I was about 12 years old when I realized that there were people in the Dark Ages who had lived amongst the ruins of the Roman Empire.
Once a week in my art class (usually on a Friday) we were given free reign to pursue whatever we wanted, so long as it pertained to either the creation or study of art.
Being a poor visual artist, I tended to opt for study, and would plop myself into a beanbag chair in the corner of the room with a stack of art books.
In the time before the proliferation of google image
searches this felt like a revelation, and I spent countless hours pouring through volumes of paintings that I’d otherwise only have seen in a museum.
I can still recall the goosebumpy thrill of stumbling into the deeply shadowed chiaroscuro of El Greco, or the eerie moonlit majesty of John Atkinson Grimshaw.
But it was a piece by the French Romantic painter Hubert Robert, found in a compendium of work contained in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, that so confounded me that I begged my teacher to make me a photocopy of it.
I kept my humble paper copy of ‘Ruins of a Roman Bath with Washerwomen’ in a manila folder on my childhood bookshelf for many years.
From time to time I would take it out and just stare at it. I couldn’t understand why it had captured me so, but I knew it had something to do with the nature of the situation.
If you’ve seen it, you know that it depicts a towering Roman edifice surrounding a once-ornate bathhouse. It’s clear that the architecture is no longer being maintained. The age is visible. There are stones missing.
And yet, it’s still so majestic. The ruin itself testifies to the grandeur that came before.
The structure is still enormous and strong, and I suspect that one of the first thoughts that anyone has looking at it, is to wonder what it must have looked like at the peak of the empire.
If it were just a painting of those ruins, it would be arresting enough as is.
But it’s the people the really threw me.
Gathered around the edges of the previously opulent pool, are hunched over figures, doing their laundry in the remains of the bathhouse.
I had developed quite a real fondness for the subject of history by the age of twelve, but this was something that had never occurred to me.
People had continued living in Roman ruins.
I suppose some part of my brain had to have registered this, knowing that the Colosseum was still standing, but to me, ruins weren’t a place where people lived.
Sure, if they were important enough, maybe someone would build a museum, and people would come to visit them, but the thought of anyone actually living there was astonishing.
But people had in fact done that. It’s all over the historical record. They did their best to maintain the plumbing and the roads, and the structures, and just stayed where they were.
Crusaders patched and fortified them. Some people carried on as if the Western Empire still existed, awiating a return to glory that never came.
Last night I felt that familiar feeling washing over me any time I saw Warriors fans in the crowd, as the Spurs punctured any illusions of a lingering Golden State greatness.
It’s one thing to witness the fall of an empire. It’s another thing altogether to keep living there.
For a moment (and in spite of Draymond Green’s flagrant antics), I felt a wave of pity wash over me. It quickly turned to empathy with the realization that I too had been there.
Thirty points down at the half, with an all-too-clear vision of the future in front of them, these people were still holding on to a return to glory. Maybe not in this game, but to the season as a whole.
Steph Curry turns 39 in March. Draymond Green hasn’t been an offensive plus in years. Jimmy Butler is still to return from an ACL injury at an age where recovery is negligible.
Promising rookie Yaxel Lendeborg was learning hard lessons about facing the defense of true contenders (he went 1-13), and probably won’t be up to speed in the way that aging squad needs as they approach their 40’s.
There’s no young Kawhi Leonard to tie everything together. The sun is setting. Has, realistically, already set.
There are still people doing their laundry in the ruins.
And who am I to blame them? If not for the arrival of a certain French sensation, I’d probably be right there with them.
But it does speak to the difference in approaches from the two franchises.
Pursuing longevity, the Popovich/Duncan-era Spurs almost never cashed in all their chips for an all-or-nothing swing at a title. They kept building as they went. And when the end of their run was well and truly visible, they looked at what they had left and tried to repurpose it in a productive way.
It’s not terribly dissimilar from what some of those old Roman communities did.
Recognizing the end for what it was, the citizens of cities like Avneches, Aosta, and Split began to build their own structures within the confines of the old city walls, utilizing some of the remaining architecture as ready-made stone quarries for their rebuilding efforts, while retaining the meticulously laid-out street grids of their predecessors.
There seems to be this idea circulating around the NBA that a rebuild must tear everything down to the absolute studs. That nothing should remain of the previous era. No notion. No mentality. No prolonged eye on the future.
But that’s not how the Celtics or Lakers did it. And it’s not how the Spurs have done it, either.
Sometimes it’s okay to acknowledge the wisdom of a previous era, while knowing that it’s time to turn the page. Not everything needs to be abandoned. There are some points of expertise that endure throughout the ages.
But you can’t just live in the ruins, either, hoping for a lottery ticket to cure all ills, or a glorious return to form.
These Spurs aren’t the Spurs of old, and that’s important to acknowledge.
They’re building something of their own now, but they’re doing so within the thoughtfully constructed confines of a previous glory, and the result is something that feels both new and familiar.
Something as fresh as it is reminiscent. Something as aspirational as it is nostalgic.
You can’t just do your laundry in the halls of a fallen kingdom. That’s how you end up losing your shirt.
Takeaways
- I have to say, Harrison Barnes has looked surprisingly spry so far this season. I assumed he would function as emergency depth when he was re-signed, but he look more like the early-season version of himself from last season, before a slump that allowed Julian Champagnie to work his way into the starting lineup. While he’s certainly not a starter anymore, he’s savvy and sharp-shooting enough to serve as the hot hand on nights where Carter Bryant is missing shots and assignment. That probably raises some questions about Bryant at the same time, but it really underscores just how much functional depth the Spurs have right now.
- It’s also been great seeing Luke Kornet find more of rhythm with the bench unit, after a somewhat concerning opening slate. There’s no way the Spurs win in such a landslide without him stifling their 2nd unit, and that was his 3rd out of the last 4 games with a positive plus/minus, putting him back into the positive in Defensive Wins Shares and Defensive Box Plus/Minus for the season. I still have concerns about the postseason, but it’s nice to see the trend reverse as the Spurs have badly needed it to.
- And while I’m not sure that Stephon Castle’s outstanding performance is indicative of how the rest of the season is going to go for him, it was an absolute blast of adrenaline to see him shoot the lights out against the Warriors specifically, especially after seeming hesitant over the past stretch of games, with the additional pain of his shot not falling. Still, you can really see why the Spurs are committed to turning him into an off-ball threat, because when that shot is falling, you become almost impossible to handle. Kudos to Mitch for having the good sense to ride the hot hand on a night when Wemby was getting a lot of defensive attention, but it also felt like this would have been a blowout even if Wemby had ridden the pine after the 1st quarter. If this was Castle finding his shot and his confidence, they really might keep trucking on at a 68-win pace. That quite literally changes everything, and bring into question whether or not rotations should even be altered all that much once Tobias Harris makes his debut, barring situational need.
- Also, I’d just like to note that Keldon Johnson has really become such a patient jack-of-all for the team. It really doesn’t matter who you put him with, he’s going to find the point of need and do his best to fill it. There have been night where his scoring isn’t needed/prioritized, and he just spent his time crashing the boards and giving it his all on defense, and nights where he comes alive on the offensive team when a particularly juicy matchup presents itself, or the team just needs more points. I’m not sure how the Spurs are going to re-sign him with their eyes on the cap and a whole host of contract balancing issues to come, but I’d love to see them do it. He’s not a perfect player by any means, but he’s really become a perfect Spur.
Playing You Out – The Theme Song of the Evening:
Lighting Crashes by Live
