When it comes to this
San Antonio Spurs offseason,
Harrison Barnes has been here before. Kind of. Through 13 NBA seasons,
he's won a championship with the Golden State Warriors in reaching the two NBA Finals and he helped the Sacramento Kings break a 16-year playoff drought. Though San Antonio hasn't yet enjoyed that level of success, the makings are there.
“The biggest thing for a team that wants to make a jump is the commitment level.”
“How much do guys want to be a part of what they're going to be watching here in these next couple of months,” Barnes continued, alluding to the playoffs.
The former North Carolina star
joined the Spurs last summer. In playing
all 82 games for a third straight season, Barnes supplied the professionalism and temperament that's defined his reputation. It's a mindset that continued right into the final day of the season when he associated his team with
future playoff appearances.
“What are you going to do in the off-season and your preparation to get that point, to put yourself in position to be at that point. A lot of people just assume that come October, ‘I'm going to be ready to go,' but this is where the growth happens. October is simply where it's acknowledged. For us, this summer is a big summer to just continue to get better on and off the court.”
Harrison Barnes details Spurs' path to improvementUnder contract through next season, Barnes turns 33 years old in late May. One of just two rotational players on the Spurs older than 30 (Chris Paul is the other), the Aimes, Iowa native outlined what
will prove key for his squad going forward.
“I think it's just establishing our standard. I think it's how we show up every single night. Obviously, there's lapses during the game, but I think there's a standard to uphold in terms of just consistently how we play.”
The Spurs had a 12 game improvement from the year before. Yet, Barnes
sees room for much more growth.
“I think when we look back at this season, we can look at games and we can say, ‘Okay during this specific game or during this stretch of games we didn't play at the level that we should've.' Whether that's in terms of our preparation, our execution of the game plan, our attention to detail. Whatever it is. And I think next year, the goal for us is to say, ‘Hey, we can look back at 82 games and say we played X amount of games at our standard.' This puts us in the best position possible to make the playoffs.”
A stint with the Dallas Mavericks fell in between Barnes' time with the Warriors and Kings, meaning you can add a brief stint with Luka Doncic to his time at the beginning of Golden State's run with Stephen Curry and the Kings of De'Aaron Fox and Domantas Sabonis. He puts these Spurs alongside.
“The future is bright. This young group is one of the more talented groups that I've been a part of and I've been a part of some pretty good teams.”
Hector Ledesma has been covering the Spurs in San Antonio since 2005, and now at ClutchPoints. An award-winning journalist born and raised in San Antonio, Hector has worked across all types of television and radio platforms. He attended Syracuse University, and also covers the NBA at large.
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