REQUEST: Todays (5/17) Per-Diem about Spurs

[Dr Cox]

Can someone please post Today's (5/17)Per Diem?

Thanks

[StoneBuddha]

We're basically watching two versions of the playoffs right now.

In one version, a team has some players on the court who can score and others who pretty much can't, and the objective of the opposing defense is to send extra defenders at the former and give shots to the latter. We saw a great example of that Wednesday night, when both the Lakers and Thunder ignored two of the five opponents on the court to focus their efforts on the other three and, as a result, suffocated two teams that are normally quite good offensively.

Then there's the other version, being played by the Spurs, in which everybody can score, at all times, and the defense is left with no clue what to do about it. It's a masterful piece of team-building that, amazingly, was all but ignored in the Executive of the Year voting announced Wednesday. But more on that in a minute.

As for this offensive juggernaut: No Spur averaged 20 points a game this season and only three regulars averaged double figures, but the sum of all their secondary contributors is enormous: Twelve Spurs have scored at least 20 points in a game this season, and thanks to that broad-based attack they led the league in offensive efficiency in the regular season and are doing it again the playoffs.

It's obvious why when you watch them: Whom do you leave open? Teams want to commit extra defenders to stopping pick-and-rolls by Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili and post-ups by Tim Duncan, but how? Five Spurs shot better than 40 percent on 3s, and Kawhi Leonard made 37.6 percent.

Maybe commit a big man and rely on the Spurs to miss near the rim? Not so fast -- Tiago Splitter shot 61.6 percent, DeJuan Blair 53.4 percent, and Boris Diaw made 58.8 percent as a Spur.

Here's what you do: pray they miss. Those boring, defense-first Spurs have changed their stripes into a floor-spacing, drive-and-kick, Euroball offense, and the results have been devastating. The only thing boring about them now is that they win every game. If you haven't heard the numbers already, digest these: San Antonio has won 29 of its past 32 games, and 22 of 25 on the road (with two of the three defeats coming when the Spurs rested their starters).

They're only gaining steam. In the last 13 games they played their starters, they won 12 by double figures, and with their superior depth they've been able to keep everybody remarkably fresh. As they keep rolling up playoff wins it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the inevitability of a fifth boat parade on the Riverwalk.

San Antonio has done this, I'll remind you again, without a single top-20 draft pick this decade ... a decade in which they've won 50 or more games every season, even this lockout-truncated one. The last time they had a high pick they had the good fortune to win the Duncan lottery, and some people still feel like that discounts everything their front office has accomplished since.

Here's a news flash: The Spurs outscored opponents by 8.19 points per 100 possessions without Duncan on the floor this season, even though those numbers are skewed by a couple of games that coach Gregg Popovich blatantly tanked in order to keep his players fresh.

And 8.19 points per 100 possessions was better than every other team in the league except Chicago. So yes, take away Duncan and the Spurs are still a dominant team. Moreover, they've built it with a superior plan -- one undertaken with the understanding of how important the lockout would make depth and rest.

Which takes us to the curious case of the league's Executive of the Year voting, won by the Pacers' Larry Bird. No disrespect to Larry Legend, who certainly has overseen a masterful rebuilding work by the Pacers, but the fact San Antonio's R.C. Buford didn't win is a joke. One wonders what league the NBA's general managers have been watching for the past decade, one in which Buford has yet to win the award.

Buford came in second this time, with 14 of the league's 30 GMs leaving him off their ballots entirely. Which means 14 of the league's 30 GMs are either jealous, morons, or both. You look at the ballots and wonder if these guys are following their own league.

(Among those receiving votes: David Kahn, who used consecutive top-six picks on Jonny Flynn and Wes Johnson and dropped $20 million on Darko Milicic; Otis Smith, who fruitlessly shot money out a firehose in Orlando and seems likely to be relieved of his duties; Pat Riley, whose investments in Mike Miller, Udonis Haslem and Joel Anthony have failed so badly that it may prevent LeBron James from winning him a championship; Rod Thorn, who didn't acquire any of his team's top eight players or its coach and tried to trade Andre Iguodala for Monta Ellis; and Chris Wallace, who has done some genuinely good work except for the part about trading Kevin Love for O.J. Mayo and drafting Hasheem Thabeet.)

The problem here is the old checkers vs. chess analogy. The fact that Bird won over Buford speaks to how many moves the Spurs are ahead of much of the rest of the league on the chessboard.

Take the two trades San Antonio made in the past year. The first was between Buford and Bird, the swap of George Hill for Leonard. It wasn't a bad trade for Indiana; the Pacers exchanged a first-rounder for a point guard, and they banked on Hill's Indiana roots as a factor in being able to keep him in free agency after this season.

That's a solid move for Indy, and for the chunk of the league's GMs that just throw stuff at the wall and hope something sticks, that's about as deeply as they saw it.

But for San Antonio, I don't think people realize what a spectacularly good trade this was. Not just because it gave the Spurs a defender at the 3 who proved better than people expected, but because of the cap ramifications.

Leonard is on a rookie contract and will make $1.8 million, $1.9 million and $2.9 million in the coming three seasons; Hill, meanwhile, will re-sign for somewhere between $5 million and $7 million a pop as a restricted free agent. Over the next three seasons the Spurs will save about $12 million as a result of making this trade, without losing anything on the court.

If this was baseball and it was just money, no biggie. But this is a salary cap league with a punitive luxury tax, so considerations like the one above matter hugely; you simply can't build a consistent contender if you're not planning ahead on these matters. The extra $4 million annual reduction in the Spurs' cap number is potentially huge.

