Is this the Tim Duncan Farewell Tour?

[TDfan2007]

I wonder if to a certain degree all this rest and a lower usage rate have hurt tim. He doesn't get the chance to get in rhythm like in the past. Of course, this is necessary to preserve him, as the second half of the season will be more brutal. Expect to see more from him in March and April.

Also with LMA and Kawhi taking all these shots, Tim can really focus his energies on defense. And he has been magnificent. For all we know, this new role might extend his career rather than shorten it. It all depends on how much he enjoys this new role and how his body holds up.

This is a really good point. Obviously, Tim's not a pure shooter. He's always been a rhythm shooter/player. It's hard for guys who are used to taking 12+ shots a game to get adjusted to taking around 5-6. You start pressing and putting more pressure on each shot. Things don't flow as easily.

[TDfan2007]

I acknowledged his "stellar defense" in my original quote. He continues to be elite. It is on the Offensive end where his decline has seemed precipitous since the beginning of the season. I believe it is a good time for Pop to "experiment" (as I commented) with pairing LMA and West in the first unit and Tim/Boris in the second. I think Pop will probably do that during the Rodeo Road Trip, if not sooner.

I will be as happy as any Spurs fan if what I perceive to be Tim's decline on the offensive end is merely a slump. It does not look like it at this point.

He's near the top of the league in post-up efficiency. He's one of the best passing bigs in the league, and he's still one of the best defenders in the league. Not sure what else you'd want from a guy who is almost 40 and playing on half a knee...

If the matchups allow it, he can still score, but against mobile/long bigs (Gortat, Gasols, Bogut) it's probably best for him to move the ball around. It's all about matchups. If he wanted to, he could force shots and average 15+ ppg while shooting around 45%, but he won't. It's not in his DNA.

[sasaint]

He's near the top of the league in post-up efficiency. He's one of the best passing bigs in the league, and he's still one of the best defenders in the league. Not sure what else you'd want from a guy who is almost 40 and playing on half a knee...

If the matchups allow it, he can still score, but against mobile/long bigs (Gortat, Gasols, Bogut) it's probably best for him to move the ball around. It's all about matchups. If he wanted to, he could force shots and average 15+ ppg while shooting around 45%, but he won't. It's not in his DNA.

I am not sure he even has half a knee any more. My concern is two-fold: first, the shots he takes from midrange are often not just misses, but way off the mark; second, and more importantly, Tim is clanking the close-in shots at an alarming rate. If you can, go review the first shot of the game. Tim rushed a shot in a very awkward, almost timid way. He finished the night with a similar clank and shot an abysmal percentage. It seems like a growing trend. Perhaps bill mc is correct about his "rhythm" assessment. If so, the answer would be greater usage, but I am not sure that is something that Tim is physically up to or something that is best for the team.

[Mr. Body]

He's not played much recently and is out of rhythm, though I don't doubt age is a factor.

[Brazil]

In the first place, you seem to be completely overlooking the fact that Pop has played everybody on the team in every conceivable combination, including starting West in Tim's DNP games. The Spurs do much more blending of their units than you acknowledge, acclimating players with players, not units. Second, you fail to acknowledge that LMA and Tim really want to occupy many of the same spots on the floor and are, hence, not particularly complementary pieces in the first unit - more like redundancies. Finally, the team would also benefit from splitting the shorter Diaw/West duo most of the time either is on the floor.

Regardless, I believe more and more that we are witnessing Tim's last season as a player. The team should do everything necessary to maximize his skill and contribution in order to win the championship with this truly historic team. We as fans should appreciate what we've got before it is gone - at this season's end, IMHO.

In the first place (and btw no need to go further) experiment some line ups and changing starting line up when a player is not available (duh) is quite different than effectively changing the standard rotation... I'll give you the fact you are respectful and your posts are profanity free but your arguments are quite badly rounded and not convincing to say the least

[spursistan]

I wonder if to a certain degree all this rest and a lower usage rate have hurt tim. He doesn't get the chance to get in rhythm like in the past. Of course, this is necessary to preserve him, as the second half of the season will be more brutal. Expect to see more from him in March and April.

Also with LMA and Kawhi taking all these shots, Tim can really focus his energies on defense. And he has been magnificent. For all we know, this new role might extend his career rather than shorten it. It all depends on how much he enjoys this new role and how his body holds up.

I think it did..Pop has overrested him to the point he is having 4/5 days between games now..Hard to get rhythm and you're bound to mess up muscle memory as you can see with too many missed bunnies lately.. I would rather have him out there for 15-17 minutes than a complete DNP..I hope Pop ram up his usage a bit ..

