Talk of age has been getting old for years for spurs

The San Antonio Spurs refuse to let talk of them being too old get in the way of their NBA championship dreams.

In what has become a familiar refrain, the Spurs opened yet another NBA campaign to waves of doubt as critics dismissed them as too old and slow to handle an 82-game regular season and four grueling best-of-seven playoff series.

But the Spurs, powered by a seemingly ageless Big Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, have proved the doubters wrong by reaching this year's NBA Finals for the first time since 2007, the last time they won the title.

"We've been old for probably eight years now," said Ginobili. "I remember in 2007, our last championship, they were saying that we were old, and it's all right.

"I guess we are. But we play well, we play together and every year we are out there contending. That's a great thing."

Duncan, 37, Manu Ginobili, 35, and Tony Parker, 31, will again lead the way for the Spurs when the NBA Finals open on Thursday in Florida against a Miami Heat team powered by 28-year-old four-time league Most Valuable Player LeBron James.

The Spurs won NBA titles in 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2007 during a remarkable stretch for a 46-year-old franchise that began as the Dallas Chaparrals of the American Basketball Association.

After some lean years, a relocation and name change, the Spurs started to come together and, in 1979, just their third year in the NBA, they made it to the conference finals where they lost after squandering a 3-1 series lead.

Reuters

(China Daily 06/06/2013 page22)