NBA Season Preview 2020-21: 5 biggest questions for the San Antonio Spurs

The San Antonio Spurs saw their multi-decade playoff streak broken last year. Are they ready to start a new one?

1. More likely to be traded by the deadline: LaMarcus Aldridge or DeMar DeRozan?

Is there an NBA team run by Jawas?

The real issue with LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan is that they have outlived their usefulness in the basketball world. The words are cruel, but so is each Toy Story movie. I know, I’m mixing metaphors here and speaking ill of the living. The San Antonio Spurs had a long run. They qualified for the NBA Playoffs in twenty-two consecutive seasons. Aldridge and DeRozan each played vital roles in keeping that streak alive as pieces of the would-be dynasty aged and moved elsewhere. And now they are stuck on the homestead with Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. The action is elsewhere. The narrative has set. Interplanetary travel awaits in the darkness.

LaMarcus Aldridge is in the last year of his contract. The organization owes him a quarter of a hundred million dollars. Aldridge probably doesn’t mind where he earns those dollars, but it would be in San Antonio’s interest to trade him, especially if his near 20 points a game can interest some would-be contender. Maybe this year is the one where Damian Lillard strokes his chin and whispers, “LaMarcus Aldridge? Now that’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.” But what would Portland give up for the 35-year-old power forward? And what would the former Blazer give them that they don’t already have?

DeMar DeRozaon is about three years younger than Aldridge, and he is arguably the more productive of the two at this point in their careers. DeRozan opted into another year with San Antonio. Maybe he likes getting paid. Maybe he likes the organization’s sense of stability. Maybe he likes the team’s chances. One can play these sorts of glass half-full or half-empty games when in the distance one can see two suns suspended above the horizon.

What would the Spurs get for either star? Nothing would be certain, that’s for sure. But teams like the Oklahoma City Thunder have traded stars for the likes of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Or there’s a team like the Indiana Pacers trading a star for the likes of Victor Oladipo. You’re not exactly looking for answers here. You’re looking for chances and pieces. You’re rummaging through the scrapheap without realizing that the ship you flew in on is a piece of junk. It’s aged light years in warp speed. You’re a smuggler. You’re a bounty hunter. You’re a long way from home on this desert planet, and not only does no one know your backstory, but they probably wouldn’t care for the truth if you were to spill it. They want to make a deal now and so do you. Maybe you flip a coin and see where it lands. Maybe you flip two because that’s what kind of planet you’re on.

2. Where does Devin Vassell rank as far as classic Spurs draft steals are concerned?

Well, you can’t put him in front of Kawhi Leonard, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker, and that holds true in the long run most likely as it does in the short. The Spurs drafted shrewdly over the years, and they were lucky in ways that many teams have not been. You don’t just pull Hall of Famers out of a hat with picks ranging from the twenty-eighth spot to the fifty-seventh.

Vassell was also drafted with the No. 11 picks, so he did make his way to the franchise via the lottery. Kawhi Leonard was the No. 15 pick the year he was selected, and the team traded up to select him. But the situations are different. Leonard entered into a team with a clear sense of itself and what it needed to do. The established order permitted Leonard to prosper without pressure and is what ultimately led to his seeking greener pastures. He wanted to be free. Vassell, on the other hand, enters an organization that is not what it once was. There is plenty of talent on the wings, but it is all nebulous. Vassell isn’t so much walking into a garden as he is cannonballing into the primordial ooze with the god from the last age still whistling and barking at him not to run so fast. Vassell looks over his shoulder, but it is all white noise — it is all just an echo.

If we get down to brass tacks, and as the curve flattens for the likes of Dejounte Murray and Lonnie Walker, let’s just say there is a clear path ahead for Vassell’s being the fourth-best steal on this list, which is to say much better than Tiago Splitter and assuming Tim Duncan wasn’t the initial theft. Then again, we’re forgetting Derrick White, a former twenty-ninth pick. And we’re forgetting George Hill from long ago. He was a twenty-sixth pick after all. And what about Beno Udrih or Cory Joseph? But, once you start stumbling into those names, you start coming across names like Goran Dragić and Leandro Barbosa and Luis Scola. And, at that point, you just hope if a player is a steal that he doesn’t end up stealing from your team. And you’ll settle for loyalty because you can rest on that, at least for a time.

3. Who looks more like a future star — Dejounte Murray or Lonnie Walker?

I am holding a glass of bourbon and Baby Yoda is staring at me from my television, his eyes are as wide and wet as the condensation underneath my fingerprints. Even in championship years, the San Antonio Spurs have always been something of an acquired taste. They didn’t always play as they did in 2014, and they have played less like that every season since — except maybe this past summer in the NBA Bubble. LaMarcus Aldridge sat out and the team went small.

