Popovich, Spurs content to stand pat

[Duncan2177]

You mean Carl Landry? Kenyon is likely the most realistic of the 3 but I have to ask why do people want Darko, he's just awful & Landry is basically no better @ defense then Bonner/Blair. Enough with undersized 4's, Spurs need a power forward that can play some defense.

Yes Landry

[Kidd K]

Btw guys, Bonner has a 1m buyout after this season, so if they don't want him, they can cut him and not even pay 1/3rd of his salary for the season after. I doubt he'll be around much longer.

Nice article.

The biggest news is that Spurs want to stay below the tax. In a lot of years, they have been fine with being just over but it isn't the case this year.

tbh, despite this stuff about being a "small market team", Forbes claims the Spurs are in the top 5-10 for "most profitable NBA franchises" almost every year, which means they're spending a lot less than they probably could be.

I'm not ing about the job the front office has been doing, but it does lead me to question why they are being so cheap with the pursestrings when they're technically an extremely profitable franchise with 15-20 million dollars a year of excess earnings going directly to the Spurs' owner's personal bank account. None of that cash could be intelligently spent? Really?

Just to put it into perspective, yeah the Lakers make more money. . .about 30m more per year. But their team revenue is nearly 80m higher. So they're spending an extra 50m on the team. The Knicks operating income is only a couple mil higher than ours, but their revenue again, is nearly 80m higher. We have the second lowest revenue to operating income ratio in the league (average over last 5 seasons, not this last single season).

The Bulls are the only team that's even cheaper than we are, and, quite ironically, that's my second favorite team. I'm cursed with two cheap ass owners. Even worse, my favorite baseball team was recrently purchased by a dude who's by far the cheapest guy of the three. Thanks god.


Long story short, I don't buy it that we "don't have the money" to keep certain guys or go out and sign people or go into the tax. . .because we clearly do. Top 10 in revenue (barely), #2 in profit margin (based on %, not gross margin, which would favor teams with higher revenue and expendetures and not accurately portray real profit margin). I used to think we didn't have the cash, but it turns out we do and the owner just doesn't want to spend it. He's earned somewhere in the realm of 200-250m cash (after expenses) in the Duncan era alone, and enjoyed his team's overall value double since drafting him.

Standing pat is a cheap ass move imo. Add something. The Spurs aren't going to be championship caliber for much longer. Possibly starting with this season. I'd like to see at least some last attempts be made to get a le with Duncan. Just one more and I'm set. And yes, I realize that's sorta spoiled. . .but it, I am.

[Kidd K]

OKC beat us because they hit a freakish number of outside jumpers when they needed them, and KD was in Beast Mode for 4 straight games. If their bigs didn't hit 22/25 and KD didn't have 16pts in the 4th in game 4, we win the series 4-1. I don't see a huge skill difference between the two sides.

And I think you underestimate the possible improvement from within the team given a full pre-season. Remember, we only had Jax and Diaw for about 20 games before the playoffs. The other thing I'll mention is that our bench stopped scoring against OKC, but with a full year of Patty running the backup PG I think that'll be less of an issue. I think there's plenty of room for improvement in this team. You're right that D is the issue, but who knows what kind of mid-season or deadline trades might be worked to improve that... , add an enforcer like K-Mart and the front court starts to look a lot tougher.

Anyway, I don't share your pessimism. I think we'll be right up there again, and with a few breaks could go all the way. It's a long-shot, but at this point in Tim and Manu's career, everything is!

I'm pessimistic about it, but for different reasons.

I agree when you say, there wasn't a big skill difference between SA and OKC last year. I agree. In fact, I think we were better. I also think we should've won the series, and that we would've beaten Miami.

However. . .where I'm not confident is next season. (I was confident the last two seasons fyi, and yes, before they st arted winning a lot too. before the 2011 season I was saying Spurs will be top 3 (I predicted a 2 or 3 conference finish, depending on how Dallas did. I had Lakers at 1 or 2). Literally I said that on insidehoops. You can probably find it if you google for it.

Why I'm not confident for next season is because I think last year was our last good chance, and possibly our best chance. The rest of the NBA was in coast mode most of the season with the exception of about 4 teams. SA, OKC, Miami, and Chicago were in championship mode last year, everyone else were just a sad collection of cucks that didn't try hard enough.

This year, that isn't going to happen again. Everyone's going to be trying hard, we're going to be targeted due to back to back #1 seed finishes, and I seriously doubt we're going to enjoy the same health we've enjoyed the last two seasons. . .because let's face it, we've had more seasons derailed with injury since 2007 than we've had seasons of full health. 2008-2010 were all riddled with injury, last year we had a good season of health. . until the worst possible time to not be healthy anymore. Last year we were healthy when it mattered and lost.

Are we going to luck out again? Now that we're older? Now than LA is reloading? Now that it's proven that OKC will get "Lakers calls" against us? Now that OKC's more experienced? Now that Miami is in stacked?

Think about it. Most likely scenerio this next season will be this: We finish 3rd. . .behind OKC and LA (in whatever order), and draw some thug team at 6 like Memphis or Portland and get banged up in the first round. Then we have to consecutively play: LA, OKC, and Miami all in a row without HCA, and knowing full well all 3 teams are: younger, more talented, and preferred by Stern to win instead of us.


It's hard to be excited when we're not making any improvements. We're older and not going to be as healthy. Other than Leonard, who's really going to be improved from last year? Parker won't be better. . .who knows what's up with his eye. Duncan is older, and isn't going to do any better than his uptick in production from last year. Diaw's conditioning is a big question mark. Bonner's going to be terrible. Jackson. . .is he done? He was terrible during the season last year and mediocre all playoffs until the OKC series. He's probably getting traded for a used ball rack next year and a late 1st rounder anyway. Ginobili wasn't the same as last season. . .or even close to it. Blair seems to have gotten worse. Neal seemed to have gotten worse. Splitter looked okay for awhile, then pulled a Darko on us late in the season and in the playoffs. Danny Green. . .who even knows what the guy's thinking anymore?

Other than Leonard. . .who do we expect to be better? Because there's a long list of guys who seem like they will either not improve or possibly get worse or be injured more. It's sad, and I'd like to see something new for at least some kind of safety net in case someone important goes down. But we just don't have it. Our team has to be 100% to even have a chance, and even then it's not neccessarily going to be a great one considering our main compe ion is now better and we're "standing pat" despite clearly having the funds to not do that.