[SAGirl]

I think KA needs one more good year of offseason training and playoff experience before he'll be ready to The field general for the Bench. I have no idea where we'll find a Timmy Replacement.

I thought so at the beginning of the season - possibly even two more seasons. But now I don't.

He had a tough game last night but he was shooting 68% for January before that game, so it was bound to happen that he would miss some shots, and the shots he took were not good shots for him. He took a desperation 3 at the buzzer off the bounce. That wasn't going to go in, those are not shots he can make at this point in his career, but its ok that he took it context considered.

He made I thought a couple of ill advised drives, when he might have been better off taking a mid range shot, which he is very good at, but I think playing at the 4, he was not sure he could get separation enough to guarantee his shot wasn't going to be blocked and they were playing him close. Just shows he's a project as a 4 I guess, playing guys that are 6'10 is out of his comfort zone. You can't send him down to the dleague to learn that either, bc there are very few guys that height there and they play him as centers too and he dominated those guys. This is one of those areas he has to learn by trial and error.

For the garbage time crew last night, I think they were thrown out of whack by Ray doing a poor job running the point.

Ray often doesn't recognize shots for guys. He is not very successful at calling sets or getting guys in good spots and he often misses opportunities or mismatches early in the shot clock. I think you can hide him with the starters or with the better players in the team bc he plays well enough off other people, but if you give him the ball to run the point, call sets, get shots for guys, he isn't very good, or at least he wasn't this past game.

There was one sequence Kyle had good post up position very early in the shot clock bc he ran in transition and put his defender on his back, but his effort was screwed up because Ray didn't recognize it and instead ran into the paint dragging his man with him and going into the corner right in front of Kyle, while Kyle was in a post up position. That was super dumb and I think it is things like that which have caused Pop to send him to the dleague. That sequence ended up in a contested Ray mid range shot.

In other sequences, Ray failed to call out sets, attempting to do things on his own running PnR with Boban that didn't go anywhere and then giving Kyle or Simmons the ball with little time in the shot clock so they would bail out bad possessions. I don't like that about Ray. He doesn't put other guys in spots to take good shots, and if he's going to give them the ball, he should do it with more time so they guys can call a proper play for themselves.

Simmons was successful making a jumpshot off a screen (nothing to do with Ray setting him up or even calling a play), but he also missed a contested shot at the rim that he had to force up bc Ray gave him the ball with little time to do anything else. Kyle was put in the same spot. I think Kyle has been successful bailing possessions out with his jumpshot (he has a very nice midrange game), but he wasn't in good spots in this game, or with sufficient time to call out a proper set. I also thought Kyle was the only one looking to still play team ball instead of freelancing, just there was little off the ball movement bc guys didn't even know what the heck they were doing.

Can't judge Kyle based on last game, maybe Ray either, but I do think Ray is limited TBH.

[wingster]

I still think he'll hang it up after the 2016-17 season.

[Horse]

He's missed some easy shots but I think it's more important that he's getting such easy shots they will fall. If we go on to win a championship you can bet at some point he got that look in his eyes and put us on his back through some of the tough times.

[sasaint]

My comment that you quote was about Tim. I'm not even sure why BillMc made that comment about Kyle in this thread.

[sasaint]

In the first place (and btw no need to go further) experiment some line ups and changing starting line up when a player is not available (duh) is quite different than effectively changing the standard rotation... I'll give you the fact you are respectful and your posts are profanity free but your arguments are quite badly rounded and not convincing to say the least

I obviously believe my 2nd and 3rd points were worth writing, and others have expressed the opinion that pairing LMA and West and also NOT pairing Diaw and West are good ideas. But, I, too, thank you for your civility. We will just have to agree to disagree and see how it all shakes out. I hope Timmy is, indeed, just going through a slump or is suffering from memory loss due to low usage. Some of his missed bunnies lately - especially last night did not appear to be memory loss, however. Especially the first blown shot looked odd and awkward.

[BillMc]

My comment that you quote was about Tim. I'm not even sure why BillMc made that comment about Kyle in this thread.

What comment about Kyle did I make in this thread?

[letmk]

From what I see (I didn't watch the last two weeks' games), he is just going easy. Maybe he could not play like the best Spur as in the Clippers series, but he is from done. For Timmy, everything is about playoffs.

[SAGirl]

My comment that you quote was about Tim. I'm not even sure why BillMc made that comment about Kyle in this thread.

What comment about Kyle did I make in this thread?

Think that was Train of Thought.
I got sidetracked.
Back to the topic.

