Setting the table for Spurs season (Part I)
Local broadcast legend hangs up the mic, the state of San Antonio’s partnership with Bally Sports, and a look ahead to a big opening week.
The NBA’s annual schedule release is an event that ropes in fans from varying tiers of interest. There’s the ‘Hell yeah, content in August, give me ANYTHING’ crowd, the ‘Eh, sure, why not?’ group, and the inexplicably joyless ‘This is dumb, why do we make such a big deal out of it?’ band of grumps.
But there’s also a fourth faction of folks that sets aside a block in its calendar for a much-needed break from normal levels of internetting in order to reach max internetting — a time where the sickos can look at the basketball season ahead (which is still nearly two months away) and begin to plot storylines, identify key dates, count back-to-backs, compare road trips, and search for matchups against the teams they hate more than any other. We are the degenerates.
As I approached this exercise in schedule analysis nearly two weeks after it was released, I wanted to do so from an angle that differs from the standard breakdown template. Every season has its ebbs and flows, momentum-building opportunities and danger zones, and even the occasional plot twist. Our job here is to do the best we can over the course of the next few newsletters to chart a probable path and answer a few potential questions along the way.
But first, let’s take a second to reset before diving into the hoops forecast.
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Voice of the Spurs hangs up the mic
Following the always-anticipated release of the league schedule came the bittersweet announcement that Bill Land, the award-winning longtime voice of the Spurs, would be retiring ahead of the 2024-25 season after 21 years as the organization’s lead play-by-play man.
Land, who in 2023 was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer, says he’s “feeling good,” and is “excited about doing whatever I want to do whenever I want to do it.” (Bill, if you’re reading this, I hope you don’t mind me sharing, but I know the fans love to hear you’re doing well!)
Just a personal anecdote: Bill’s is the only lead television voice of the Spurs I’ve ever known. Between growing up in Fredericksburg, going to college at Texas Tech in Lubbock, and moving to another state for my first job out of school, I wasn’t able to regularly watch local broadcasts until the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season because I am ‘NBA League Pass wasn’t really a thing yet’ years old. (Thank you, Jay Howard and Bill Schoening, for your excellent AM radio play-by-play guidance throughout my childhood.) It also happened to be my first year covering the team — the old days at Pounding the Rock and SB Nation.
Bill was a friendly, welcoming presence for a 25-year-old blogger whose professional experience to that point consisted primarily of high-school sports coverage with a bit of college ball sprinkled around the edges. Transitioning from small-town Texas press boxes to an NBA locker room on the verge of what would be a multi-year string of deep playoff runs and perennial title expectations was a hell of a culture shock, and Bill was one of the folks around the building who helped make it about as easy to learn the ropes as possible, whether he knew it in real time or not.
Neither the booth nor the media rooms will be the same without Land around, but at least we got one season of the immediately iconic, “OH MAMA, WEMBANYAMA!” call. Now we just need someone to fill in who’s equally capable of making fun of Sean Elliott’s crotchetiness — a tall task.
We’ll miss you, Bill. Don’t be a stranger!
More TV stuff
On last week’s episode of Small Market Bias, I reported on some discussions I’d had with sources regarding the ongoing Diamond Sports Group (Bally) bankruptcy situation, relaying the message San Antonio was unlikely to shift to an over-the-air model (games free on local stations) and would be sticking with Bally Sports Southwest for at least this season.
Then, in beautifully timed fashion, Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic reported mere hours after the podcast dropped that Diamond Sports had “reached a deal with NBA that will ensure local broadcasts this season for those NBA teams on Bally Sports” regional networks. He also reported that should DSG emerge from bankruptcy, these deals would likely extend beyond the 2024-25 campaign.
It’s difficult to know exactly what the future holds in the relationships between teams and the networks that carry their local broadcast rights, but none of this is good news for the cord-cutting community as it currently stands. I know I speak for myself, even as someone who gets Bally Sports, when I say I’m rooting for eventual easier access to games, whether that be through the over-the-air model or an agreement between Sinclair Broadcast Group (of which DSG is a subsidiary) and carriers like YouTube and Hulu. But as of right now, sticking with the television deal in place is objectively better for the Spurs’ bottom line.
