DA: Derek Anderson, Bitter Retiree

--Via SlamOnline

Detour--> --If you ever wanted to know why I don't like Juwan Howard very much, I'll tell you. I blame him for the 2001 Stacked Spurs getting their asses kicked by the Lakers.

I mean look at that picture of Juwan killing any hope for us. I know I know. We got steamrolled. Still, look at game two. Duncan had 40. Antonio Daniels had 24. That is 64 of 81 team points. I will always believe that if we had Derek's 15.5 points per game available there, we would had a shot. Don't even look at his 7.7 per game average for the playoffs that year. That was skewed by when he came back in games 3 and 4 and averaged 2. Through the first three games of the Minnesota series he had 13 a game. Game four he had 4, and in 17 minutes versus the damn Mavericks he had 6. So he had one bad game in that span. Methinks he and his shooting would have made it a little easier to compete.

I was at that game, too. We were beating them down. DA was about to punch it. Juwan ruined it. 

Dammit Juwan.

--<--End Detour

So, speaking of bitter: Enter DA.

I just read this interview with Derek, now retired, about his time in the NBA. Quick summary: He hated the NBA (because he thinks he coulda been a star) and loved college (cuz he was a star). My favorite quote:

SLAM: What was your favorite stop in the NBA?
DA: San Antonio was one of the better teams, for me.  It was just all around: the guys were fun; the city was nice; everything was just calm; we just concentrated on basketball and that was good. The best moment I ever had was retiring. (Laughs)

(Laughs) Maybe you shouldn't have bitched about money, you punk-ass. From the way Pop tells it, SA offered you a pretty decent deal, and you wanted more. Typical late-90s early 00s nba player bullshit. In retrospect, it was all for the best, as your departure led to Tony Parker and Ginobili.

It is kind of funny that dude still regrets leaving.

Ahh, memories.