As Michael Finley's career slowly approaches "father time", his heir apparent has come in the person of Roger Mason, a 6'5 swingman and NBA journeyman, whom the San Antonio Spurs signed as a free agent last summer. The 29 year old former 2nd round draft pick of the Chicago Bulls in the 2002 draft had been dishing out outstanding plays since the start of the 2008-09 season. His shooting had been his best weapon, hitting at .471 so far of his trifectas. And not only that, Mason had been a tremendous clutch player and is not afraid to take the game winning shots.
Last night as I watched the replay of the Spurs-LA Clippers game on BTV, Mason came to the rescue once again after the Clippers rallied from an 11 point deficit in the last 6 minutes to tie the game at 83-all. Mason drilled a three pointer with 8.4 seconds to go to give the Spurs the nail-biting win, 86-83. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was all praised with Mason after the game and quipped, "he was the guy, we wanted the ball in his hands to make the decision. He had the green light". On his part, Mason confidently said "coach just drew a play for me, i felt good all the game, I knew a lot of attention will be on Tim (Duncan). I got an opportunity and I made the most of it.That's a shot I work on quite a bit. For me, it was just like practice". Mason top scored for the Spurs with 21 points.
Now, who says there's no room for journeymen like Mason to blossom late in his NBA career? I'm very sure Popovich is not one of those!
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