GAME 1: San Antonio Spurs (0-1) vs. Dallas Mavericks (1-0)| 119-126 WIN!

[KillerLeft]

I thought that Hardaway scoring at all three levels was incredibly encouraging.  One thing that frustrated me last year was knowing that the year prior to that, before he broke his foot, we would low key see Hardaway get to the rim a lot (he probably had the best dunk highlights of anyone on the team) and that just kind of disappeared.  Any way he can score outside of spot up shooting just makes his shooting that much more dangerous because defenses have to respect a counter.  

While the shots didn't fall in the second half, I thought he looked good in his bench role, giving us 15 quick points when he first came in when we really needed it.  If Green and Hardaway are both going to be playing around 30 minutes a night, until Green shows more offensive aggressiveness it makes way more sense to bring Hardaway and his scoring off the bench when one of Luka or Kyrie sit and let Green's defense and energy compliment the offense those two bring at the beginning and ending of games.  I still think the organization has set themselves to use Hardaway as a trade asset to get help in other areas given that a lot of offense you would lose could potentially be replaced by Curry and Hardy, but I expect him to play well in his bench role with this group as long as he's here.

Yeah, I think they have Hardaway's role in mind for Hardy. I think that's why Hardaway was available this summer. But, I think they (smartly, but unsuccessfully) tried to USE Hardaway, a useful player, to rid themselves of the distasteful need to stretch waive McGee, who is NOT a useful player and should never have been brought here (even the first time). 

What I like about this is that despite this plan falling through, they have pivoted back to finding a way to make Hardaway a useful player for this team. To me, that shows the right type of flexibility on their parts. For comparison, look at how NY is handling the Evan Fournier situation. I think Hardaway is better than him (always have), but you can't tell me NY couldn't have handled/be handling that better. 

I'm sure we'll hear Hardaway's name come up again at this deadline, and if he's playing well in this 6th man role that we always thought was right for him but he bizarrely never looked comfortable playing until a stretch last year and this first game last night, they might get something for him. For SURE I expect him to be moved as an expiring contract during his last year at the very least, but that won't prevent me from hoping he plays well and helps the team stack some wins in the meantime, rather than bitch and moan because we have to watch him, which has always been this board's favorite pastime.