I am just talking in terms of years the spurs had a realistic chance, btw.
If you see my analysis below, this year's champion, assuming it comes from one of the 3 top western teams, will have survived the toughest road to a championship as far back as I could find, and would easily be the toughest road for a Spurs team that managed a championship.
A well established proxy for a team's strength is average margin of victory. Using AMOV for likely teams the Spurs would have to play in the west semis, western conference finals, and finals, and comparing that average strength of opponents to other years, we can get a relative sense of how tough this road will be compared to previous years.
AMOV total of final 3 opponents:
as of today for 2016:
okc, gsw, cleveland: 25.98!!
1999: Portland,Lakers, Knicks: 10.27
2003: lakers, mavs, nets: 15.33
2005: seattle, phx, det: 13.28
2007: phx, utah, cleveland: 13.55
2014: port, okc, miami: 15.09
In the last 20 years, the closest I came to this year was the Bulls 1997, which came to 19.72.
Bottom line, this team is arguably performing the best of any tim duncan-led team, but will be facing the toughest opponents of any spurs team to date, assuming no upsets of the top 4 teams, if we get to the finals.
It is going to be really challenging, tbh..going through potentially Harden/Dwight, CP3/Blake or Durant/Westbrrok, Curry/Green, Lebron/Kyrie is some gauntlet to run..
Spurs have upgraded the in-their-prime talent, but we probably still fall short of matching 4 or all of the above teams in that department. It is going to take our ageing Big 3 and key role players stepping up to fill the gap
I don't know if average margin of victory is a good metric to use this season. There doesn't seem to be a lot of mid level strength in the West. And the East just sucks. I think you have to include the first series as well. Especially in the West. 2014 to me was the best run imo. Having to go through Dallas and Portland just to get to OKC. Then the Miami Big 3. But we'll see how this season plays out.
That, of course, is assuming the Spurs don't get the #1 seed. I for one believe they will and would likely play the Clippers instead of OKC in the 2nd round. That also assumes there are no upsets in the playoffs like when the Knicks came from a low seed to win the East in 1999.
The last game against the Mavs was completely amazing because they blew away the Mavs by nearly 30 points even when the big 3 barely played well and the 3 point shots weren't falling.
Parker 0-4, Duncan 0-4, Green 2-8, 0-4 (from 3), Manu 0-3 (from 3), Mills 0-2 (from 3) yet Spurs win by 29 points.
That looks like pure and simple dominance where you just impose your will on an opponent.
My only remaining question is whether they can impose their will on GSW.
03' for the West since the Suns were just as much a pain in the ass as the '14 Mavs then having to go through the Lakers & Mavs while Tim was the only All-Star on the team. The Nets were also pretty compe ive in the Finals. The 2014 Blazers were essentially swept so '14 doesn't compete w/ '03.
I think peeps underestimate how hard was it to win in 2014... we didn't have HoFs in their prime anymore, and the West was much more compe ive than this year.
But that team was on a mission and shown amazing resilience. IMO, best lobt so far.
If the Spurs are playing like this in the playoffs, they'll lose 1 game max in the first round and 2 max against the Thunder. This team is damn scary.
Still, the toughest road will involve the Thunder in round 2, Warriors in WCF and Cavs in the Finals.
Agreed, and it won't be topped because of 6..But also this one looks to be extremely daunting : a combo of a historic team GSW + Cleveland on mission (that city sport hex is bound to end one day, no?), not to mention the stacked at top talents of OKC/Clips..
Best scenario is if we get the inexperienced Jazz (round 1), Clips(2), and winner of Warriors/OKC in the conf. finals. Of course, that requires us to get the number 1 seed. But I think we'd do well against the Clipps this year. So only the conf finals and finals would be truly daunting.
Nothing could possibly be more difficult than 2014. The mental for ude to win after 2013, nothing will ever touch it in my opinion...
I agree with this except I would actually much rather face the Grizzlies in the first round...now this is ONLY if Gobert is healthy by then and I don't know his situation. Gobert is the type of player that lowers Parker's value significantly as well as Duncan and others because the paint and rim are CLOSED and we begin to play scared inside. He's Ibaka-esque but with vastly superior length and range. While Utah isn't much beyond that I just don't want to deal with that headache. But Memphis is just done and a complete nonthreat any way you slice it. Their style is dated significantly in this day and age and they aren't gritty or grindy any more than they were years ago and we smoked them then. They are older and softer and have too little skill players. They are terrible coming from behind and can't generate the points it would take to beat us. ANd they can't defend us at all. We would sweep them guaranteed. But your overall path suggested is correct!
Yep!
This is my train of thought!
Yes, people will take success for granted. We shut our mouths, put our heads down and showed the world the meaning of the word 'determination!' By 'we' I mean as our in-game announcer says "Our San Antonio Spurs!"
I'd be fine with the Grizz.
Same here. Considering what happened the year before, 2014 can't ever be topped tbh
Peeps are underestimating how mediocre the 2003 supporting cast was...
Definitely felt the best, all things considered. That's for sure.
Could be. Getting the #1 seed and playing a team like the Jazz or Kings in the 1st round would help a lot. Any other seed will be really tough.
Prime Tim Duncan, man... plus DRob, Bowen, Kerr, young TP, Manu, Stephen Jackson. Very little need to rest guys, especially Tim who was a beast no matter who you put next to him.Peeps are underestimating how mediocre the 2003 supporting cast was...
Not a deep team, but in hindsight, fairly loaded, tbh. It's true though that the compe ion was possibly stronger then, with Don Nelson's Mavs and the threepeat Lakers.
Meh, this team is very elite. All they have to worry about is GS (potentially historic team) and the Clippers (bad matchup). Spurs would do fine against any other playoff team, IMO.
I agree with Nono. 2014 was the toughest path we've had but we were also a historic team that season.
People forget just how good TD was back then. You go back and watch games and he literally was the point guard out there from the high and low post...Not to mention the defensive anchor. Love TD, love that he's stil out there today just kind of gives you a calmness like everything's going to be okay. But, it's still a little sad in the Jordan Wizard type of way...
'05 team will always rank right with the '14 squad in my mind. Beating a very talented, tough defending champion in game 7 on its home floor was incredible. That team also showed some serious determination and mental toughness after the LA Disappointment the year before. Great memory of that '05 team.
2014 Spurs would have trashed the 2003 Suns
I completelly disagree, as of today there are not enough teams to make a path "difficult" for us, 2014, 2005 and 2003 where and will be tougher than this year no matter if we do clinch 6th or not.
The reasoning is very simple, while AMOV is a good measure of teams in general, the AMOV value is based on the difference between teams vs compe ion. And while this year compe ion is , plain and simple, that AMOV value that teams have is inflated because 95% of the teams in this league are right now. Even top teams are compared to 3 or 4 years ago.
For example, i would think that 2012 could have been the tougher year it could have gotten for us, but Kawhi, Danny and all the scrubs ted their bed against OKC so we couldn't win it all.
While this year top 4 teams are very identifiable they are by not means tougher than in previous years, except maybe GS, which i really donīt think is that much better, just became a good team in a moment that the league, as said, is trash.
If you want you can go team by team or equivalent.
OKC is worse than a few years ago.
Clippers are worse.
Cleveland is not stronger than Miami was, and i dare say itīs worse than 2012-2013.
Pacers a few years ago were much better than any East second team.
Memphis is worse as a 4th fiddler, Portland doesnīt exist, the Mavs have regressed and Houston has always been a laugh.
2014 was the hardest and the sweetest, what the are you talking about?
Yes GSW is the team to beat, the other teams already beat themselves see the standings.
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