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... and the schedule of final 4 weeks will be brutal.
Long season.
... and the schedule of final 4 weeks will be brutal.
I agree...but at the same time, you don't just fluke your way into being this dominant for almost 40 games, regardless of how easy your schedule might be. If you look at all the other teams mentioned in these "best point differentials after X games" lists, they're practically all historic teams who either won the Finals or at least made the Finals.
Our point differential will dip, obviously, but assuming we stay healthy, I'm fairly confident that this will be the best regular season in Spurs history. The real question will be whether they can carry that into the playoffs where they'll likely have to play two other amazing teams in OKC/GS.
Yes a difficult schedule is coming up.
However, this team is still improving by pretty substantial margins. LMA is just now getting to the point where Pop can rest him knowing it won't destroy his flow and chemistry with the team. His rise as a playmaker and his comfort level as the go-to big man on this team has augmented Kawhi's historic play beyond anything we could have expected, especially in the first 10 games of the season when Harlem & Krew were already set to tear down the Spurs for such a terrible acquisition.
Right now, this team is playing at about 80% of capacity, IMO. Aldridge needs a little more burn to really become a consistent animal on offense, West & Co. on the bench need to get a few things sorted to figure out how they're going to operate, and Danny Green needs to go to the ing Bermuda Triangle or wherever he decided to leave his shot.
If those three things happen, and the Spurs stay healthy, we could actually become significantly better on offense and maybe even better on defense, since good offensive possessions limit transition opportunities for the other team.
Overall we are playing extremely well, and FAR ahead of where I would have put us even with this light schedule. The teams we play are still NBA caliber and even bad teams have beaten us in the past.
31-6 with space to get better. All signs are pointing to continued dominance with perhaps a few more losses.
67-15 is very reasonable with either a 2 or 1 seed depending on GSW's health.
And I wouldn't bet against this team in the playoffs. They will be historically tough to beat in 7 games if all things keep moving the way they currently are.
21 at home, 16 on the road. Not really that home-heavy. Miami has played 23 games at home and 12 on the road. That's home-heavy.
We also play better after the ASG even if the games are harder. The Spurs pick it up a notch. We will come real close to 66 this year.
two games more is home heavy?
Percentage wise? It really is. Playing almost 100% more games at home than on the road is kind of ridiculous.
I agree with you completely:
With last season's team, there could have been one or two losses tacked in there already in our season of the headscratching kind. We could not even afford to rest TD, that is how heavily we relied on him still. The games he rested, were surefire losses, not like this season, where we have won games without TD. If ppl can't see this team's depht is better they are blind.
Would you rather have Anderson/Boban getting minutes when other rest? Or you want Daye/Ayers back? How about Marco? Do you want Simmons or Marco? I am taking Simmons and leaving Marco to ElNono and TD 21.
Then obviously Lamarcus > Tiago and D.West > Baynes... and those two guys Tiago/Baynes were very good at their roles. We just have much much better players now overall 1-13.
The only place we lost is Ray < Cojo, but Cojo had a minor role when everyone is healthy and Ray is serviceable.
Last edited by SAGirl; 01-07-2016 at 02:40 PM.
The bench is so much better this year than last year. There's no argument here anymore.
West > Baynes ... you can't even argue this. West arguable isn't a great paint protector, but you can also the same with Baynes who got consistently dunked on by Griffin.
Diaw (much more aggressive posting up this year and more aggressive taking the 3). Also seems fatter this year.
Simmons > Belinelli Belinelli definitely a better 3 point shooter, but if you factor in how many times Simmons has been on the line and the his defense. I don't think you can claim Belinelli is better. Note also that both players have the same height.
Manu (Seems less injury prone so far)
Mills (Seems to be better passing this year).
Now we haven't even included Boban and Anderson! In fact even Butler is better than Ayres and Reggie Williams combined!
Spurs have too many weapons this year, in fact, they play better with some starters suited up!
This article says it all: http://stats.nba.com/featured/spurs_...016_01_07.html bench has a +15.6 NET RATING!
You could make a pretty favorable comparison between this team and our 2005 squad.
Parker >> Parker
Manu >>> Green
Bowen <<<<< Leonard
Duncan >> Duncan
Nazr <<<<< LMA
Beno <<< Patty
Barry << Manu
Robinson (lol) <<< Simmons
Horry = West (probably not in the playoffs sadly)
Rasho <<< Diaw
(I'm a little high on Beno/Barry, as I have fond memories of watching them play but admit that they really weren't that great)
Our bench is 2 tiers above what it was in 2005 and our starting 5 are pretty comparable. The big difference is that 2005 team, as great as they were, had a lot of guys that were holes/space fillers. There's not a single player on the Spurs getting regular minutes that couldn't see a TON of minutes on nearly any other team in the NBA. 1-9 this team is ing loaded and if Simmons continues to prove himself, we basically have two starting 5s that we can constantly barrage on teams with.
