Now, Not Later: The Focus of the Spurs

There is a wish, amongst those of us who still pay attention to the NBA (I know, it's theoretical, but at least we're not at the NHL level yet), to just get this season over with, put it in the books, give the Spurs their five minutes of huzzah and get on to what's *really* important.

Candidates for that include:

> Whether or not Greg Oden is a young Bill Russell, or secretly older than Bill Russell

> How Kevin Durant's weak as a kitten arms will somehow keep him from destiny -- being a slightly better Rashard Lewis

> How much of a stiff the tall Chinese guy (Yi Jianlian) will turn out to be, and what team will cause their fans to rip out their hair and take him

> Which member of Florida's frontcourt will translate into this draft's Chris Bosh (i.e., off the radar early, and possibly better than all of them late)

> Whether or not the Hawks will pass on a can't miss point guard yet again, so they can see just a little bit more of Tyronn Lue and Speedy Claxton

> How the Sixers will package all of their picks together to ensure their continued .450 existence as a phenomenally irrelevant team in a city that is quickly forgetting that it really loves basketball

> The bare minimum that Isiah Thomas can do to remain employed, and continue to make life easy for those of us who like to blog about the NBA

> Which team will overpay for Chauncey Billups

> Who would win in a Find Your Ass contest: Flip Saunders or Mike Brown (my money's on Mike, but only because he's got a bigger ass, and he puts his thumb in it so often)

> Whether or not Shaq, in a fit of hunger, will eat a dieting child on his reality show this summer

See, I just ripped off ten future points without really trying. My mind's in the future too. It's something we all do.

But in all of that -- the stuff that is, simply, more interesting than the Worst Finals Ever and the Worst Season Ever -- there's a simple but telling point... none of us, with the noted and extreme exception of the San Antonio Spurs, are living in the present moment when we dwell on these things.

We're all off in some wild blue future yonder, where the games are more interesting, the new lineups are more compelling, and Bill Walton is a silent figure on aging footage, throwing an outlet pass.

If Drew Gooden has ever, in his entire NBA career, devoted himself fully and entirely into the game... well, I'll eat my hat. In ten years, when he gets released and looks at a closet with 7 uniforms in it, he might -- might -- have a fleeting memory of what it was like to be in the Finals, having a Hall of Famer carry his water.

Watch LeBron James, clearly fouled on the final play of Game 3, shrug it off in five minutes and give Bruce "The Hitman" Bowen a mouth job for his 13 points in that game.

I hate to invoke Saint Jordan here, but how do you think he would have played this? No one wants to remember this, but the '90s Icon rode the refs worse than anyone this side of Larry Bird.

He also got the calls.

And when Jordan lost a series, early in his career, he wasn't concerned about his global marketing in the aftermath. Instead, he was creating new and exciting holes in his teammates.

Why? Because Jordan was entirely in the moment (no, I'm not saying heat -- I've looked at enough YouTube videos of that for one lifetime, thank you). Jordan was entirely committed to winning. He'd rather lose a family member than a game. He'd rather lose his livelihood than a bet.

This makes him a highly flawed human being, and a pretty terrible GM. It also made people want to watch him play basketball.

And that's not what they saw from the Cavs, despite James having (shh!) a better all-around game than Jordan did at the same time in their careers.

The Spurs? Hitman Bowen does not care that he's got a worse reputation in the league now than Ron Artest. Robert Horry's sole goal in life is to fill his hands with rings, so that he can win his game of Championship Ring Whip It Out with Scottie Pippen.

Manu Ginobili, for all of his flops and soccer theatrics, puts his nose into more contact than Steve Nash. Tony Parker sublimates his scoring to feed Tim Duncan. Tim Duncan sublimates his scoring to feed Tony Parker. Both of them take charges when they don't have to, fight through picks in blowouts, and make teammates that weren't this intense in other locations -- you think it's a coincidence that Jacques Vaughn and Brent Barry could stay in front of the Cavs' penetration, while Gibson, Pavlovic, et al could not do the same? -- suck it up.

And even in Game 3, when they had absolutely no legs, bounces or rhythm, they won on the road, mostly because they had the presence of mind to not do dumb things. Game Four, they got to every board and made just about every free throw. They focus.

On the final truly competitive play of this season, Anderson Varejao tried to penetrate and score from 25 feet away, against the best defensive big man in the game. One suspects that his head was in his own little video game, where Anderson has given his avatar God skills, or something. No matter what, it wasn't in the game.

The Spurs do not have that issue. They do not care who their first round draft pick is. They are not worried about who their coach will be. They have no meaningful free agent or salary cap issues. They don't really care what the Mavs are going to do, or the Suns, or any other team. They worry about these things as much as a lion would worry about what the gazelles are plotting.

When you live in the moment, you have power. You aren't multi-tasking, procrastinating, serving two masters or distracting yourself with doubt. You are a laser, a machine, a simple device that is monomanical in its focus. You are the Spurs, a team that takes care of today while everyone else is thinking about tomorrow.

And so, you win today, and probably tomorrow as well.