No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
-T.S. Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Here is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think about it.
-A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
Okay, I've dissed Richard Jefferson enough. This is a mistake, and, as per my motto*, I would like to fix this mistake. As ridiculous as he is, we cannot prey on phantoms just because we are hungry. RJ 2.0 (as some Spurs fans first enthusiastically, than mockingly, titled his promising 2010-11) didn't exactly bring us to the promised land; in fact, he looked lost in the Memphis series, and indeed, the whole time after the All-Star break, he was a less efficient, less influential part of the Spurs on both ends. Sure, he had his place in the starting lineup, but after Tim's injury (and doubly so after Manu's at the end) he just did not have a place on the team. The reasons for this are several, most of them federal: List while I list.
*-"Never make mistakes, always come correct."
-His 3-point accuracy went up but the moments of spacing for him to shoot became scarcer, his shot attempts were there but (from a combination of fatigue and injury) the Spurs' offensive execution was lagging a bit, and RJ wasn't getting the easier baskets at the rim anymore, and his overall FG% went down in a hurry. He was shooting late in the shot clock more, he was settling for jump shots, and making doomed drives that no one in any stadium, even Oracle, thought would result in a basket.
-When Tim Duncan's immaculate defensive rotations went away with his injury and even after his return (I speculate due to a clipped recuperation), so did much of the Spurs' defensive presence. Now, RJ was not a great, creative defender at any point during the season, but with Tim Duncan making great rotations game after game, it's (as a general rule) much easier to be a solid wing defender. "Help will arrive, RJ. Don't gamble, RJ. Rotate out to the 3-point shooter when such-and-such conditions are met, RJ." Antonio McDyess and Manu Ginobili were good, even great, on defense, as likely to be in the right spot as anyone (George Hill was a good man-to-man stopper with his long wingspan too), and the Spurs' success before the All-Star break had much to do with this very good (if not altogether great) defense.
But with Tim out and then at less than full strength, the Spurs were consistently putting more non-defenders than defenders on the court, especially when you factor in that RJ moved from solid wing to defensive liability, category-wise. So, now your team has Dejuan Blair, Richard Jefferson, Matt Bonner, and Tony Parker receiving borderline-starter minutes, and two of your three best "creator-type" (if that makes sense) defensive players are seriously playing at less than full strength (by the way, Sean Elliott's batshit Willis Reed comparisons weren't so awful once we learned the extent of Manu's injury), you're not going to be a defensive team.
Now, because you dislike RJ's game as much as I do (why else would you be reading this blog?), you might ask, "That's all right and good, but aren't both the offensive and defensive breakdowns essentially RJ's fault to some extent? Can't we hold him accountable for his limitations as a creator on both ends, and his inability to adapt to new situations?" Yeah, that's true, but from last summer, he was being groomed as a certain type of role player who would shoot 3's, be a good wing defender, and pass the ball to other 3-point specialists (or Manu, the basketball specialist) who were lined up behind the arc. His goals coming into this season were, being almost exhaustive: to get open for catch-and-shoot 3's, draw defenders in behind the arc to create a catch-and-shoot opportunity for someone else behind the arc, sometimes (usually in a set play) to get open under the net for an oop or a layup, and on defense, to be a not-exactly-stifling-but-solid-enough wing player. It was, I have to say, beautiful basketball. Pythagorean basketball, balanced, well-proportioned, largely unstoppable.
When all of these things collapsed for the Spurs, all of Richard's training and education and experience over the past 8 months became irrelevant, but (for we have to come correct here) not before playing the perfect role player to Duncan's star in helping the Spurs dominate the league before the All-Star Break. Not every player has to be a dynamic, idealized athlete, and the expectation is ridiculous, only extant because of the Spurs' tendency to find and hold onto such players with ridiculous consistency. To hold RJ accountable for essentially not being as intelligent and immediately adaptable a baller as Tim Duncan or Manu is unfair. He did exactly what was expected of him, and circumstances conspired to make what he did irrelevant. He didn't rise above, but neither do most people faced with hardship of any kind. Most people just get by, with an occasional affectionate look to what once nearly was theirs. RJ's just average as an athlete, able to do a couple things right and doing them with world-class capability, and the sooner we accept that the sooner we can be surprised by circumstances coming together for his brand of average to rule over us all, like a cross falling from the sky, form-fitting his aging shoulders. And then we will worship what is average, idealize it, and God of Transition Years will bless us with a fif title. I'm going to buy an expensive champagne for the occasion, which I will promptly mix with Coca-Cola upon hearing the news. I'll try to pour one out for Kobe too, if I can be bothered to go outside or near any kind of running water when it happens.
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