ESPN: Lowe: The 2019-20 NBA League Pass Rankings, Pt. 1

[Drom John]

25. SAN ANTONIO SPURS (23)

Did you know that when boring people pair up, their boringness multiplies into a stifling super-system of boredom? It's true!

DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge might be the league's two most stylistically boring All-Stars, and they not only play on the same team -- they cooperate on the league's staple play! It leads where you'd expect: jab steps, pivot moves, and midrange jumpers. So many midrange jumpers. My god, the midrange jumpers.

The Spurs ranked last in percentage of shots from both the restricted area and beyond the arc. (They also ranked 30th in dunks. Dunks are fun.) It is incredible they won 48 games despite such retrograde shot selection -- and a defense that wobbled for the first time since Tim Duncan arrived.

How weird is coach Tim Duncan going to be? Does he own suits? Do they fit? Will he get extra leg room scrunching into the second row? Will he react to disputed calls with patented bug-eyed shock?

DeRozan drops the occasional hammer, and has a knack for graceful midair spins. Aldridge led the league in post-ups last season, per Second Spectrum, and that fadeaway over his right shoulder is high-arcing, buttery-soft gorgeousness when it's dropping.

The real fun comes from the young guys and a rollicking bench mob that takes its cue from Patty Mills' caffeinated perpetual motion. Derrick White is a clever two-way player. The White-Dejounte Murray pairing can envelop opponents on defense.

But overall, it's kind of a slog. Bat invasions at the AT&T Center have happened often enough to transition from charming to, "Is this maybe dangerous? Does everyone need a rabies shot?"

[r0drig0lac]

I'm most impressed that there are really 5 teams below SAS in this ranking for the general public

[Ed Helicopter Jones]

Zach Lowe can suck my balls.

[BatManu20]

Yea nobody but Spurs fans are going to be tuning in to our games this season. But that’s not really any different from any other season. Spurs are better when they fly under the radar anyways.

[RD2191]

:lol we're trash tbh

[Allan Rowe vs Wade]

Spurs are boring. Actually they’re not. But San Antonio.

[Drom John]

We reward each team between one and 10 points in five categories:

Zeitgeist: Do normal people care about this team? If you bring them up at a party, will guests slink away like Homer Simpson into the hedge?

Highlight potential: Does this team have one player who can transform a ho-hum sequence into something transcendent in a blink?

Style: The 2013-14 Spurs would be a 10. James Harden dribbling 44 times before launching another step-back would receive something below a 10.

League Pass minutiae: Uniforms, courts, announcers.

Unintentional comedy: Blame Simmons. We have expanded the category to include variables -- like Markelle Fultz's jump shot -- more appropriately classified as "curiosities."

Reminder: These are not power rankings.

Five teams to watch less than the Spurs.

30. Wizards
29. Cavaliers
28. Hornets
27. Thunder
26. Pacers

[Drom John]

Kevin Pelton
@kpelton
·
12m
To me, San Antonio is the most interesting team to watch given the way they could pivot to building around the young talent.

[Keepin' it real]

I'm outraged.

(And I'm canceling my NBA League Pass.)

[TD 21]

Fair commentary . . . except for his preceding it with this comment about Warren in the Pacers section: "Warren developing a workable 3-pointer last season was good in the practical sense, but do we have to cookie-cutter every wing?", then immediately following the Spurs section with this comment about Ayton in the Suns section: "His appetite for post-ups is a relief from stylistic leaguewide hegemony".

So he's good with retro styles and diversity . . . as long as it's not coming from a Spur. But remember, he has no biases and fans who think he does are delusional homers.

The problem is, his buddy Arnovitz and him judge the aesthetics of the current iteration of Spurs based off the the beautiful game one, which is an unfair standard for any team and not replicable. For all their pomp, they somehow fail to grasp that it was always about the players (specifically biggest 3), not the coach. If it were, they'd look the same now. The reason they don't, is because your best players define your style in the NBA.