I think both Tim and Manu can do another year, but we can't take them for granted. Manu looks like a renewed player, but I think its just having all these new players to train and enjoy playing with plus a better team has him very engaged this season. He has talked about the grind of the season, the bumps, etc. and he was really torn over the summer on whether to come back or not.

For Tim, I think he loves the game so much that he will play until the wheels fall off. The delicate issue is recognizing "when they are falling off at last".

I am not sure if the issue really is Tim's knee (could be rhythm or what other guys stated) but it could very well be the knee. He was rested late Decenber due to knee soreness, and everyone assumes Pop is being CIA Pop about those things and wanting to give young guys experience, but there is not a total dishonesty. It would not be out of the question that he has indeed knee soreness. It might even be always there and just flares or not.

[will_spurs]

It's clear that the Diaw+West combo might not be the most desirable. But this team is all about defense and Tim is still the anchor on that end. That he doesn't contribute so much on O any more isn't that important. There are many other options on this team for that, and I'm sure he's still going to dominate a bad match-up if the case arises. In the meanwhile his help D is invaluable for the starting unit.

[spursfaninla]

It's clear that the Diaw+West combo might not be the most desirable. But this team is all about defense and Tim is still the anchor on that end. That he doesn't contribute so much on O any more isn't that important. There are many other options on this team for that, and I'm sure he's still going to dominate a bad match-up if the case arises. In the meanwhile his help D is invaluable for the starting unit.

Agreed.

Duncan is dominant on d this season. We have the 3rd rated offense per ESPN Offensive Efficiency rating. Don't need him on offense.

[jsandiego]

I am not sure he even has half a knee any more. My concern is two-fold: first, the shots he takes from midrange are often not just misses, but way off the mark; second, and more importantly, Tim is clanking the close-in shots at an alarming rate. If you can, go review the first shot of the game. Tim rushed a shot in a very awkward, almost timid way. He finished the night with a similar clank and shot an abysmal percentage. It seems like a growing trend. Perhaps bill mc is correct about his "rhythm" assessment. If so, the answer would be greater usage, but I am not sure that is something that Tim is physically up to or something that is best for the team.

You may be right about the missed bunnies, but do we have stats to back it up? I mean, if the guy is taking less shots because he's distributing the ball at the top of the key instead of banging down low, but still has a high conversion rate on post-ups, maybe his offensive regression has more to do with role and less to do with physical ability.

The eye test says he's slowing a bit, but defensively he's still an elite rim-protector and outlet passer. But I'm just not sure how much is him, and how much is his role. He's not going to score 15ppg in his role. LMA is barely getting 17ppg after a slow start. And Duncan is around 8ppg after scoring more earlier in the season.

[ajh18]

I'm not sure I'm seeing this "precipitous" drop-off people are talking about.

Looking at Tim's offensive stats:

1) His true shooting percentage is down a bit from last year, but higher than '13-'14, '11-'12, '10-'11, '05-'06, or '03-'04. In fact, it's just .007 points lower than his career average, .544 vs .551.

2) Per-36, his scoring average is down to 12.3 pts, but that's on just 5.1 shots. So his pts/shot is 2.41, compared to last year when he was at 2.54. So a bit of a drop, but nothing crazy.

3) His usage is the main thing that's way down, and that's likely an intentional move to defer to LMA and Kawhi. He's down to 17.3, the only time under 20 in his career.

4) Instead of using that energy on offense, he's using it on defense... hence, leading the league in DRPM, and topping all centers in RPM.

I think Tim is very intentionally shifting his role, to still feel relevant in the new Team's structure. Not unlike what David did with him. And since he wants to play "till the wheels fall off," I think that his ability to be successful in this new role (which clearly he is) can really help him extend his career another year or two.

[dafonearth]

No, he's missing the shot because he rarely takes it. He also thinks about it too much and then decides to take it because he knows there are better shots for the team. So it's just an out-of-rhythm shot for him right now.

He's missing layups for the same reason. He's just not getting a lot of looks on offense so he's out of rhythm. It's as simple as that.

[SupremeGuy]

Don't you even ing say it.

[SAGirl]

[spursistan]

I seriously hope this knee thing doesn't become an ISSUE that deteriorates swiftly especially in old age ..something not right there..

[KenziE]

Wow all this disecting of the GPFOAT's game


CIA Tim is coasting this will be a good bump once the playoffs starts tbh

[SAGirl]

The West signing in the off-season starting to look mighty key.

[HarlemHeat37]

The West signing in the off-season starting to look mighty key.

Yep, especially since he's really blossoming in his role, after a shaky start to the season..

Boris's resurgence has been huge, too, as he was pretty ty, last year..