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Yup. The fact is Pau right now is much better than Tim right now, so the SL should improve. The bench is definitely a question mark, but losing Tim alone with Gasol replacing him makes the team better talent wise at this moment.
When you have one of the top five players in the game at SF in Kawhi Leonard, THE Lamarcus Aldridge at PF
Yup. The fact is Pau right now is much better than Tim right now, so the SL should improve. The bench is definitely a question mark, but losing Tim alone with Gasol replacing him makes the team better talent wise at this moment.
If the Spurs never win another le again I'm still set for life. When they won their first le I was in hschool and ever since I have been able to enjoy all the other 4 les as a young adult. Very few people outside of bandwagon fans get to see their favorite team win a le multiple times as a teenager and young adult. Anything from this point forward is just gravy for me.
Gasol vs Duncan, Diaw and West is a lateral move at best.
That was not the question though. Tim was the only starter of the 3. Replacing Tim with Pau improves the team because at this stage of their career, Pau is better than Tim.
You may argue that Diaw/West is much better than Bertans/Dedmon, that's ok, but the SL is improved and the bench IMO has potential to be better.
Mills/Manu/Simmons/Kyle are back. Added Bertans/Murray/Dedmon to replace Boban/Boris/West/Andre Miller/Bonner/Kevin Martin. Still room for a couple more players too.
People underestimate attributes like toughness, leading by example, giving more when more of you is needed, the power-vacuum this creates when you lose leadership like that. There's a lot more than just putting numbers on the board. Lots of losers like Cousins, Rudy Gay, etc can fill up the stat sheet, but it takes a lot of other attributes to build a winning foundation.
Having players you think one day can be all that vs knowing you had that player is a huge difference. I don't care how broken down Tim was, you don't lose HoF talent like that, in all senses of the word, and come out unscathed.
It's true that the league is 90% , and that perhaps the 50-win streak will likely be alive, but it's also true that there's damn good teams out there still.
Make no mistake about it, this is a huge loss for the current Spurs, IMO.
Hoops bringing the goods per par.When you have one of the top five players in the game at SF in Kawhi Leonard
A Cavs fan has more faith than some of y'all smh
The Spurs are the third best team in the league...sure they can contend. Everyone knew GS would win it last year to..
Spurs are contenders right now.
Bro, I hope you're playing
We are easily second, TBH.
I like the Spurs winning 57 games and going to the WCF.
Spurs in 6.
The one flaw in all that - the one POTENTIAL flaw at least - is Tony. If he declines any more, it changes everything. Tony has never been a particularly accurate passer, and he's always struggled to break down a zone. Declining foot speed for hi is a big problem. If he holds up, at least to the level of last year, I agree that their starting 5 should be able to win 55 games. But if we see any fall-off from him? It could still leave a lot of people scratching their heads over how a team that won 67 games last season could fall this far.
we'll be fine.
Definitely a big concern (see what I did there). However, even with TP struggling the 2nd half of last year, SA was still winning a lot of games. I think with Pau giving more than Tim did along with Danny having a bounce back year, SA can survive lackluster play from TP (to a point).
But it's definitely the biggest question mark outside of the bench heading into next season. We shall see..
Meh... I should have eaten some crow there. I was one of the gloom-and-doomers this offseason. As much as I love(d) Tim, he wasn't himself last year. And after that December injury, he really wasn't himself. As hard as it is to do, I have to admit that Pau is going to be an upgrade in the middle over last season. Boris was out of shape, and West was out of position. Losing them is a blow, but maybe not as bad as it might have been - especially if Dedmon can live up to everyone's hopes. And there's no reason to believe that Anderson and Simmons won't be at least marginally improved over last season.
I still think it would have been fun to see the Spurs pick up a hotshot young PG in next year's lottery, but you don't blow up a 55-win team, I guess. And if I'm being objective, I have to admit that they should win that many. You and a couple of others talked me back off the ledge a while back. I try not to miss an opportunity to say "I was wrong".
Probably wrong.
Meh... I should have eaten some crow there. I was one of the gloom-and-doomers this offseason. As much as I love(d) Tim, he wasn't himself last year. And after that December injury, he really wasn't himself. As hard as it is to do, I have to admit that Pau is going to be an upgrade in the middle over last season. Boris was out of shape, and West was out of position. Losing them is a blow, but maybe not as bad as it might have been - especially if Dedmon can live up to everyone's hopes. And there's no reason to believe that Anderson and Simmons won't be at least marginally improved over last season.
I still think it would have been fun to see the Spurs pick up a hotshot young PG in next year's lottery, but you don't blow up a 55-win team, I guess. And if I'm being objective, I have to admit that they should win that many. You and a couple of others talked me back off the ledge a while back. I try not to miss an opportunity to say "I was wrong".
Probably wrong.
If Pau fits well (and he should since he's very similar to Tim on offense and defense skill wise) and DG can bounce back those are the two biggest things.
But Spurs will have little to no margin for error. I do think while SA could win a lot of games, we have a good chance that those ridiculous point differentials might be smaller than we are used to. But winning is winning.
I mean, we saw a GS who broke the NBA all-time record look more than mortal in the playoffs. They were down 3-1 to OKC and blew a 3-1 lead to CLE. When you have a team that has talent, playoff experience and is in the top 5, there are so many things that happen (injuries, trades, unexpected bench play, etc..) that you just can't blow it up - especially when there is nothing to blow it up for.
6 seed in the west? No way. Terrible prediction.
Exactly. The margins were very thin in the playoffs. The Spurs are also more top-heavy this year, and Pau is no stranger to heavy minutes.
8 seed?
<shakes head>
3 seed in the west, +- 1.
The Spurs will carry on. Tim built a solid foundation that won't crumble because of his departure. I expect the Spurs to be CONTENDERS for years to come. There's like 3 or 4 good teams in the league as it is. Next year the team will be even better.
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