We're midway through the season already, and the Spurs finally have (mostly) all the pieces available. It's been a really rocky first half, with a lot of injuries from a lot of different guys, many lineup shuffles and a pretty unforgiving schedule. The Spurs have weathered the storm fairly admirably, all things considered, and while the record could be better, the team has basically competed in almost every game. Hopefully the Spurs have turned a corner on the injury situation (at least anything major), and can start building towards being the best team they can be. In that, we need to take a look at the things we've been doing well, and the things we need to improve on.
Stats from: http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/tea...rt/assistRatio
Assist Ratio
The percentage of a team's possessions that ends in an assist
Spurs rank: #5 (18.6)
Top rank: Atlanta (19.6)
- The Spurs have shared the ball well, despite the missing bodies. This is an area where the team has done a good job, given that we don't really have superstar talent that can just solve possessions with a simple ISO. Looking at other teams, this is something where Golden State has improved dramatically year over year. The Spurs lead this ranking last season with a 19.1 ratio, so there's definitely some extra room to improve.
Pace Factor
The number of possessions a team uses per game
Spurs rank: #19 (95.7)
Top rank: Golden State (100.6)
- Pace isn't necessarily an area where you want to lead unless you have an off-the-charts offense, but you do want to be in the top half of the rankings, which normally means you're running out for the occasional easy points. The Spurs just haven't been able to run out much for easy points in the 1st half of the season, and this has both to do with a small slippage in perimeter defense and the fact that we've been missing young and speedy feet out there on the court. The Spurs ranked #12 (97.1) last season, so this is something that hopefully will improve now that we're getting healthier.
Turnover Ratio
The percentage of a team's possessions that end in a turnover
Spurs rank: #16 (13.6)
Top rank: Charlotte (11.1)
- Turnovers is an area where you can always do better, but despite claims to the contrary, the Spurs have generally done well so far. Last season the Spurs ranked #12 and had virtually the same ratio (13.5).
Rebound Rate
The percentage of missed shots that a team rebounds
Spurs rank: #10 (50.7)
Top rank: Sacramento (52.8)
- Rebounding is also virtually unchanged from last season (rank #13, 50.6). You can always do better, but the Spurs have done well enough so far.
Effective Field Goal Percentage
Adjusted FG% for the fact that a 3-point field goal is worth one more point than a 2-point field goal
Spurs rank: #7 (51.3)
Top rank: Golden State (54.2)
- The Spurs have done well, but can do better in this area. Last season they ranked #2 (53.7) behind Miami. This is somewhat expected due to both the missing guys and Marco not being anywhere near the 3 pointer leader that he was for a good part of last season. All in all though, the Spurs have been certainly fairly effective shooting the ball.
Offensive Efficiency
The number of points a team scores per 100 possessions
Spurs rank: #12 (104.5)
Top rank: Dallas (110.6)
- This is certainly an area where the team has suffered a bit, especially compared to last season (rank #6, 108.2). The ball movement has been there, but the easy points have not, and our eFG% has been down a bit, so it's not surprising the overall offense has been down. This is probably the biggest area to improve, and hopefully a more rested team with an easier schedule and fresher bodies will be able to elevate the team offense.
Defensive Efficiency
The number of points a team allows per 100 possessions
Spurs rank: #6 (100.3)
Top rank: Golden State (97.3)
- The defense has actually been pretty steady. The Spurs ranked #4 (100.1) last season. I think this has a lot to do with the fact that the team came out of the gates playing terrific defense, and then slowly decayed as players were getting hurt. But overall, the Spurs are where they want to be, and looking at how they started the season, they should have some room to grow. There's just more teams playing better defense this season (so far anyways), so the Spurs should really aim to re-establish themselves at the top 5 in this ranking.
Conclusion
The champs are a team that relies heavily on their top 5-6 guys, the fact that some of them have been missing and some of the other ones have been playing too many games in too little time, has certainly taken a certain toll on the team's play. That said, it's pretty admirable that the team has been able to weather the storm and still post very competitive numbers. Arguably, the Spurs could've easily won 5-8 more extremely contested games that came to a single basket at the end. You can attribute those to a plethora of things, from bad execution to tired legs to poor coaching to simply tough luck. Now that we have more talent available, hopefully some of those won't be longer a concern.
Ultimately, the offense looks to be the most affected by all this shuffling around. This is where the Spurs will have to put the onus on in the second half of the season, while tightening up things on the defensive end. A lot of times, great defense leads to easy points on offense, and while the Spurs have done an excellent job on D, they still have not been able to capitalize much from that on the other end. Look for that to change.
Feel free to add your own thoughts to this thread.

