Barring Lucking Into A Superstar In Draft, Spurs Will Be A Treadmill Team Until Pop/Buford Retire

[Kobe'sAchilles]

So you think we will be the Suns? Or Philly when they tanked? Or the nets or bulls this year? The knicks or the magic? Dallas? The hawks? We have two all stars and actual young talent and a hall of fame coach. We might not make the playoffs this year but we are in the running to make it. Saying treadmill is just stupid. We are going to win more games in the first half of the year than like 8 teams did all of last year.

[TheGreatYacht]

David Robinson and Tim Duncan were not difficult decisions. They were consensus unanimous #1 selections. Tony Parker was all Sam Presti and Ginobili was the last or second to last pick of the second round. If they thought he was something special, they wouldn't have picked Leon Smith in the first round of the 1999 draft.

god damn...

[TimDunkem]

The fear of not getting a superstar doesn't concern me, it's their complete ignorance of the direction of the league that concerns me..

All the top teams are looking for 3-point shooting, length and athleticism, while the Spurs are relying on mid-range Js and still playing guys like Belinelli and Mills together

Pop is getting close to what Phil Jackson became with the Knicks, the difference is that nobody is paying attention to SA..

Then you have guys like the PATFO slurpers here who call you spoiled, say you're melting down, or claim you're a fake fan for even discussing the elephant in the room (the league passing Poop and FO by).

[TimDunkem]

It's not Pop's and RC's fault. They didn't expect the guys to be mental midgets

But they held on to them knowing that they literally are NBA midgets.

[TimDunkem]

is there anyone left here who still believes in PATFO?

Most of the first 10 people who posted in this thread, apparently.

[tbdog]

I still wonder if these two re ed signings over Simmons and Dedmon cost them Kawhi. If this is where Kawhi and his uncles idea to leave started, it just makes these signing all the more worse.

Stop acting like Dedmon and Simmins are killing it on poor teams. They not. Simmons is shooting 29% and 16% from three ffs.

[Kurgan]

I knew somebody would say this, but the difference between them and many others is, 1) They literally traded into being a treadmill team, 2) The process to getting off of it, is all wrong. From where they're likely to pick in the next few years to the current roster and style of play. It's completely tone deaf. And the young talent they do have, I don't even trust them to develop it in a modern way.

Ideally, I'd like to see the two senile fools who've ran them into the ground retire in short order, but that's not happening.

That Kawhi trade will go down as one of the worst trades of all-time if he resigns with Raptors. Trading away your entire wing rotation and taking back a soft Euro big that doesn't even fit in. They pretty much took back the worst young player on the Raptors while leaving a gaping hole in the most vital position in the modern NBA. I've come to grips with the Kawhi-DeRozen swap being lopsided but that's expected when you're put into a bad position by an unruly player. Everything else about the trade was awful though. Losing a vital 3&D player on a cheap contract. Pretty much gifted Toronto an extra starting calibre player. The first rounder is dog too - likely going to be 30th pick. No better than a 2nd rounder

[tbdog]

Any team other than LA was a risk to trade for Leonard. Even the Lakers thought it was a sure thing and they took Ingram off limits. Plus the injury baggage. Leonard essentially didn't play all year. It hard enough getting equal value when you lose the best player. But the added injury cloud and uncle Dennis demands to go to LA was really hard for the Spurs to get 50c in the dollar.

Also, boy did this forum change its stance on Green. He was hated and now he is missed. He lost his starting position to Mills and shot 25% from three in the playoffs. We also haven't see what the Spurs will do with two 1st round picks. Heck, Pau Gasol traded to LA was a massive wash, yet Memphis got gold with Marc. Poeltl is a huge let down though. Everyone expected a much bigger impact, and it could still come. You never know. Spurs could sign him to a long cheap contract and he might become a late bloomer. Talking about worst trades. Twolves got 2 role players and 2nd for a healthy allstar.

[Big Empty]

Durant is leaving Goldenstate next year. Things wil be a little bit back to normal

[cutewizard]

[cutewizard]

Ommmmmmgggggggg WILT RULESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!

[cutewizard]

It is no longer debatable....................

WILT IS THE BEST OF ALL TIME, OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmggggggggggggg!!!!!!!

[JPB]

Fans from other teams reading that kind of threads must hallucinate tbh

Everyone now have a thought for sixers fans who have wished and embraced the "Epic Shame"... sorry the "Process" for 5+ years, (grabbing the worst record in history in down the road) and... lemme check... are 9-6 now in the freaking east with a -0.2 diff, good for 10 in the conf...

Meanwhile, spurs are 5th in the west with a 7-5 record, missing their all-defensive starting PG and a couple other players. If not for Gay out, they might even be 8-4 or 9-3. And except for the Dubs, everyone is mediocre.

Are they playing well ? Not really. Is it surprising ? Not really considering the injuries and DeDepressed's integration.

