Encouraging individual statistics as the Spurs enter 2013

[Darius McCrary]

In the entire NBA, how many players average at least 16.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists and one block per 36 minutes played while shooting at least 50% from the field? Only two. Tim Duncan and Tiago Splitter.

Story of the year, IMO.

timvp...too early to start the "How much will we lowball Tiago" talk?

[objective]

Possible Boozer amnesty for the Spurs to pick up on the cheap. Maybe others throughout the league. Spurs should come away with something decent.

Good point. Amnesty might be the only way to add decent players while keeping Splitter and Manu. But they would be limited and need to get lucky.

Teams that can still use the Amnesty but can't/probably won't:

Memphis = no contracts to dump that aren't a big part of their team
New Orleans = but no contracts that would be amnestied
Utah = no eligible contracts

Teams that can still use the Amnesty:

Milwaukee = Drew Gooden
Lakers = Metta World Peace's final year. No thanks.
Detroit = Tayshaun Prince
Chicago = Boozer
Charlotte = Tyrus Thomas
Oklahoma City = Kendrick Perkins
Sacramento = John Salmons
Toronto = Bargnani, Amir Johnson, Linas Kleiza's final year player option. Probably Kleiza.

----

So, other than Boozer, maybe Perkins could be had. I guess Tayshaun could be useful as a back-up if Jackson doesn't come back.

[objective]

Teams that could compete for the same players as the Spurs and fancy themselves playoff teams:

Houston, Atlanta, Indiana (if they lose West), Dallas. Maybe even New Orleans if they pick up with Gordon in the lineup.

[Richie]

Teams that could compete for the same players as the Spurs and fancy themselves playoff teams:

Houston, Atlanta, Indiana (if they lose West), Dallas. Maybe even New Orleans if they pick up with Gordon in the lineup.

Assuming Atlanta don't resign Josh Smith I guess?

There are a lot of good bigs on the market and not any great win-now options. Houston is probably the best destination long term, but that gives us a good chance of attracting at least a decent talent.

[objective]

Assuming Atlanta don't resign Josh Smith I guess?

There are a lot of good bigs on the market and not any great win-now options. Houston is probably the best destination long term, but that gives us a good chance of attracting at least a decent talent.

Even with Smith. They're going to have a ton of room. Teague is restricted, but even if they went all in, giving him 10 million and Smith 15 million, they'd still be able to clear enough to have like 12+ million in cap room.

[Uriel]

If there's any statistic that encourages me, it is by far the Spurs' league leading point differential of +9.06, despite a Strength of Schedule of .523 (5th). No other team in the NBA is in the top 5 in both categories.

And though it's easy to argue that the same was true last season, like timvp, I believe this year will be different because of defense. Last year, the Spurs' were 10th in defensive efficiency. This year, their 98.3 points per 100 possessions ranks 5th. For the first time since 2007, the Spurs have both an elite offense and defense. And we all know what happened that year.

[SA210]

Damn you Pop for not giving Tiago/Tim more time earlier!

[Richie]

Even with Smith. They're going to have a ton of room. Teague is restricted, but even if they went all in, giving him 10 million and Smith 15 million, they'd still be able to clear enough to have like 12+ million in cap room.

One would imagine with Horford and Smith they will be going for back court help rather than the likes of West who we would be targeting. No guarantees of course.

[Kidd K]

Great stats timvp, thanks for the read.

I'm personally very happy with the development of Green, Leonard, and Splitter this season. Even better, Parker is still playing well like he did last year, Tim Duncan is playing as good as he has in half a decade, and Ginobili hasn't fallen apart yet somehow.

Dare I say. . .everything seems to be falling into place this year? Everything we could've wanted for our team in the "what if" scenerio has pretty much happened except that Diaw and Jackson have fallen off a bit. If only they would round into form, I think the Spurs would be stone cold killers in the playoffs this time around.

With just OKC and LAC being the two biggest threats besides the Spurs, we may be looking at a le. The Miami Heat aren't exactly the 90's Bulls or 00's Lakers/Spurs.

[Tuddy]

Given all this who believes they can actually get it done?

[analyzed]

If there is a thing that really gives me the optimism that this team can actually go all the way, it's that our 5 best players (5 of the 6 players mentioned by timvp -tony, manu, kwahi, Tiago and Timmy) play well as a unit together without anyone playing out of position, they all play the position their most effective at. (there have been past season where we had to go small (e.g playing Tony, Hill and Manu, Bowen) simply to to put our best players on the court. That is not the case with this unit, our best offensive players our also our best defensive players. and we don't have to sacrifice size to be efficient offensively.

[racm]

That should be our crunch time lineup.

[Strategic]

7 million for Splitter is a vast underpayment for him.

I'm sure he'll get plenty of advice, just hopefully he will turn loyal to the Spurs. Maybe he would accept a back end loaded contract. One starting at around 6 mil. and finishing around 8?

[will_spurs]

If the choice is between Splitter or Manu for $7m a year, I don't think the FO will hesitate for even one minute... Even Splitter $10m vs Manu $7m.

