dominique's Hawks.  Hakeem's Rockets.  Malone and Stockton's Jazz.  Malone, Erving, and Barkley's Sixers.  Ewing's Knicks.  Mark Price's Cavs.  Terry Cummings Bucks.  It was fantastic.  I loved that game.  I loved watching Bird and Magic go at it in 3 finals.  I loved watching Bird and Dominique trading daggers as an appetizer.  I loved watching the Bulls and Pistons brawl with one another.  I loved watching the Celtics and Pistons do the same thing a couple years before that.  I loved watching the Rockets knock out the Lakers in the first round in 1986.  I loved the Fo Fi Fo Sixers.  I loved the Boston Massacre, otherwise known as Game 1 of the 1985 Finals.  The Lakers were destroyed 148-114, in a series the Lakers ended up winning 4-2.   There were good teams, good storylines, and good games.  It was the best basketball played on the biggest stage. 

What were the storylines this season?  Amare Stoudemire losing his cool at the end of Game 4 and how much Eva and Tony would spend on their wedding cake.  That was it, thank you for watching your 2007 NBA playoffs.  I would rather watch old games on ESPN Classic than this pathetic product.  Obviously, I'm not alone; otherwise the Spelling Bee wouldn't be outdrawing the NBA Finals. 

My view on the Spurs.  Tim Duncan is the best power forward in the history of basketball.  He would have been a dominant player in any era.  The Spurs, however, are the best team in a bad era.   It started to slide after Jordan's first retirement.  The Bulls averaged 103.9 per game, 100.4 per game, and 102.4 per game in their first three title runs.  However, they were 6th, 11th, and 4th in the playoffs in scoring average.  Then came the first Jordan retirement.  The Rockets and their 97.1 points per game played the Knicks and their 88.1 points per game.  This is the series I like to refer to as the Series that Destroyed the NBA.  The next year rebounded, with the Rockets and their 107.1 points / game vs. the Magic and their 102.4 points per game.  Since then, it has been all down hill.  None of the last 3 Bulls Championship teams scored over 100 points per game.  Jordan sure was fun to watch, but the overall scoring was way down.  The last Bulls series featured a Bulls team that averaged 93.1 points per game vs. a Jazz team that averaged 89.0 points per game.  The Lakers and Pistons treated us to 88.1 and 87.1 point per game basketball in 2004.  At least we had Kobe's sexual assault trial to keep our interest.  In fact, the only team to score over 100.00 points per game and make the Finals since that Rockets Magic Final are the 2000-2001 Lakers.  They averaged 103.4 points per game.  That wasn't very interesting either, because the Lakers used that scoring boost to propel themselves to a 15-1 postseason record. 

The Spurs have averaged 88.4, 94.8, 96.9, and 95.7 points per playoff game.  Their opponents have averaged 85.0, 93.6, 90.2, and 88.8 points per playoff game.  To put into perspective how bad that Knicks 85.0 average is, the 1953 Minneapolis Lakers averaged 82.9 points per game before the implementation of the 24-second shot clock.  That destroys the theory that the Spurs have this great defense team that is able to dominate other good offenses, similar to the Bad Boy Pistons. All four of the teams they played advance through three rounds of Eastern Conference competition to face the Spurs.  Yet against inferior competition, they weren't scoring either.  All four averaged less per game then the Spurs did for the playoffs.  The Bad Boy Pistons were a dominant defensive team in an offensive era.  They beat a Lakers team that averaged 110.5 points per playoff game and a Blazers team that averaged 107.1 points per game in the playoffs.  The Spurs are a good defense playing in an offensive smelling offensive era.  

A lot of this is not the Spurs fault.  They can only play the teams given to them.  There are a number of problems out of their control.  1) The League is suffering from too much expansion.  In 1984-1985 there were 23 teams in the NBA.  This season there were 31 teams.  That is 96 extra players spread out through the league.  If the 96 worst players in the league were given pink slips, and the remaining talent redistributed through the league, you could have some of those stacked teams in the 1980s and scoring would go back up. 2) Too many bad young players.  Back in the 1980s all players went to school for at least 2 years.  A few left after 3 years, and many stayed all four.  Not every college player became an All-Star.  At least they were ready to impact the league.  In today's league, you have to teach your rookie to shoot a jumper.  In today's league, Kwame Brown keeps getting a contract for playing poor basketball. 3) Too much emphasis on dunks and 3 pointers, 4) Too much emphasis on the stars.  Back then everyone had star players.  The league didn't need Jordan to win a series, because there were other marketable players.  Today if James, Bryant, or Wade isn't in the finals we have a crisis.  In the case of James, his team was so bad the NBA still had a crisis. 

All of this has led to less talented teams and a poorer product.  Don't get me wrong.  Duncan and O'Neal are First Ballot Hall of Fame Players.  However, as good as they are those guys do not combine to win 8-9 titles in the 1980s, unless they are on the same team.  There was too much talent and too many talented teams.  Which gets me back to the original premises of this post.  There is nothing wrong with calling the Spurs a dynasty.  Every sport has ups and downs in its product.  The NBA is in a downtime, and the Spurs have been the best team in that era.  There is nothing wrong with calling Tim Duncan the best power forward in the history of the NBA.  It isn't his fault that such a great talent is stuck without a time machine in this bad era.  That said, don't kid yourself and start saying this is the third best run in the history of the NBA. 

Tim Duncan doesn't need to become more exciting to get his due.  He doesn't need to date someone hotter than Eva, shoot up a strip club, or dye his hair silver.  The NBA needs to become more exciting.  If the Spurs want to be an all time dynasty, they need to get a time machine from Doc Brown and Marty and travel back to the year 1985.  Because, as long as they are stuck in this watered down talent starved era, where Eva and Tony's wedding is the most interesting playoff topic, the Spurs will never be able to play the competition necessary to move ahead of the dynasties from better days gone by.