Windows

For those of you that aren't aware, I've been an avid San Antonio Spurs fan for my entire life. With that, I've had the pleasure of watching an organization that has managed to be competitive for 15 years, and tonight, won a 5th championship.

With that said, I realize that this isn't an entirely Rangers-oriented post, nor was it really intended to be. However, I want to emphasize that in professional sports, the term we oftentimes talk about is the "window". For the Rangers, many in the media, as well as fans, have been proclaiming that the Rangers should blow up the organization because they missed their window.

To that, I give you the San Antonio Spurs.

After winning a title in 2007 and losing to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals in 2008, the Spurs were declared done. Their window had closed, and they were too old, and that seemed to be backed up when, in 2009, Dallas ousted them in the first round in only 5 games.

The organization responded by making a headline deal to acquire Richard Jefferson. Almost immediately, media types such as Bill Simmons proclaimed the Spurs as the favorite to win a title in the upcoming 2009-2010 season.

Jefferson never really panned out, and the Spurs were declared, once again, as done after losing to Phoenix in 2010, Memphis in 2011, and OKC in 2012. Even after coming devastatingly close to beating Miami in the Finals last season, almost everyone felt that, if the window had still been open, the Spurs had barely slipped through a crack, and it was now closed.

Yet, here they are, a year later, champions of the NBA world. With that, there's something to be said about a front office that operates in a way that can keep a team competitive for 15 years. Acknowledging that basketball and baseball are different sports is one thing, but hoping that the Texas Rangers can maintain even some semblance of that kind of consistency is something worth hoping.

So while we sometimes proclaim that the Rangers missed their best chance, should go in another direction, or even rebuild for 2016, it's important to consider that it only took the Boston Red Sox one season to rebuild to win a championship, and the Spurs have never, in the last 15 years, torn things down to rebuild. Love them or hate them, it's an organization to be admired and appreciated, even emulated.

Congrats to the Spurs. I'm glad you guys got it done.