[will_spurs]

-With Tony Parker, his season has been spectacular from many angles. I’m not sure which is the best way to view it. His shooting percentages jump off the page (51.7% from the field, 40.5% on three-pointers, 82.6% at the line). His PER over his last 21 games is a sterling 25.7. But perhaps my favorite number of all: nobody in NBA history has scored at Parker’s per-minute rate of points and handed out his per-minute rate of assists while turning the ball over as infrequently has he has. Nobody. Ever.

Actually even forgetting about "per minutes", only 3 players in the history of the NBA managed to score more than 21.4 ppg, get more than 7.4 apg and turnover the ball fewer than 2.2 times per game:
- Fat Lever in 88-89 (19.8 / 7.9 / 2.2 in 38.7 minutes)
- Chris Paul in 11-12 (19.8 / 9.1 / 2.1 in 36.4 minutes)
- Tony Parker in 12-13 (19.4 / 7.4 / 2.2 in 32.5 minutes)

Due to low minutes Parker obviously crushes them when brought back to 36mpg.

[racm]

Actually even forgetting about "per minutes", only 3 players in the history of the NBA managed to score more than 21.4 ppg, get more than 7.4 apg and turnover the ball fewer than 2.2 times per game:
- Fat Lever in 88-89 (19.8 / 7.9 / 2.2 in 38.7 minutes)
- Chris Paul in 11-12 (19.8 / 9.1 / 2.1 in 36.4 minutes)
- Tony Parker in 12-13 (19.4 / 7.4 / 2.2 in 32.5 minutes)

Due to low minutes Parker obviously crushes them when brought back to 36mpg.

Isn't TP also having a career high in TS%, 3P% and FT%?

[will_spurs]

Isn't TP also having a career high in TS%, 3P% and FT%?

In 3P% and FT% easily (although 06-07 was close for 3P%, and last year for FT%), but not in TS% (.577 this year vs .584 in 05-06, and also had .572 in 06-07).

This being said his 3P% is more legit than it used to be, as he already has as many 3PA this season than for the whole of 06-07, and if you exclude his first couple of years in the league when he was quite shoot-happy from 3, he's averaging the most 3PA of his career.

All in all he had some very nice shooting years, but the stars are definitely aligning for him this season...

[Russo21]

I don't think it's been stated here yet as we're talking about individual stats. Duncan is shooting 81% FT. Career high. Thats mighty impressive.

[racm]

In 3P% and FT% easily (although 06-07 was close for 3P%, and last year for FT%), but not in TS% (.577 this year vs .584 in 05-06, and also had .572 in 06-07).

This being said his 3P% is more legit than it used to be, as he already has as many 3PA this season than for the whole of 06-07, and if you exclude his first couple of years in the league when he was quite shoot-happy from 3, he's averaging the most 3PA of his career.

All in all he had some very nice shooting years, but the stars are definitely aligning for him this season...

Mostly because Parker is getting more looks from the corner 3, and I wrote an article about him taking more of those. And so far it is working, wow. Being adept at the corner 3 also means he can play more off ball allowing him and Manu to take turns creating. Would be useful against OKC.

[will_spurs]

It's long been said that all that Parker needed to get to the next level was a respectable 3-point shot. He's not yet a threat on contested shots from downtown, and I fear many of his corner 3s are wiiiiiiide open and with a ton of time, therefore things might get a bit more complicated once teams learn to pay him some respect in this situation. But it's still a damn nice addition to his offensive repertoire.

[Leetonidas]

Crazy how we went from one of the softest and weakest front lines in the NBA (Duncan, Blair, Jefferson, Bonner) to one of the best (Duncan, Splitter, Leonard, Jackson) in two season

[exstatic]

Crazy how we went from one of the softest and weakest front lines in the NBA (Duncan, Blair, Jefferson, Bonner) to one of the best (Duncan, Splitter, Leonard, Jackson) in two season

Pretty much ONE season. That soft lineup started the lockout return season for us.

[Leetonidas]

True, but RJ and Bonner/Blair were still getting minutes this time last year

[temujin]

All this is nice and reflects what we all watch, one of the most efficient offensive machines assembled in years.
However, there are still two big black spots, thinking POs.
1) Backup PG. Mills is not, and we all know De Colo won't see much playing time as a rookie.
2) With the -expected- reduced role of Bonner and the eclipse of Blair, the bigs are down to a 3-men rotation, plus small ball. It's a long season for those 3-men.

[rmt]

Except you're assuming the tiago out there is same tiago you would have years ago. I think he has come a long way since falling on his butt attempting a dunk. And its not as easy as put them in from the start & you get results early... we needed to stay compe ive while bringing tiago along to where he is now.

Tiago would be much further along in his development if not for Pop wasting his time on Bonner and Blair. What are more regular season wins worth compared to Tiago improving and the resulting better defense in the playoffs when it counts? I hope Tiago doesn't leave just because he's pissed off at Pop for leaving him on the bench watching the Turd Towers play for so long.

Glad to see the mentioned players doing so well. Now, if only, Diaw and SJax would join the party, my hopes for a championship would take a step up.