NBA Halloween: Playing trick-or-treat with each team’s early season trend

San Antonio Spurs

The Spurs are infallible: Treat

The San Antonio Spurs positively sucked in preseason. Dejounte Murray was coming off a whole season missed due to an ACL tear, DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge were another year older and after Team USA’s dismal performance in the FIBA World Cup, even Gregg Popovich no longer seemed infallible. With the West being so brutal, doubt was creeping in from every corner … well, except for San Antonio’s, that is.

And so far, it appears the Spurs homers and Pop truthers were right once again. Despite all of those reasons to believe this might finally be the year San Antonio’s 22-year playoff streak met its end, the Spurs currently sit atop the Western Conference with a perfect 3-0 record.

To be fair, two of their games have come against likely tankers in New York and Washington, and all three have come at home, but that narrow win over the Blazers served as a nice reminder that Pop will crank out regular season wins — especially at home — until the day he retires. DeRozan and Aldridge look like their borderline All-Star selves, while Murray is hinting at making the leap, averaging 14.7 points, 8.3 rebounds, 6.0 assists and 2.0 steals per game. As always, doubt the Spurs at your own peril.