Message-ID: <374DD4C8.3DBF@bellsouth.net>
From: Donna Anderson <ander98@bellsouth.net>
Reply-To: ander98@bellsouth.net
Newsgroups: rec.sport.basketball.pro
Subject: Re: European championship vs NBA playoffs
Date: Thu, 27 May 1999 23:27:05 +0000


Ed Sayre wrote:
> 
> abraxas@ameritech.net wrote:
> : Championships are exquisite moments that belong to the players and their
> : fans.  Don't spoil it by making it a lame performance for a national
> : audience (and besides, how many people watch the ceremony who aren't
> : fans of the winning team?)
> 
>         But, wouldn't any championship moment be enhanced by a
>         Bob Costas 15 minute monologue?


Costas:  Duncan goes up, shoots, scores, spurs win the title.  The spurs
have won the 1999 nba title.

(3 second pause)

Costas: ONE COULD SAY that Tim Duncan was destined to win an nba title. 
Growing up on the island of st croix, Duncan was an up and coming
swimmer.  His sister was actually on the national team.  Interesting
enough, that team also featured sally jennings, who happens to be the
neise of our own steve snapper jones.  But anyway, Duncan was forced to
switch from swimming to basketball after a hurricane destroyed the
pool.  ONE COULD WONDER if it is just a coincidence that duncan's pool
was destroyed?  After all, another hundred miles or so in any other
direction and the storm doesn't have nearly the same effect.  The worst
case scenario is probably that the pool would suffer only minor damage,
and that Duncan probably wouldn't have switched from swimming to
basketball.  What if, and this is just a hypothetical question, Duncan's
pool was never destroyed?  ONE COULD SPECULATE that we would have an
entirely different nba champion than we do now.  We could even take it a
step further and imagine that David Robinson didn't suffer a season
ending injury during the 1997 season.  IT IS DOUBTFUL that the spurs
would have been a lottery team that year, and extremely unlikley that
they would have acquired the #1 pick.  An optimist might even say that
Robinson's injury was a BLESSING IN DISGUISE.  As for david robinson,
some players might be upset about having to take on a lesser role, but
most people agree that he has handled the situation with dignity.  IT IS
ONLY FITTING that Duncan was able to come to the spurs and help Robinson
win the title that eluded him earlier in his career.  ONE MAY REMEMBER
that the twin towers experiment has been tried before, MOST NOTABLY with
Hakeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson.  This pairing had mixed results, as
the rockets were able to make it to an nba finals in 1986, but were
defeated by the Celtics that year, who had a team which some consider to
be one of the best of all time.  Anyways, about Sampson, after that
season he was plagued by injuries for the rest of his career and ONE
COULD SAY that he never lived up to his full potential.  Well, that's
all the time we have.  Don't forget we have a special two hour episode
of the Pretender coming up next, followed by an all new Profiler.  For
Doug Collins and Ahmad Rashad, this is Bob Costas saying good night. 
Michael