Their cap situtation is OK, they have a few promising players + pick and one of the best coaches in history who have proven he could adapt to every situation.

Meanwhile, Houston and visionary Morey have a disgruntled and satisfied Harden (now that he got his individual MVP trophy) and CPAlbatros (think about him if you consider Patty's contract is bad).

Dallas and visionary Cuban have sucked for what it seems now like forever since their ship (at least they got one),

OKC and genius Presti has won and lost Durant, Harden (and Ibaka to some extent) and sign Melo...

LA and genius Magic have signed PG13 and Kawhard... sorry Javale and Rondo to form their big 3 cos everyone wants to play in big cities or where they grew up, right ?

Minny just traded their "superstar" and is collapsing.

Denver just lost 4 in a row after a hot start and what even remotely significant Denver player can anyone name me form the last 5 years ?

Phoenix sucks and seem they will until up the next century.

And so on...

GS ? If not for Curry's early bad ankles and an MVP chasing a ring he coudn't get by himself, what would they be now ? Probably a good team.

Then you look around the NBA landscape in the past 10 years and you see former spurs assistant coaches or GMs everywhere...

Enjoy Pop and RC while you can. You might not get that anytime soon again.

And be grateful.

[iGetbuckets]

It is no longer debatable....................

WILT IS THE BEST OF ALL TIME, OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmggggggggggggg!!!!!!!

wtf does wilt have to do with the spurs ??

[bklynspursfan]

I still wonder if these two re ed signings over Simmons and Dedmon cost them Kawhi. If this is where Kawhi and his uncles idea to leave started, it just makes these signing all the more worse.

And if it was, Kawhi should've been vocal about it with Pop and express his concerns. Not run off in hiding Bin Laden style.

It does seem like the guy just wanted to be in LA, so I guess we'll see next summer.

[Maddog]

Fans from other teams reading that kind of threads must hallucinate tbh

Everyone now have a thought for sixers fans who have wished and embraced the "Epic Shame"... sorry the "Process" for 5+ years, (grabbing the worst record in history in down the road) and... lemme check... are 9-6 now in the freaking east with a -0.2 diff, good for 10 in the conf...

Meanwhile, spurs are 5th in the west with a 7-5 record, missing their all-defensive starting PG and a couple other players. If not for Gay out, they might even be 8-4 or 9-3. And except for the Dubs, everyone is mediocre.

Are they playing well ? Not really. Is it surprising ? Not really considering the injuries and DeDepressed's integration.

Their cap situtation is OK, they have a few promising players + pick and one of the best coaches in history who have proven he could adapt to every situation.

Meanwhile, Houston and visionary Morey have a disgruntled and satisfied Harden (now that he got his individual MVP trophy) and CPAlbatros (think about him if you consider Patty's contract is bad).

Dallas and visionary Cuban have sucked for what it seems now like forever since their ship (at least they got one),

OKC and genius Presti has won and lost Durant, Harden (and Ibaka to some extent) and sign Melo...

LA and genius Magic have signed PG13 and Kawhard... sorry Javale and Rondo to form their big 3 cos everyone wants to play in big cities or where they grew up, right ?

Minny just traded their "superstar" and is collapsing.

Denver just lost 4 in a row after a hot start and what even remotely significant Denver player can anyone name me form the last 5 years ?

Phoenix sucks and seem they will until up the next century.

And so on...

GS ? If not for Curry's early bad ankles and an MVP chasing a ring he coudn't get by himself, what would they be now ? Probably a good team.

Then you look around the NBA landscape in the past 10 years and you see former spurs assistant coaches or GMs everywhere...

Enjoy Pop and RC while you can. You might not get that anytime soon again.

And be grateful.

That was good.
As you said they are adjusting to a new roster/rules and injuries. Only the rules where potentially a known before the summer.

[StinkyWeezleteats]

Unfortunately, neither is more than likely happening anytime soon. Sure, Pop might retire from coaching in 2 years, but he'll probably maintain some level of control and Buford is still young enough to conceivably go another 5-10 years.

Since they've repeatedly proven that they're too stuck in their ways to change, I now hope they lose as much as possible. Grinding out a mid-high 40 win season and squeaking into the playoffs will only lead to more of the same. They'll talk up improved health/growth from young players, as well as continuity.

The only possible avenue to meaningful change, is if the bottom falls out. There's been signs the past 4 seasons, but they always managed to stave it off, thanks to a combination of MVP caliber play, a stifling defense and "corporate knowledge". Suffice it to say, none exist any longer and the chasm between modern basketball and the archaic brand they play only continues to widen by the season.

What I want, is unmitigated disaster and not the kind that can be explained away by one or more of their best players suffering a significant injury. Maybe then they'll have the intestinal for ude to confront the mess they've made and begin to re-evaluate everything.

