Texas only has one professional football team and it isn't in Dallas......
The Spurs are revolutionary in more than playing team basketball with offensive game that features passing. What many folks miss is their revolutionary use of the bench for lots of minutes during the season and playoffs. Sure Pop was forced into utilizing bench minutes because of the age of the big 3--but as a tactic it is against all previous NBA theory that you play your starters 35 minutes or more. What we saw during the past two years is an evolving team strategy of playing starters less minutes and giving the bench a chance to explode with fresh energy. It often simply runs the other team out of the game because of fatigue. The Spurs go at them in waves of players with energy and relentless pace. As an added bonus, The bench players get an emotional charge from knowing they will play a significant part in the team's success.
"Experts" said the Spurs would return to a more standard minute rotation during the playoffs, but that really wasn't the case. Instead, Pop kept running fresh players in and out so that even younger teams like OKC and GS were visibly tired in the 4th quarter. And the Heat were obviously fatigued during our series with them.
Don't get ahead of yourself.
We won against a team that had no size.
The kryptonite to beautiful ball is an athletic defensive big.
Don't get ahead of yourself.
We won against a team that had no size.
The kryptonite to beautiful ball is an athletic defensive big.
I don't think Spurs look to categorize their players along a positional basis. They are about creating match-up problems through versatility and execution. It is a testament to the coaching staff because they see their players as they can be not what others want them to be. Every player that plays in the system currently has to have a desire to improve and become a complete player. It is kinda of like the heyday of "ironman" football when players were required to play both ways. If you are a Spur, you are required to play not just two ways but many ways. The Spurs can play any pace or style as a result. The media gives it labels like "small ball" or "run and gun" when really all it is is taking advantage of the individual attributes of your players to the maximum level and I am proud to say that as good as the Spurs were this past year, they still have room for improvement. I can potentially see a day when the Big 3 don't even have to play for chunks of games during the regular season for us to win if we continue to develop our current stable of players.
It's no secret that the Spurs are doing and have been doing a ton of things differently from the norm of the NBA. It's a thing of beauty to watch from a basketball perspective, but, also in terms of business, motivation, organizational approach and as an evolving, creative en y. It's a huge testament to the greatness of Duncan that his role has adapted and he has remained effective for so many years with radically different teams around him. The positional revolution is going on in the NBA and I see many teams going with length and mobility. The Spurs are aware of this and are probably trying to grow with that trend. Of course, having more length and mobility allows Timmy to be most effective, too.
They started doing this what many have termed Euro ball (passing a lot) by larger and larger increments each year since 2010 when they realized that their Suns type of offense-only, was not going to get the job done, IMHO. That was when they went back to the philosophy that defense wins championships. I honestly don't think they did this by design back then, but rather, after Bowen left, they had no way to focus on defense as they had in the past. Then as they already had the offensive game developed, they focused on getting those players to develop their defense, or getting the players necessary to play both ends of the court.
I actually think they want to develop this style even more and thus why they are hiring, or want to hire, Messina to be an assistant coach.
It makes sense.
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