This pattern repeats itself up and down the San Antonio roster. Take a look at the contracts and prepare to drop your jaw: Blair, Diaw, Danny Green and Gary Neal all make less than $1 million; Leonard and James Anderson make less than $2 million, and the more handsomely compensated Splitter and Matt Bonner still add up to barely more than the midlevel exception.

Which takes us to San Antonio's other deal, made with Golden State at the trade deadline, in which the Spurs dealt one of the rare mistakes of the Buford era, Richard Jefferson, and a 2012 first-round pick for Stephen Jackson. San Antonio was so many moves ahead on the chessboard on this one that I'm not sure anyone in Golden State has yet realized how badly the Warriors were fleeced.

Jefferson and Jackson are roughly equivalent players who are both coming to the end of the line, except that Jefferson makes $11 million in 2013-14 and Jackson isn't owed anything. In recent draft history, late first-round and early second-round picks have sold for about $3 million in cash; the price has probably moved above $3 million for the first round but not appreciably so, based on the cash exchanged for early-seconds.

The Spurs, somehow, effectively fetched $11 million for the No. 29 pick in this year's draft, or nearly quadruple the going rate.

If it were just $11 million in cash, we might shrug our shoulders -- it's only the owners' money after all. But this is $11 million in the far more valuable commodity of cap number.

Lowering the cap number, I'll remind you, isn't just about signing big free agents -- an area the Spurs have basically ignored since Jason Kidd spurned them in 2002. It gives wiggle room under the tax, opens options for trades, allows use of the full midlevel exception, and opens innumerable other closed doors. Anytime you can create it at a 70 percent discount -- which San Antonio effectively did -- it's laugh-to-the-bank stuff.

It's because of moves like this that the long-rumored "closing window" in San Antonio never actually closes. The Spurs' ability to manage their cap and find and retain low-cost players is the unwritten success story of this past decade -- look at this season, for example, and you'll see two starters and a key reserve (Diaw, Green and Neal) that were scrap-heap pick-ups on minimum deals.

As a result, the Spurs are kicking everybody's butt, just like they've done every season this decade, while everyone waits patiently for an impending decline that never happens. One wonders when their peers might grant some acknowledgment for this. On the other hand, maybe that helps explain why they've been so successful.

[jeebus]

:tu

[Dr Cox]

Thank you sir!

[Mel_13]

Which takes us to the curious case of the league's Executive of the Year voting, won by the Pacers' Larry Bird. No disrespect to Larry Legend, who certainly has overseen a masterful rebuilding work by the Pacers, but the fact San Antonio's R.C. Buford didn't win is a joke. One wonders what league the NBA's general managers have been watching for the past decade, one in which Buford has yet to win the award.

Buford came in second this time, with 14 of the league's 30 GMs leaving him off their ballots entirely. Which means 14 of the league's 30 GMs are either jealous, morons, or both. You look at the ballots and wonder if these guys are following their own league.


:lmao

[tesseractive]

San Antonio has done this, I'll remind you again, without a single top-20 draft pick this decade
Did he not count trading for the Leonard pick, or did he just forget?

[Jimcs50]

Wow, RC got raped.

[timvp]

The Spurs, somehow, effectively fetched $11 million for the No. 29 pick in this year's draft, or nearly quadruple the going rate.TJ Ford's contract was included in the trade and the Spurs lost the coin flip with the Bulls.

So that sentence should actually read:
The Spurs, somehow, effectively fetched $12 million for the No. 30 pick in this year's draft, or nearly quadruple the going rate.


Overall, pretty good article. It's pretty lame that Hollinger only goes off like this when supporting one of his predictions but it was a solid write-up nonetheless.

[Shifty]

Did he not count trading for the Leonard pick, or did he just forget?

I think he meant a pick of their own. As in not traded for. He also forgot to mention all of the potential talent acquired in the Hill/Kawhi deal: Rights to Lorbek and Indy's 42 pick.

[boutons_deux]

A George Hill vs Cow High Leonard Finals would be delicious!

[coyotes_geek]

I think he meant a pick of their own. As in not traded for. He also forgot to mention all of the potential talent acquired in the Hill/Kawhi deal: Rights to Lorbek and Indy's 42 pick.

That is a good point. Right now the trade looks win-win for both teams, but that may not be how it's perceived a couple years from now if Lorbek and/or Bertans are here and contributing.

[Drachen]

Oh and, sorry jeff =/= jack. Otherwise, this looks great.

[Drom John]

I'd have Buford/Bird 1/2, but Bird at #1 is rational when you look at the payroll. Hill's future salary is not only easily covered, but Hill, as local hero, supposedly also puts butts in the seats.
But #3 (I'd give it to Stern for the Paul trade followed by the Hornets getting the Ewing/Knicks bent corner), is so far behind that it's a joke.

[DMC]

Also the DWI didn't help.

[dylankerouac]

:lmao

Buford was not on 14 ballots and he still came in second. Pretty darn impressive. Sad that he cannot get respect from his peers though.

Edit: that's directed at the quote you included not your giggles.

[TimmehC]

Olshey from the Clips probably has a better case. Even throwing out the CP3 trade as Stern's interference, he brought in Billups for peanuts, Nick Young for Brian Cook(LOL Brian Cook), Caron Butler, Kenyon Martin and Reggie Evans. Pretty good job, IMO.