My Twelve Most Hated San Antonio Spurs

John Hollinger is fond of saying that, despite the fact that they've been dominating the league for the better part of a decade, no one really hates the Spurs because they're so nice and professional. John Hollinger has clearly never spoken to a fan of the Phoenix Suns. Besides, I'd call them whiny, insufferably arrogant, and unscrupulously devious before I'd go for nice and professional; while none of the Spurs ever seem to get caught firing off guns in barfights or sexually assaulting groupies like their colleagues do, there are many other ways of being a dick.

Last night, as I read Hollinger's scouting report on Tim Duncan, my body was literally wracked with spasms of hatred. That's right: my animus towards that bastard actually manifested itself physically. It occured to me that this phenomenon needed to be recorded, carefully analyzed, and digested in all its particulars for the benefit of future vituperologists, not to mention for the sake of streamlining my Spur-hating process for maximum efficiency. The Spurs, after all, have reached that illustrious threshhold of detestability from which a team or athlete can never be removed. Some teams, such as the Lakers of the early part of this decade, earn the hatred of an hour; once they cease to dominate, one no longer gets all that worked up about them (though I certainly hated the Lakers fully in their day). For me, the Spurs have joined the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Yankees, and the Texas Longhorns (places I won't be moving: Texas) as teams that I will despise forever, even if they finish dead last every season from now until the day I die.

So in preparation for the upcoming NBA season, I'm cataloguing the twelve Spurs whom I hate the most. You will note that this number is sufficient to cover the entire active roster. I think the experience will be illuminating. When Bruce Bowen sticks his leg in between an opponent's to cause a turnover that leads to one of those soul-dessicating Tony Parker teardrop shots, which player is most responsible for the bile rising in my throat? Now I will know.

First off, some dishonorable mentions. I hate these guys, but not in enough detail to warrant a finely wrought thesis on the subject.

• Ian Mahinmi: What an infuriating name. It seems like it almost rhymes, but that turns out to be a tease, and it asks us to end one syllable with an "n" before starting the next one with an "m", which is positively rude. I'd hate this guy a lot more if it weren't a near 100% certainty that he's going to suck completely.
• Sean Elliott: Sean Elliott is said to be a nice guy, and he was very brave to come back from a kidney transplant to play in the league once more...and that's precisely the problem. Thanks to him, people feel obligated to have pity for someone associated with the San Antonio Spurs, causing intense cognitive dissonance and probably a few nervous breakdowns. Also, he was a pretty lame announcer without anything particularly interesting to say.
• Ime Udoka: "Hey, looks like Bruce Bowen's finally getting old, inching closer and closer to the welcoming grave. He'll probably stop being good pretty soon, and then we won't have to watch his sickeningly ugly form of play in service of the world's most evil basketball team." Every NBA fan in America has been having these thoughts for a year or two. Now the Spurs go and sign Udoka, who's pretty much the exact same guy except five years younger. No, it's cool, go ahead and smash my other testicle, too; it's not like I wanted it.
• David Robinson: Truth be told, I have surprisingly little beef with Mr. Robinson. Maybe it's because, per the Hollinger theory, he actually is incredibly nice, and he lacks Sean Elliott's cloying human interest story value to boot. Still, he did us all a massive disservice by getting injured in '96-'97, causing the Spurs to suck for just one season and giving them the draft pick that became Tim Duncan, one of the ten or fifteen greatest players of all time. Why couldn't you have just soldiered on as usual that year, David, making the Spurs into fringe contenders who would never quite get over the hump for a few years more? That was pretty uncool, and definitely not what Jesus would've done.

Alright, finally: the Spur whom I hate twelfth most:

Matt Bonner

Has anyone ever liked the unathletic, tall white guy who shoots threes and gets beaten on defense like a rented mule with a "Please beat me!" sign on its back? No. I asked everyone who's ever bothered to think about the question, and we all agreed that the answer is no. Even if that guy is good, like Dirk Nowitzki, or kind of a little bit good, like Troy Murphy, no one likes him. If that guy also happens to be the palest New Hampshirean in captivity, it's that much worse; how could you not resent a guy that physically unappealing for going into one of the professions most likely to cause images of his grotesque whiteness to be broadcast all over the globe, with nary a sleeve or a pant leg to obscure the awfulness? Matt Bonner playing basketball professionally is like a lawyer going to work for the mafia: yeah, the money's good, and your actions aren't in and of themselves immoral, but what about all the innocent people out there suffering because of them anyway? Sometimes, you've got to let your own interests be superceded by the greater good. For Matt Bonner, that meant giving up his mediocre NBA career for, most likely, a job as the Walmart employee who restocks the really high shelves. Unfortunately, he wasn't man enough to do it. I hope he's learned how to cram some of his hundred-dollar bills into his ears to drown out the screams of all the misbegotten babies who happen to look at the TV screen at the wrong time. It'd be tough for him to live with himself otherwise.

More to come.