Tony Parker Tribute Thread

[damelo]

I know there is a thread for French players in the NBA...

But, now, Tony deserves more.

After 4 games, he is the NBA scoring leader, the first player this year to score over 50 points in a game. He is also the main chance for the Spurs to stay amongst the playoffable teams in the NBA.
This year, with Ginobili sidelined, may see him become for real one of the top PGs in the NBA.

Moreover, this year, he showed he has heart coming to play for a deserted NT, despite the advices of both his team and his wife .

After starting since the beginning as the Point guard of Greg Popovich, being mainly a poor shooter and a very fast penetrating player, he started 3-4 years ago to work on his outside shooting with Chip Engelland. He was a superstar in France since the beginning, I thought for a while he was highly overvalued, even by the NBA. But, after this work, he has become a real superstar. And a multi dimension offensive player. He is a very good point Guard, who needs to score, but is wise about what he has to do on the floor at what moment thanks to Pop'. And now, he is a nearly unstoppable offensive player.

[damelo]

1st page of Le Monde website, the main information paper in France.

http://www.lemonde.fr/sports/article/2008/11/06/basket-ball-tony-parker-inscrit-55-points-en-un-match_1115838_3242.html

Tony Parker made a success of the most incredible match of her career in NBA by marking 55 points, supplied with ten master keys and seven rebounds, at the time of the first victory of the season of San Antonio, Wednesday November 6, at the end d' a double prolongation (129-125) in Minnesota. With this total, the leader of set of 26 years took the head of the classification of the best markers of the championship after his paperboard of Wednesday. What Parker made a success of vis-a-vis Minnesota - 55 points with 22 out of 36 with the shootings, ten master keys, seven rebounds in fifty minutes - striking the spirits. And constitutes a new stage in an already rich career NBA of three rings of champion, two selections All Star and a title of MVP of the finale 2007. " C' is right one of these matches where all functions. In Europe, j' had already registered 40 points and 45 or 46 points with the college but never 50" , Parker reacted which, before even the first prolongation, had already erased its preceding record of 38 points, going back to January 2006. Parker is the fourth player of l' history of the NBA to cumulate at least 50 points and ten master keys on a match. The others are Oscar Robertson (56-12 into 64/65), Michael Jordan (57-10 in 1992/93) and LeBron James (50-10 in 2007-2008).

Sorry, babelfish translation... It's quite bad.

They don't say many extraordinary things, but... That's nice to see some basketball stuff out there.

[rikhardur]

He's been playing really great. He's more confident than ever and he's shooting like never before. I was checking the Spurs vs Timberwolves boxscore and at HT he had something like 30 points already, I knew it would be a great night for him. He also forced the second OT.
Btw the last time a player had more than 50 points and 10 assists was in 1992 and the player was Jordan

[damelo]

Btw the last time a player had more than 50 points and 10 assists was in 1992 and the player was Jordan

I read everywhere Lebron did so already.

BTW, he is only 4th to do so after Big O, Jordan and Lebron.

It is scary to see that to win, the Spurs needed him and Duncan to comulate 85 points, adding 26 from Mason. Which makes a very low total for other players.

[Khalid80]

Tony imo is currently one of the top 3 point guards in the NBA along with Chris Paul and Deron Williams (No disrespect for Steve Nash and Jason Kidd but I think that their stats this season will go down as they are passed their prime while Tony's will improve specifically without Ginobli in the lineup for the first month and a half).
Parker will be the player that will carry the Spurs throughout this season. He's still 26 years (considered as from the young generation on the Spurs team even though the guy is currently in his 7th season in the NBA).
Duncan and Ginobli are aging and the Spurs will be relying more on TP to help them out especially when they're not in the best of forms/conditions like now.
TP has all the leadership skills required and I'm sure Duncan doesn't mind TP starting to take over games like the one in Minnesota.
The major problem though with the Spurs is the physical conditioning of their players (the average age of the players on the team is one of the highest in the NBA) and if Duncan gets injured or Ginobli reinjures himself, the load on Tony won't be easy at all especially since the Spurs don't have any other players that can score in double digits on a consistent basis (other than these 3 players).
Imo the Spurs need to go for a trade during this season if they want to delve deep into the playoffs this season (or else if they make it past the first round of the playoffs then I'll be impressed).

