Unless there are a ton of injuries to other teams, no way this happens. The spurs will not be a top 4 seed in the west with this roster. Yes we get Murray back but a lot of teams in the west improved tooI can't wait to see the look on their faces when the Spurs win 50+ games and get home court in the first round
Spurs chances are entirely dependent on return and improvement of Murray and improvement of White and Walker which are a complete guess and hope right now. Virtually all the lower other end of playoff and just out of the playoffs teams in the West have made unequivocal improvements through free agents and in the case of NO the draft and free agents. And injuries of course.
I am positive about the Spurs making the playoffs unless injuries decimate them but injuries can decimate anybody.
They may not have the highest ceiling, but also don't have the lowest currently and can even surprise some media that doesn't really follow them bc they have some promising less hyped up talent bc Pop hides them in the Gleague for a time and they need to get over themselves first etc. They add depth this season which helps win games in the regular season. I truly don't think they will miss the playoffs, what happens afterwards tho, that's the question.
Now, should they miss the playoffs, they need to reexamine that LMA-Demar core tbh.
Last edited by SAGirl; 07-02-2019 at 10:23 AM.
I believe the Spurs are good enough on paper to make the playoffs if they stay healthy, after that no idea. No superstar caliber players but our starters are good and we still have the best coach in NBA history.
[QUOTE=bigfan;9860308]I believe the Spurs are good enough on paper to make the playoffs if they stay healthy, after that no idea. No superstar caliber players but our starters are good and we still have the best coach in NBA history.
You really believe best coach ever? Sitting Duncan against Heat ruined that alone...
Exactly! While Mavs Pels Suns and Kings play in the Western Conference...the Spurs will make the playoffs every f*cking year!
[QUOTE=Rummpd;9860311]Best coach vs Perfect coach are two different things....... it’s pretty much recognized here on planet earth Pop is the best coach.
Never said they were , so I don't know why you say that.
" load of injuries"? Murray for the whole season, White for a bit and Gay for another one? That's hardly a load of injuries. That's just about common for every NBA team. A load of injuries would be having your go to players getting injured, tbh. And the Spurs were lucky on that regard last season.
Look, nobody is saying that the Spurs are , just that there is a lot of compe ion in the West. Admitting that doesn't make any of us less of a fan, tbh.
Last edited by DAF86; 07-02-2019 at 01:09 PM.
Bobby Marks of ESPN predicted that the Warriors won't make the playoffs next season, either. I'm looking forward to next year more than any other season in recent memory... the field is wide open, and a dozen teams have a legit shot at a championship.
I have to agree with you here. Injuries are part of the game and you hardly expect to have your 15 men in the regular roster available all 82 games. There will be games/minutes lost to injury every season. You only hope that the injuries are not to your main guys or not season ending.
Murray was important to last season's team for sure, but White (who had not been a factor the season prior) emerged a staring caliber player and a very good option last year. I can't quantify him vs. Murray (I'd leave that to the player fans in the site, and the ones who like to stir controversy, bc I personally have never cared about intra-team rivalry tbh).... Anyways, point is, Murray getting injured was a blow, but not a fatal one due to White stepping up.
Rudy Gay is going to be injured every season tbh. He will miss games here and there and will need load management. Not a guy you can play every night for 30 minutes for 80 games a year. They knew that going in, and this season got further depth in both Samanic and Carroll to help out.
What the Spurs got last season in terms of injuries was about average or expected. I do hope their young guys stay healthy next season and we can see them play together to see how they fit next to each other, plus just watch some of the truly new guys in the team develop into rotation players like Walker. There is always the hope that someone of the unknowns has a better season than expected too.
Anyways, I am rambling, but just wanted to agree with you that in terms of injuries the Spurs were average last year. We just aren't going to see the full 15 men remain available for all 82 games.
Why we talking about playoffs at this time
It’s all recently bias...
Spurs took the Nuggets to a game 7 (barley lost). And tbh choked away game 2 of the series in which cost them from advancing.
With them not making early noise in the off-season and other teams “making moves” they’ll get moved down the poll. Yet we did all that without our point guard and 20+ games without White.
Just a vanilla take from a vanilla mainstream media head
Nuggets, Utah, Blazers, Houston should make it for sure. The rest of the West will be a battle for 4 spots -
Six teams: Spurs, Lakers, Pelicans, Warriors, Kings, Clippers will likely compete for the remaining slots.
Nope. Then we'd be the Warriors of 15-18 (sans this last playoff run of course lol)
Curry missed entire playoffs' series in that span. It's just that they were so good/stacked that it didn't make a difference.
You forgot OKC, and Dallas will also be battling.
I'll say it here bc it's an appropriate thread. If they don't make the playoffs with a healthy LMA and Derozan (for the most part) they really need to reconsider these two. It would have sucked to want to remain compe ive and not achieve it, but the league only just got less loaded at the top, not more. Some teams got better but not to superteam status (yet to be seen with Kiwi decision). If they don't advance it's only due to them sucking... barring catastrophic injuries of course.
White didn't get severely out played by Murray in that series. Murray had some good games as did White, and the numbers show that. Murray played more minutes and had Carte blanche to do whatever he wanted on offense while White played less minutes and was in a more structured situation. I will admit Jamal Murray came up bigger when it mattered but he also had more NBA experience than White and a deeper team.
Why do folks on here have to always exaggerate ? Lol
We will be better than last year....... +8 games at least I’m thinking.
Just think of the bone head losses to Miami, Orlando, Chicago, Charlotte (twice), Knicks ... teams we let off the hook Bucks, Raptors, 76ers - all on the road! And the Kings swept the season series! This team can potentially be a 53 to 57 win team. Much depends on Murray returning, White and Lonnie's growth, DeMar and LMA getting theirs but not pitching a fit or hogging the ball if the young players are out shining them, but mostly it's Pop. Pop needs to coach better, get on people's cases, put players in better situations with better game plans. He needs to care more about Spurs basketball then anything else beyond that for the time he has left on that bench.
OKC is having a fire sale to cut payroll.
Combined with integrating DeRozan in and I believe Murray was going to be groomed into a big part of the offense and mightve been our absolute goto defender, I would say Spurs definitely had some obstacles that arent nornally Spursy so ..
Obviously, S bag's decision will weigh heavily. With him, the Lakers or Clippers become virtual locks.
As ever, the Spurs will be a popular pick to miss because they don't play the media's game and they don't have a superstar. But the regular season is more so about depth than star power and during it, not being overly reliant on any one player (you could argue Aldridge, particularly if they don't bring in a credible third big, but it's not like he has carry the load Harden does, for example) can actually be an advantage.
The Thunder are the most vulnerable of presumed locks. George and Westbrook will both be coming off surgeries, the latter's decline appeared to commence last season and they're paper thin (Muscala and Burks aren't moving the needle).
Well warriors arent going anywhere juts yet so one team is gonna drop off if kawhi goes to lakers
The Warriors are in serious jeopardy of missing too. Their defense has been gutted and their depth is even worse than it was.
It's not like it's insane to think the Spurs could miss obviously, but the only teams at the moment who look like surer bets are the Nuggets, Rockets, Trail Blazers and Jazz.
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