I would say offensively the 2005 squad was a little better for now because Duncan Manu and Parker were all guys that could drop 40 on you at any point, but the potential for this 2016 squad might exceed that of our 2014 team.
Defensively, even though Duncan isn't in his prime anymore, he's still a monster, and Kawhi Leonard is easily the best defender the Spurs have ever had outside of Timmy and David. I think Kawhi has a legitimate shot to be the best defensive wing of all-time.
How many games would a team of Patty Manu Simmons West and Diaw win? They could probably get 30-35 without too much of a stretch.That's insane for a 2nd unit.
thanks for sharing that Ceperez!!!!!
What an eye opener. That is even counting that our bench has seen guys in and out. Simmons emerged for us recently, but we had some Butler and Anderson in November. We also started giving more time to Boban as recently as December. That is outstanding.
The bench is on fire!
I still count one game Spurs could have easily lost that they won (Mavs), and only one game they lost they had no chance of winning down stretch (Pels). Pretty damn impressive.
After you factor in strength of schedule including home/road, the Spurs still have the best SRS of all time, here are the 9 teams better than +10:
1 2015-16 SAS 12.46
2 1970-71 MIL* 11.91
3 1995-96 CHI* 11.80
4 1971-72 LAL* 11.65
5 1971-72 MIL* 10.70
6 1996-97 CHI* 10.70
7 2015-16 GSW 10.53
8 1991-92 CHI* 10.07
9 2014-15 GSW*10.01
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...=&order_by=srs
Also consider that the Spurs are a lot better now than in November because the new players have acclimated. The point differential should remain the best of all time.
* Spurs need a MOV of just +6.5 the rest of season to end up at +10.
* Spurs need a MOV of +10 rest of season to break the all-time record set by Milwaukee Bucks.
Hit me with some stats quick.
SRS since Tim Duncan entered league, teams above +1, this will blow your f*ck*ng mind:
1 1998 2016 SAS 6.47
2 1998 2016 DAL 3.00
3 1998 2016 LAL 2.69
4 1998 2016 PHO 2.14
5 1998 2016 HOU 1.83
6 1998 2016 MIA 1.58
7 1998 2016 OKC 1.57
8 1998 2016 UTA 1.54
9 1998 2016 IND 1.27
10 1998 2016 POR 1.09
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...=&order_by=srs
Someone tell me Tim Duncan isn't the greatest winner in sports history.
That's good.
Talk about an outlier.
I put in another thread that I expect the differential to come down and quite a bit too.
But I do agree that the team's potential to improve is very high. My only gripe now would be I'd like to see Boban get situational rotation minutes against big backup centers that can dominate West like Noah or Kanter. But I'm pretty happy that Simmons has been given some opportunities, and Aldridge should be much better the second half compared to the first half. That wizards loss, or add least the open look at the end, was all due to lack of chemistry and experience in the system.
At some point I think the additional margin of victory is attributed to how well Boban and the 3rd Unit / Garbage Time players have performed. In years' past, if we were up 20 after 3Q, and our scrubs came in, we'd end up with an 11 point win. Now Boban and Simmons came in with energy, and the lead goes up to 25 or 30.
Boban has a +2.1 per game plus/minus, with most of those coming in 4Q blowout minutes. We are elite 1-13 and it's amazing. But at some point (+10, +12?), the margin of victory turns into how well your 3rd unit is playing, which isn't indicative of how you'll perform in the playoffs when those guys are towel waiving.
Good find. I bet Dallas only passed the Lakers last year, maybe 2 years ago. I'm also surprised to see Houston that high.
Is there a way to tell where LeBron's Cleveland years would rank?
They are on the list, but not close to the top.
For LeBron's 4 years with the Heat Superteam, they were 3rd behind Spurs and OKC. So I doubt his numbers compare to Duncan's for his entire career, no matter the team he was on.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/...=&order_by=srs
Thanks for finding that. I agree, if LeBron's Heat teams were behind the Spurs, he can't compare to Duncan for his whole career in total SRS.
Uh, yeah. When I wrote that, the Spurs had played 5 more home games than on the road. Miami had played 11 more home games than on the road.
That's a decent sized difference. You disagree?
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