The Fall of a Non-Dynasty

By: David Lister

When the San Antonio Spurs swept the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2007 NBA Finals, it seemed to cement their status as the latest NBA dynasty – at least in the all-important court of public opinion. After all, winning four championships in nine years is a special achievement.

And the Spurs are a lot of things. They’re an incredibly well run franchise. Since David Robinson began playing for the team in 1989, the Spurs have had only one losing season – 1996-97 in which Robinson played a total of 147 minutes all season and the year before Tim Duncan came to town. Even more staggering, the Spurs have won at least 50 games every year since ‘89 all but four times, and one of those years was due to the lockout.

As for Duncan, he’s clearly the greatest power forward of all time. You could make an argument he’s actually a center, but whatever. Apologies to Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Kevin McHale or anyone else considered worthy of that honor. None could combine Duncan’s consistent dominance and playoff success.

While I’m complimenting the Spurs, this is surely a good time to mention how great of a coach Gregg Popovich is. He’s been part of the organization since 1994 (he was also an assistant with the team from 1988-1992) and has shown in that time that not only is he one of the premier basketball minds of this era but of any era.

So don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate all the things the Spurs are. But they’re not a dynasty.

Dynasties don’t fail to win back-to-back championships. Dynasties don’t lose in the second round of the playoffs three years between 2001 and 2006. Dynasties don’t go through their era of domination without having a historical season.

The Spurs best season very well may have been 1998-99, their first championship. Of course this was also the lockout shortened season (strike one), the year Jordan retired again (strike two) and the year the Spurs avoided the second-best team in the league – the Utah Jazz – in the playoffs (I believe that makes three strikes).

Their next championship, in ‘02-03, is the closest thing the Spurs had to a dominant season. They beat the Lakers, a team that had knocked them out of the previous two playoffs, and defeated the Dallas Mavericks – co-owners of the best record in the league – in the Western Conference Finals. Of course the Spurs also lost 22 regular season games and had an anti-climactic Finals battle against a less-than-great New Jersey Nets team. Sorry, but that’s not a historic season.

In ‘04-05 the Spurs failed to win 60 games and they failed to have the best record in the NBA (they finished tied for second). While they won a hard-fought seven game series against the Detroit Pistons that year, the series was anything but memorable. Most basketball fans have actually been trying pretty hard to forget it.

And finally ‘06-07. Once again the Spurs failed to win 60 games, they failed to own the NBA’s best record and they even failed to win their own division. Then there were the suspensions during the Phoenix series, but that’s a whole other discussion.

I just don’t see it. When you drop the dynasty tag on the Spurs, you’re automatically comparing them to the 2000-03 Lakers, the 1990-98 Bulls, the 1984-88 Lakers and the Celtics of the 1960s. For all the things the Spurs are, they’re not comparable to those teams and they’re certainly not a dynasty.

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David Lister is the web editor for the National Sports Review. You can reach him at chicagosportsreview@gmail.com. Go Cards.

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1 Comment

  1. Sorry, the NBA is the arbiter of all things official in this league and they have already declared the Spurs an official Dynasty.

    David Stern has given a speech calling the Spurs “the NBA’s newest Dynasty”, the NBA has released DVD’s about the Spurs Dynasty, and in an ESPN poll, every country on the planet, and every state in the union (except sour-grapes Arizona) said the Spurs were a Dynasty by an overwhelming majority of popular opinion. So, as much as it just annoys the hell out of you, the rest of the world knows the truth. The rest of the world knows that the Spurs are a Dynasty.

    Tell your revisionist history to the other bitter drunks at the bar.

    Comment by Steve on May 31, 2008

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