[rikhardur]

NBA – Parker hits career-high 55 as Spurs beat Wolves for first win
View standings


NEW YORK (NBA) – France’s Tony Parker averaged 26.8 points to lead EuroBasket Division A in scoring this summer but on Wednesday he more than doubled that output with a career-high 55 to lead the San Antonio Spurs to a 129-125 double-overtime triumph at Minnesota.

Parker, 26, hit a 20-foot jump shot at the buzzer to force the second overtime and then poured in six of his team’s first eight points in the second OT as they won for the first time in four games this season.

“I just wanted to win,” Parker said.

“I couldn't believe we were 0-3. Dallas came in (Tuesday) and just kicked our butts.

“They were hitting every shot, and they had played so bad against Cleveland, but they came to San Antonio and shot the ball very well, so I said we have to do the same thing and come into Minnesota and play well and be aggressive.

“I just wanted to win so bad that I was going to do everything I can.”

Spurs coach Gregg Popovich saluted his star point guard.

“He was magnificent,” Popovich said. “He pulled us through, that's for sure.”

The Spurs are playing without Manu Ginobili while he recovers from his ankle operation so Parker is helping to pick up the slack.

He played 50 minutes and 32 seconds and did more than score. Parker had 10 assists and seven rebounds, too.

Only LeBron James, Oscar Robertson and Michael Jordan had had games with at least 50 points and at least 10 assists before Parker pulled off the feat against the Timberwolves.

http://www.fiba.com/pages/eng/fc/news/lateNews/p/newsid/28830/arti.html

[damelo]

For that game, he's got the first page of l'Equipe, big title, big photo, everything. for the first time I think in year i bought that paper, which is the only perennial Sport daily paper in France and has around 2M readers everyday.


His injury is a deep cut in the Spurs rosters which will remain with only Duncan as a star, and Mason as the only other dangerous player as now. If the playoff spot are to be as expensive as they were last year, they may lose all their chances during next month.

[rikhardur]

Each one of Parker's 55 points.

[damelo]

Tony was back this week end.

And Spurs seems to be on the roll again, despite playing without main players for a while, the made it. Georges Hill seems to be a very good pick once again.

So let's hope Tony won't get any injury again, he could be in the top NBA teams this year, without problems.

[mvblair]

There are a couple of reports, like this one from the New York Daily News that are saying San Antonio might trade Tony Parker. All of the speculation seems like rumors created by reporters. I don't believe the reports. Is it possible that Parker could be traded? Of course. Are the Spurs shopping Parker right now? Of course not. This kind of speculation follows every team after they finish their season.

[raph]

The story that comes back very often yield in three points :

1° big extension for manu. 38M$ for the next three years, starting with 11.8M$ next year
2°spurs have already 64.4M on the books "just" with the contracts of duncan/parker/jefferson/ginobili/mc dyess
Considering that they badly need to fix their bench (who has not been consistent to say the least and a non factor during the PO if you skip parker from the 1st round against dallas), the GM does not have a big margin to boost the team. And everyone has been able to notice that duncan was caught up by his age & experience in the league.
3°If the spurs wants to ship jefferson (he has a 16M$ player option, but well, if he passes on it, france might as well invade the us ^^), they prolly have to add parker in the mix as his expiring contract is pretty nice. 13,6M$, knowing there are some decent FA in 2011 as well

You can even add that originally, parker had a hard time geting his 1st contract extension. Considering that parker's agents (and parker himself) might ask for a max contract, i see it very unlikely that the Spurs give him what he might ask.
Moreover, lots of teams have fred a lot of capspace (knicks, clippers, chicago, miami, etc), some of them would prolly be willing to grant parker a nice contrat.
And last but not least, george hill had a decent season (even if he chocked during play offs) and his contract is just 850k fot the year to come.
Spurs want to lure splitter into joining them, but there is nothing guaranteed as they would prolly need to find a way to boost his rookie salary (considering what vitoria prolly grants him).

