Tony Parker was having a postseason renaissance over the past few weeks. The 34-year-old point guard and future Hall of Famer was looking like he’d been transported back into his prime during the first eight games of this year’s playoffs for the San Antonio Spurs, establishing himself as the team’s second best player in these playoffs behind superstar Kawhi Leonard.
Then came the fourth quarter of Game 2, when Parker went into the lane for one of his trademark floaters, only to land and immediately grab at his left leg. Parker was eventually carried off the court by a pair of teammates, and when an MRI was conducted Thursday morning, the results were as everyone in San Antonio feared: Parker was done for the playoffs, and far beyond them, with a ruptured left quadriceps tendon.
The injury not only casts a pall over the rest of this series and, if the Spurs can advance, the rest of these playoffs in San Antonio, but it also casts one over the Spurs’ offseason, one in which the Spurs were hoping to retool around Leonard, but now will likely be stuck trying to cobble together the best roster they can without a starting point guard and with little cap flexibility to work with.
To discuss all of that, and more, the latest episode of the Posting Up podcast caught up with Jeff McDonald, the Spurs beat writer for the San Antonio Express-News. On a day after the game McDonald described as the most depressing blowout victory possible for Spurs fans, the discussion shifted to a variety of topics — beginning with the impact on the franchise of losing one of its pillars for the past 15 years for the rest of these playoffs and beyond.
From there, it shifted to how San Antonio can make up for Parker’s absence over the rest of this series, and how sustainable the adjustments Spurs Coach Gregg Popovich made in Game 2 are for Game 3 and beyond. The podcast eventually wrapped up with a look at San Antonio’s cap situation this summer and beyond, and why a franchise known for stability has the potential to have a wealth of uncertainty around it in the years to come.
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