[TimDunkem]

Zach Lowe can suck my balls.

Why be butthurt? This team isn't fun to watch. Fadeaway 2s and watching Fatty steal minutes and flop around on the ground is not exactly a draw.

[TimDunkem]

Kevin Pelton
@kpelton
·
12m
To me, San Antonio is the most interesting team to watch given the way they could pivot to building around the young talent.

Too bad they're not going to. They're simply pieces around this shit core of the fadeaway 2 brigade.

[Beartrucci]

Lowe has hated the Spurs for a while now, but this is fair. They are incredibly boring to watch right now.

[NASpurs]

Only reason they're easy to watch for us is because we're Spurs fans and even then at times, it's difficult to watch this team play 90s ball so I can see why they would be ranked so low.

Long gone are the days of the Beautiful Game.

[timtonymanu]

Only reason they're easy to watch for us is because we're Spurs fans and even then at times, it's difficult to watch this team play 90s ball so I can see why they would be ranked so low.

Long gone are the days of the Beautiful Game.

No joke, I couldn’t sit through a lot of last year’s games. Snooze fest. Props to timvp for watching all that and having the energy to give his B+ to Patty’s D+ performances.

The home game against the Raptors was the only highlight.

[tbdog]

I love 90's ball, and LMA 50 point game was so fun to watch. It was so old school. The old boy commentators, Barkley, Shaq loved it. It was iso after iso on the left block. I love DD game too (on offense) apart from the crying for lack of calls. I like his in between game, his layups, his surprising dunks, 180 spins. I can't imagine watching Rockets play night in night out, shooting 40 threes a game and Harden iso the top with step backs. That's boring, yet people don't complain as much as they should.

Edit*

The issue with last years team being (boring) was more to do with the high frequency of 3's being shot against us and what team was showing up. Spurs were inconsistent throughout, defensively and offensively, starters and bench. There was a few weeks at a time they were the top 5 team, sometimes the best, and deep down I hope we got that team for a playoff series.

[gospursgojas]

Cant see someone wanting to watch Wolves, Suns, Magic, Piston, Hawks over spurs.

[phxspurfan]

It will be funny if TD gets ejected for arguing calls from the bench

[buttsR4rebounding]

It will be funny if TD gets ejected for arguing calls from the bench

There is precedent.

[Mr. Body]

ESPN dogging the Spurs. Quelle surprise. Lowe used to be a good writer, now he's just dross like the rest of them. ESPN's content is unreadable.

[TimDunkem]

Cant see someone wanting to watch Wolves, Suns, Magic, Piston, Hawks over spurs.

Tf? The Hawks actually have interesting young talent.

[UncleDennis]

I'm gonna get so much shit for this but I actually like watching Aldridge hit those turn around long high arching 2's. The key word is hit them. I can't really disagree with the rankings though, I'll be watching them but my excitement level compared to years past is probably a 1...

Just want to see whether any of the younger guys could be capable in the long run to turn this team into something more then a middle of the road 1st or 2nd knock out or are we just buying time until we succumb to the never-ending drizzling shits that most great teams become once they lose their all timers.

[Arcadian]

But overall, it's kind of a slog. Bat invasions at the AT&T Center have happened often enough to transition from charming to, "Is this maybe dangerous? Does everyone need a rabies shot?"

:lol

[TDomination]

It will be funny if TD gets ejected for arguing calls from the bench
All it took was him laughing one time to get ejected from the bench so i think he could do it again!

What he was laughing at? Only Joey Crawford knows

[rjv]

the spurs are not an exciting watch but lowe is basically saying basketball is boring, in a roundabout way.

[phxspurfan]

the spurs are not an exciting watch but lowe is basically saying basketball is boring, in a roundabout way.

No team is an exciting watch if you're not a fan of them. How many of us would watch Pelicans games all year and be excited