After defeating the Warriors to open the season and nearly doing it again to open the Western Conference Finals, the Spurs had a chance this summer to recalibrate their roster and join the ranks of those secondary challengers to the Golden State throne.
Yet unlike many of their elite NBA counterparts, they stayed put. The belief appears to be that internal improvement, from young players and for the team’s cohesiveness as a whole, might be enough to better compete with the defending champions. And while it’s difficult to challenge the Spurs’ way of thinking, or argue with the result from last year, the inactivity is disconcerting.
The first problem is that the Spurs don’t exactly have a heaping mountain of talented young players to count on for development. Dejounte Murray and Derrick White are two recent first round picks with the talent to reinvigorate an aging backcourt. Davis Bertans and Bryn Forbes are typical end-of-the-bench upside plays. But none of the group has shown enough flashes to earn legitimate hype, which is a problem.
The second problem is that asking for improvement — based on chemistry or regression — from the veterans who fill out the rotation is difficult.
Pau Gasol is a flawed player whose value is waning, no matter what his expensive new contract says. Outside of Gasol, San Antonio targeted other similar-looking, less-than-cheap veterans with more deficiencies than skills. That he counts as the Spurs’ biggest signing this summer is not ideal.
Though grading the Spurs summer is really a matter of how optimistic you are about the system’s ability to bring the best out of its components. Rudy Gay and Joffrey Lauvergne signed multi-year deals to compete for meaningful minutes off the bench, replacing Jonathon Simmons and productive 2016 signings Dewayne Dedmon and David Lee.
They are all at least semi-significant losses. Dedmon brought San Antonio closer to more athletic and versatile teams like the Warriors and Celtics. Lee experienced a renaissance last year under Gregg Popovich, shooting 59 percent and providing a positive impact on offense. Simmons was the Spurs’ second-best two-way player in the playoffs.
What makes the inactivity so frustrating is the eye-popping moves made all across the Western Conference this summer. At best, San Antonio figures to tread water after a 61-21 finish and Western Conference Finals appearance last season. At worst, the Spurs risks becoming a secondary contender for the first time in years, regardless of their regular season performance. After Kawhi Leonard went down last May, the Warriors made this team look goofy and over matched.
That tends to happen to every team from time to time when they play Golden State, but that is the standard to which the Spurs are held to. Once upon a time, San Antonio set the standard with their egalitarian system on and off the court. That system still stands, and works, but it is no longer the league’s best or most fearsome. San Antonio is, these days, part of the group climbing toward the top rather than sitting up above, looking down and laughing. After a certain point, you expect an older team like theirs to flip the switch into a more all-out retooling project.
The biggest obstacle in the way of making that decision is Leonard. As long as the Spurs have the best two-way player in the league, they will be a threat to win championships. And as long as the two-time Defensive Player of the Year continues to improve, his team’s ceiling is unknowable. We haven’t witnessed the apex of Leonard’s career yet, which is terrifying.
The seventh-year forward lead the team in usage this season for the first time in his career, despite playing the most minutes per game in each of the last three. He has been important to this team for years, but only became the focal point on offense this past year, when he finished third in MVP voting.
Part of that is because of the inconsistency and decline from former Spurs stars like Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili, as well as uncharacteristic offensive struggles by LaMarcus Aldridge and Danny Green. San Antonio was firmly Leonard’s to carry last year; it will be even more so this year. Parker will be out until December or January, and the team did not add enough offensive talent to improve over their ninth-place finish a year ago without another sizable jump from Leonard.
His play making numbers skyrocketed last year, as did his free throw rate, jumping from three attempts per field goal attempt to over four. These gains are why he was able to make a jump in usage rate while maintaining a sterling 60 percent true shooting rate. And though his individual defensive numbers took a step back last season (Leonard posted a 1.6 defensive Box Plus-Minus, his lowest ever), he was still the best player on a first-ranked unit. Until Leonard gets injured or leaves the team, the Spurs will be a popular pick to raise another banner at the AT&T Center.
This summer serves as evidence that the Spurs do not plan to pivot any time soon. They’re perfectly content continuing to zig despite the overwhelming urge of the rest of the league to zag.
Gasol, Parker and Ginobili were part of the team that went to the Western Conference Finals last season. They have won a combined seven championships. It’s reasonable to expect positive regression from Green and Aldridge, especially as they become more comfortable playing with the youngsters. Leonard has improved by leaps and bounds since entering the league, and seemingly has no ceiling.
The Spurs will be fine. They are always fine. The core components are Gregg Popovich, R.C. Buford and Peter Holt; that has not changed.
Any pessimism about the Spurs factors in the changes around the league, even if we trust that San Antonio can handle the new ecosystem. We can be typically impressed by the Spurs cobbling together an elite team out of perceived lesser parts while still worrying about how they’ve performed against elite competition in recent seasons. Was last year’s playoff performance a fluke or a positive sign for what a team designed around Leonard can achieve?
San Antonio is playing its cards as if the latter is true, and they’ve always bet correctly. It has been a while since the Spurs’ performance was impacted to such a great degree by one player. It’s also been a while since the Spurs had a player as valuable as Leonard.
Next: The Spurs still project to win a lot of games this season
They have a chance to ride the rest of his career like they did Tim Duncan’s, with the possibility for another handful of championships. No season makes or breaks the Spurs’ trajectory, but this one will tell us a lot about how successfully San Antonio can create a Leonard-centric universe.