Last rumor about parker that came out is about the potential interest of the knicks (something which would be fun considering d'antoni )

[ip84]

I don't thing it would be fun to see TP with D'Antoini... He is not a pass first PG.

[dxjayrock2008]

From FIBA.Com.

FRA – Parker will be with France lockout or no lockout
PARIS (EuroBasket 2011) - The letters NBA could stand for "No Basketball Anymore" if a lockout takes place this summer, as many fear it will.

French playmaker Tony Parker of the San Antonio Spurs says that if it does happen, he'll remain in Europe and play.

And he also says that a lockout will not keep him away from the national team which is trying to get to the EuroBasket Final and qualify for the London Olympics.

"Whether there is a lockout or not, I'll be with the French national team," he said in an interview with French daily L'Equipe.

"It's pretty sure there will be a lockout in July.

"I talked about it with my agent who hopes we won't miss any regular season games.

"But (Parker's team-mate) Matt Bonner (the Spurs' player representative), thinks it will be a long lockout.

"If there is a lockout, I will stay in France and why not play there. It depends for how long I'm there. I've told my agent about it and told him to start looking for an apartment."

Serious challenge

Even if the NBA were to start on time next season, Parker believes the Spurs' chances of mounting a serious title challenge have gone.

San Antonio went into the playoffs with the best record in the Western Conference (61-21) and the top seed but lost to the Memphis Grizzlies, the last team to make it into the post-season.

"It was a huge disappointment for us," Parker said.

"I went to see Pop (Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich) at his youth training center. He was sad, Tim (Duncan), too.

"We're all frustrated because we had a great regular season during which we dominated.

"It was a tough match-up for us. They dominated us inside," he admitted.

Parker, who celebrated his 29th birthday on Tuesday, believes things might have been different had the Spurs faced a team other than the Grizzlies.

"If we had faced Dallas or Oklahoma, it would have been better for us," he argued.

"But that's sport. It comes down to the smallest thing.

"It's a case where everyone played well for Memphis."

Father time

Parker says that age has finally caught up with the Spurs.

"At the start of the season I said this was our last chance," he said.

"Tim and Gino (Manu Ginobili) are getting old. It's going to be tough to regenerate ourselves.

"We will always have a good team but we can no longer say that we're playing for a championship."

Serious issues

While Parker says that he will be with the French national team in Lithuania, a lockout would create some serious financial issues.

"If there is a lockout, the NBA won't pay their part for the players' insurances (to play at the EuroBasket, FIBA Americas Championship, Afrobasket, FIBA Oceania Championship)," he warned.

"So that's going to create a huge problem. There have already been some meetings and we will see what happens.

"We will see what Patrick Beesley (France national team director) and his team get out of it.

"We will have to see with Boris (Diaw) and Joakim (Noah) if we can get together and find a common accord. We'll see."

Would Parker pay for his own insurance?

"No I won't pay (insurance out of his own pocket to play for France) (laughs)," he said.

"It depends how much. Boris did it."

Formidable Noah

Parker believes that if Joakim Noah of the Chicago Bulls plays, France will be formidable in Lithuania.

"The goal is to win the title," Parker said.

"You have to finish first or second to go to the Olympics.

"Otherwise, the most important thing is to finish in the top six to go to the (FIBA) Olympic Qualifying Tournament."

"It's going to be long and that's why it's important to have a big team. We will play 11 games in a short period of time. It's a marathon really."

[CKR13]

Parker to star in his own animated series

Tony Parker to Star in his Own Cartoon Series: "Baskup"

[CKR13]