Thoughts on Richard Jefferson’s Hot Start

In July of this year, Spurs Fandom was rocked when Richard Jefferson opted out of the final year of his contract and then again when it was revealed that he had been re-signed for 4 years at almost $40mil. What a difference a few months make.

Look around and all you can see are people professing their love for this season’s version of RJ. I myself cannot deny that he’s strung together the longest stretch of good games he’s ever played for the Spurs. Honestly, I am feeling a little bit giddy about the Spurs prospects if he keeps it up. I just want to caution you all, myself included, that RJ has played approximately 1.25% of the games his new contract covers – even less if you assume 14 playoff games per season (14 is the average number of playoff games played by the Spurs during Tim Duncan’s career). So while the turnaround we’ve seen so far has been nothing short of remarkable, let’s all try to keep it in perspective.

Of course, if everything falls into all the right places and the Spurs win a championship this year (or any time in the next 4 seasons) then the gamble the Spurs took on RJ will have been worth it.