[TDomination]

Fans from other teams reading that kind of threads must hallucinate tbh

Everyone now have a thought for sixers fans who have wished and embraced the "Epic Shame"... sorry the "Process" for 5+ years, (grabbing the worst record in history in down the road) and... lemme check... are 9-6 now in the freaking east with a -0.2 diff, good for 10 in the conf...

Solid take.

It's easy to just say, trade so and so and lets rebuild. But rebuilding does not guarantee anything. It could take a decade before you start seeing results from the rebuild.

As we are now, with everyone healthy including Murray, i believe we have a top 5 team in the West.
Now i feel its best to utilize the stars you do have and try to put the necessary pieces around them. We are lacking wing players, thats what we need to go for either via trade during the season or free agency in the off season. Murray will be back next year so that will be an automatic upgrade.

And hopefully walker and white will have implemented themselves into decent enough players that we can rely on them consistently.

But we can still have a chance to truly compete with LMA and DDR as long as we have the correct complementary pieces around them. The obvious tough part is to find our next superstar. Either via trade/free agency or get lucky and develop one. Possibly Murray or Walker. We'll see.

[exstatic]

Actually, I think this could easily be a top 3/5 team (in the regular season) with just some minor tweaks. Getting a couple young, atheltic 6'8" guys would make a World of difference.

A rotation of, for example:

Murray, DeRozan, Anunoby, Bertans, Aldridge

White, Walker, Jaylen Brown, Gay, Gasol

Is easily a top 5 team in the NBA right now (again, only regular season).

With just two additions (and a lot of fat trimming) you are already adressing a bunch of weakness, like defense, athleticism, speed, pace, etc.

And I know those guys there are pipe dreams (or not, who knows if we couldn't have had OG if we asked) but it doesn't have to be just those players. Any semblance of 3 and D guys would produce a similar improvement.

The thing is, I no longer trust PATFO to make the moves they are suppossed to make.

OK, those ARE Pipe dreams, and they are also: a top 3 pick, and another first round pick, who fell only because he played just a handful of games before tearing his ACL. To think that you can just plug in 'any semblance of 3 and D guys' and get the same effect as high draft picks is, frankly, ing delusional.

[Kobe'sAchilles]

The thing that makes me hopeful for our future is that we have been interested in the right people during the draft but bc we were picking in the high 20's we weren't able to get them. We were one pick away from Gobert which would have drastically changed this team. We wanted Kuzma before LA snatched him away. We wanted Lavert but Sean Marks took him. There are many players we wanted that we just couldn't get. But we did end up with 3 pretty promising selections in Murray, White, and Walker. Tbh this might be the best time for us not to do well so we can draft a small forward of the future in a draft with quite a few good small forwards.

[pad300]

Well, I agree that we may be looking at a treadmill team here - but that's the fate of most nba teams at any given time. Any typically NBA draft has maybe 1 guy with enough (potential, luck w/ injuries and other issues, development - sometimes there is no such in the draft) to make a team into a real contender (and this guy is not necessarily easily identifiable, see the nephew who lasted to 15th), there are maybe 4 such guys in the league at any given time (currently : Lebron, nephew, Curry/Durant ). Everybody else is effectively on a treadmill... We were forced into this situation by nephew & nephew's uncle. Not sure anything could be done about that, no matter how good the management was (although, IMO, errors have been made over the last coupl

On the optimistic side, if we are lucky, we might just be looking at a draft TD scenario here. A bad enough fit due to the nephew trade (which was a robbery, but what do you expect after all the horse from camp nephew), combined with injuries, could (maybe even should) land us in the lottery. Some luck with ping-pong balls and good talent evaluation - we do draft well (for our position, we get a lot of rotation players or better) - Who knows? We might just "luck" into another superstar.

[TimDunkem]

Honestly, the moves the past few years have been lazy and uninspired with contracts only going to guys who slurp Pop's and act in HEB commercials. What has been left is a mishmash of space eaters, midgets, and chuckers. I doubt one off season will be enough to balance out this mess...Not that it will matter because, even if KD leaves Golden State, your chances are not very good if you're trying to outscore 3s with fadeaway 2s.

What a shame. GS finally shows signs of imploding and the Spurs have the worst roster they've had in years.

[Joseph Kony]

lol...Pop and RC have completely re-shaped the roster and changed style of play like 3-4 times in the last 20 years. yeah we look like ass right now but this is such an emoboy whiny thread tbh. locate your nuts and man up op

[DAF86]

OK, those ARE Pipe dreams, and they are also: a top 3 pick, and another first round pick, who fell only because he played just a handful of games before tearing his ACL. To think that you can just plug in 'any semblance of 3 and D guys' and get the same effect as high draft picks is, frankly, ing delusional.

Well, we traded for a 9th overall pick, I don't know how much of a pipe dream having traded for a 23rd overall pick would have been.

And again, it doesn't have to be those players. We could pick a veteran like an Ariza or Demarre Carrol and we would be immensely better than what we are right now.

[Proxy]

so op makes this post to tell us that a team without a superstar won't be elite..... okay