I am not from San Antonio. My rooting for the team has always made me something of a poser or a wannabe. My imagination gravitates toward far corners largely because my parents moved the family so close to Washington, D.C. when I was entering high school. My forays into bourbon tasting are similar. I have Googled articles and read them. Men’s Journal has informed me what to sniff and taste and look for in a high-quality bourbon. But I struggle to tell the difference between 1792 and Elijah Craig. I might be able to split the difference with a taste of Bowman’s.

Dejounte Murray was a No. 29 pick a few years ago. His stat lines suggest perhaps a creeping improvement. He has always been a better defender than playmaker. His greatest statistical improvement has been in rebounding. His second-year averages nearly doubled his rookie efforts, and he maintained that level of aggressiveness during the 2019-20 season. He missed all of the 2018-19 season. You keep telling yourself to be patient. You keep waiting for him to blossom into the player he is not yet. You stress patience to yourself, but you can hear the murmurings on Twitter and Reddit and all the San Antonio blogs. He isn’t exactly what you hoped he would be, but you want to be the kind of person who wears a Dejounte Murray t-shirt jersey or at least respects the body of work. You want there to be a body of work, but a voice in the back of your own head keeps coughing, ahem, and you keep squinting to see the difference from year to year and you’re finally starting to admit maybe there isn’t one. Knowing that can make a difference, though. Knowing that can allow for some other plan to hatch.

Lonnie Walker makes you scratch your head. The name even rhymes with Johnnie Walker, which isn’t a bourbon and that really doesn’t mean much one way or the other. Like most comparisons, it’s a digression and avoids talking about the matter at hand. But digressions have a great deal to do with how Lonnie Walker moves on the court. He demonstrates a flash, or a sense of boldness if you will, and then he disappears. You wonder what would happen if he were given more minutes. You’re looking at his Per 36 when you think about this. You’re thinking how life is full of slow burns. You’re thinking about how Baby Yoda is five decades old, and the ice clinks against the glass as you realize that you’re still younger than Baby Yoda and Don Draper. You’re thinking about how Don Draper is younger than Baby Yoda. You’re thinking about how neither Baby Yoda nor Don Draper has their shit together and so how could Lonnie Walker possibly be as good as he’s going to get.

You really think Derrick White is the answer to this question because you really think Dejounte Murray is the answer to this question and Lonnie Walker just got a haircut so who really knows. What you do know is that you really don’t want to be wrong about any of them. And you wonder if Don Draper dreamed up Baby Yoda, and the answer is always Coca-Cola.

4. What do the Spurs get from Luka Šamanić?

When Luka Šamanić was drafted in 2019 with the No. 19 pick, a decent amount of San Antonio fans probably responded with a simple question: Who is Luka Šamanić?

And the answer San Antonio Spurs were immediately given is that Luka Šamanić is a Croatian professional basketball player. They were then shown whatever limited tape and highlights existed of the young Croatian prospect, told something about his either having or not having a lengthy wingspan and great motor by Jay Bilas, and then given the standard line that he would probably have to be stashed overseas or in the G League until further notice.

Since that night, Šamanić has spent most of his basketball life stashed away with San Antonio’s G League affiliate in Austin. And of that time Air Alamo’s Dylan Carter writes the following two paragraphs:

"Through 33 games with the Austin Spurs, 32 of which he started, Šamanić posted an impressive line of 15.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game on some slightly less impressive shooting stats. He shot 43.2 percent from the field and 31.1 percent from beyond the arc but still managed to put together 10 games shooting at least 40 percent from three-point land.The shot isn’t going to come overnight, so it’s better that Šamanić gets adjusted to NBA three-point range now. His body is much more filled out than it was on draft night, which is a good sign for his ability to compete as a backup in the NBA when the 2020-21 season rolls around."

And Damien Bartonek, also for Air Alamo, concludes of Šamanić: “he’s the man with the most to prove as the Spurs move through training camp.”

So the safest answer to this question is probably similar to what’s been suggested about San Antonio’s young perimeter players: flashes and headaches. And then more flashes and headaches until the body of work can be used to answer that introductory question: Who is Luka Šamanić?

5. Can the Spurs start a new playoff streak this season?

I wrote my first basketball blog post back in 2007 or 2008, and it was a piece that relied heavily on a Star Wars analogy comparing Tim Duncan’s Spurs to Obi Wan Kenobi. I’m okay being back on Tatooine because I know that’s where the story hides to begin again. I know that’s where the seekers go, to the desert, to the barren spaces, to the places where no one else is looking. The answer is probably not. The West is too good. But forgetting what you were or have felt a part of for so long takes time, and maybe that’s also what allows you to make it back. Some of these players aren’t as young as they once were, and some of them are not as old as they will be. If that’s not enough, then Popovich is the only hope. And yet that’s a rather bleak comparison to make. Writer clinks ice in an empty glass and yells Pop from a strange distance as the body of work appears to vanish. That can’t be, though. That can’t be. And yet this is the way.