Also, 2 finals appearances and 1 win in the last 5 years.
Or three less titles since Paul Pierce and Tim Duncan entered the league. I guess it depends on what arbitrary cutoff point you choose.
It's not an arbitrary cutting off point when you look at the current cores.
It is when you consider that their core happened to win their titles before the cutoff point. You can't just ignore that the Spurs core has three titles because it came before the Celtics core existed. If you are comparing the two franchises, Popovich and Duncan still get credit for having four titles.
Of course they get credit. So do Ginobili and Parker. I don't think the Spurs titles are being ignored, it's just that it's been awhile.
The thread title isn't "What's the difference between us and the pre 2008 Spurs."
Some might say our title has been awhile. It was only one year more recently than the Spurs last title, after all.
By that token the thread title also isn't
"What's the difference between us and the 2008 Spurs"? or
"What's the difference between us and the 2010 Spurs"?He is talking about this year and how the teams look so far in the regular season. This year, the HEAT, Celtics, Spurs, Thunder, Lakers, etc... have 0 NBA titles.
I'd say our title win in 2008 will have just as much an impact as their title win in 2007 - none. Otherwise, we'd give up to the HEAT and their 2012 title (more recent than ours) or the Lakers and their 2009 and 2010 titles (two more recent than ours).