However, if San Antonio ever chooses to leave Bally, it would have a relatively cushy landing spot in a market that consistently sits near the top of the NBA in terms of local ratings. Additionally, as Mike Finger of the San Antonio Express-News pointed out recently, the Spurs are one of the few teams whose broadcasts are produced in-house, which would simplify any possible transition even further. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all unfolds in the coming years.
Now let’s talk about some actual basketball stuff, shall we?
‘Rivalry Week’ comes early
The NBA introduced its official ‘Rivalry Week’ a couple of seasons ago, designating a seven-day stretch in January for nationally televised matchups between various teams and players who have either history or a theoretical high-stakes future against one another.
San Antonio was part of this weeklong event last year, with games against the Oklahoma City Thunder and Portland Trail Blazers. The idea was obvious: Push the ‘Victor Wembanyama versus Chet Holmgren’ and ‘Wembanyama versus Scoot Henderson’ storylines, because those were the three biggest names of the rookie class (depending on how you classify Holmgren, who missed his entire inaugural professional campaign due to injury). But it seemed to fall flat, at least in this writer’s opinion, because of key factors like the Spurs trudging through the early and middle parts of the season, Chet and the Thunder moving into the conversation of title contention and separating themselves from the likes of San Antonio, and Henderson struggling mightily to begin his career — just to name a few.
But perhaps the most important realization (or reminder, if you prefer) was that the best rivalries develop organically. They aren’t forced. And while Wemby and Scoot had a couple of memorable exhibition games against one another out in Vegas during their final pre-NBA seasons, it’s not as if they’re on the same level at this juncture, and Spurs-Blazers tilts haven’t exactly caused fans of either team to foam at the mouth over the years.
Oklahoma City is a little bit of a different story, as we all remember the tense matchups during San Antonio’s 2012 and 2014 Western Conference Finals appearances. But those meetings took place more than a decade ago, and not a single face from either roster remains in uniform for the respective sides.
Still, there is Wemby versus Chet. And though it often feels as if there’s been some preordained beef bestowed unto them in order to satiate carnivorous consumers of content, one can project a naturally occurring rivalry will eventually develop along the way for two big men who seem to neither hate nor love one another, and between two of the youngest teams in the league.
The Spurs do not have a time slot in the NBA’s official ‘Rivalry Week’ this season, and will actually be over in Paris for two games against the Indiana Pacers during part of it. So in an effort to identify an unofficial rivalry week within San Antonio’s schedule, we’ve kept in mind not only player-versus-player and team-versus-team matchups, but also the history between organizations and the general sentiments each respective fan base feels toward the others. Rivalries should not need to be manufactured.
As it turns out we don’t have to look too far down the road for a stretch of games that fits the criteria. How does Week 1 sound?
San Antonio opens its season on Oct. 24 with a trip to Dallas, followed by a two-game homestand against the Houston Rockets and a back-to-back on the road against Oklahoma City and Utah. Tipping off the new NBA year with a quick jaunt through the testiness of the Texas Triangle and a roadie against the new-age rival Thunder and a familiar foe (for the old heads) in the Jazz seems like a great way to get the engines revving.
But while early season barometer readings against Dallas and Oklahoma City should prove valuable, it’s the Houston matchups that pique my interest most. The Rockets have been selecting near the top of the draft for years, and just last summer decided to splurge on a handful of reliable veteran role players in an effort to start learning how to win. The Spurs, meanwhile, won the lottery that mattered most (MUCH to the chagrin of their Interstate-10 rivals), and have now surrounded Wembanyama with a couple of proven old guys of their own in Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes.
All the best elements of a reignited long-term rivalry are in place here: two teams that have been on similar paths in recent years, figure to be on similar trajectories moving forward, and frankly don’t seem to like each other at all. Inject that into our veins twice in the first week, and then again nine days later.
Furthermore, should Houston continue its development and build on last season, and if San Antonio makes a larger-than-expected leap, there’s a plausible scenario in which these two teams are battling for Play-In spots or even in the tournament itself. That sure would make for an entertaining full-circle experience over the course of an 82-game season.
Regardless, it would be difficult to design a more intriguing opening slate for the Spurs — perhaps aside from swapping out the Jazz for the Lakers, but nobody’s here to beg.
Stay tuned for Part II!
The express news beat writers had a great Pod with Bill. He will be missed.
Fantastic kickoff article- I’m revved!