Richard Jefferson and Disappointment

Apparently there is no good reason to let him go. It will cost a ton, there is no one to adequately replace him, and he will be relatively useful.

The only reason to let him go is that he annoys the entire city of San Antonio. Like most people, I don’t really care about the ins and outs of the cap. They can do what they like. I get that there isn’t much room to maneuver. I get that Peter Holt is not Mark Cuban. I get that San Antonio is not New York.

I know that we need to be extra awesome at player acquisitions and can rarely (if at all) afford a mistake in an inexact science.

Richard Jefferson is obviously a mistake roster move. You thought he would be good. So did I. You thought he would be a dynamic scorer and a huge upgrade from Bruce Bowen. So did I.

He won’t be the reason we win or lose. There is no evidence that we could have found anyone better for the same amount of money because there is no way to tell if a guy would have come. The best we could have hoped for is a guy like John Salmons or JR Smith.

Salmons is a journeyman scorer and J.R. is crazy. Can’t say they would be definitely better than what we got here.

We’ll all get a nice bit of enjoyment out of this season if we weren’t looking at Richard from the high perch of Mount Could Have Been.

It isn’t surprising that we feel this way, nor is it a flaw. It is a perfectly natural human reaction. It will be tremendously difficult to change our perspective on this but it is very necessary for our enjoyment of the 2011-2012 season. The Clippers traded for the best point guard in the game and has a young, talented big guy for him to happily throw lob passes to. Remember when he had Tyson Chandler? The combo of Tyson and David West made New Orleans a challenger that took us to the brink of elimination. The energy and beating we took –and injury to Manu — cost us the Lakers series.

We have an older team and Blake Griffin is Chandler and West combined. The Clips are for real. Last season a hobbled Chris Paul took that abomination of a squad into the playoffs. The basketball fan in me is excited for Lob City. The Spurs fan is shaking his head like Apollo Creed when Rocky kept getting back up.

RJ has lapses and tends to disappear. So does Tony. Our Frenchman should draw more ire considering he talks and acts like he is the big baller on this team. I still think of him as the guy we need to sub out in crunch time. Really he’s the one we should be expecting more of. The youngest, fastest player should be carrying the team like he did three years ago.

Not Jefferson.