It’s August, free agency is all but done, the schedule has been released, and therefore we are in the official doldrums of the NBA offseason. At Pounding the Rock, we often like to find fun projects or series to do to pass the time. We’ve especially enjoyed bracket-style tournaments over the years that have included Manu Ginobili’s best plays, the Spurs’ best playoff plays, and last year, we held a 1-on-1 tournament pitting the top 32 Spurs of all time against each other. (That would be an interesting
revisit in a few years when I’m sure some current players will have entered or risen up the rankings a bit.)
This summer, the Spurs returned to the upper echelon of the NBA with a Finals run that officially returned them to that NBA villain role we all enjoyed back in their championship days. With that in mind, we decided a fun project would be to return the favor by pitting people who have been villains to the Spurs over the years up against each other in a bracket-style tournament. Readers will vote for the biggest villain in a poll, and the winner of each match-up will advance to the next round, with the eventual winner crowned as the biggest Spurs villain of all time.
There will be four categories that will consist of eight entries each for a total of 32:
- Spurs Killers — players who have specifically given the Spurs the most trouble over the years and/or made devasting shots or plays that will haunt our minds for all eternity.
- Former Spurs — players who once played for the Spurs but became villains either because of betrayal, trash talk, they hate on the Spurs, etc.
- Dirty Players — players who committed dirty plays against the Spurs, injured (or attempted to injure) a player, altered a playoff match-up, etc., and we will never forgive them.
- Spurs Haters — a more open category that can include players as well as coaches, owners, etc. from outside the organization who openly and publicly trashed the Spurs for whatever reason.
We have our own ideas but would also like your input before setting up the bracket. Give us some of your thoughts for each category and include why you have that person. Some may be extremely obvious, but there also may be ones that you specifically remember that many others may not, so include them all. Put your ideas in the comments below, and the most liked or frequently suggested may get used in the final bracket! Hopefully this will be another fun series while we wait for Training Camp to get here at the end of September.
