Hoopsworld: Spurs A Work In Progress

[duncan228]

It's got quotes.

NBA At 2: Spurs A Work In Progress
By: Bill Ingram

When the San Antonio Spurs acquired Richard Jefferson and Antonio McDyess over the summer the expectation was that they would immediately resume their domination of the NBA's Western Conference. Jefferson would bring the scoring the team sometimes lacked and would provide injury insurance for Manu Ginobili; McDyess would bring another physical front court player to spell Tim Duncan and give head coach Gregg Popovich the ability to go big when necessary. That sounds great and looks very nice on paper, but the reality is it takes some time to work new players into a even a well-established system.

"We've got a lot of work to do on both ends of the floor," admits Duncan. "We're still trying to get everybody on the same page, and I think we're far from that right now. That said, we like the crew that we have. We've been unfortunate with some injuries early on, myself and Tony, but we're heading in the right direction and I think everybody understand what we're trying to do. We just have to go out there and experience it and bring it all together."

"It does take some time to come together," agrees Jefferson, himself no stranger to changing teams. "You can put up numbers, you can win some games, but in order to become the team that you want to be, the team that's ready for the playoffs, it's going to take a while. It's going to take an entire season. It's going to take 60 games or 70 games for you to become that group of guys with trust and confidence in each other that you're going to need for the type of playoff run that we want to have."

The media hype surrounding the Spurs coming into the season may have been at a fever pitch, but internally the team understood that it would be a process to get back to the championship level, even with their impressive offseason additions.

"I didn't really have any expectations coming into the year, especially with so many new guys," says Duncan. "It's going to take more than eight games, more than ten, more than twenty games to get all of the experience and the feel that we want. It's a little different this year because we've been slower with putting all of our stuff in, really starting with the basics because of so many new guys. It's a bit different, but we have enough veteran guys here that they'll pick up things quickly and they'll understand what we want to do."

It's actually helped to have some early injuries. Sure, the team has taken some losses, but the additional playing time some of the newcomers have received may wind up paying huge dividends.

"I think some guys were struggling (prior to the injuries)," Jefferson explains. "Myself, Manu, Matt Bonner, Keith Bogans, there were a couple of guys that were struggling to find their rhythm, and those extra minutes, extra points, and that extra confidence that you get knowing that you're going to get the playing time no matter what really helped a lot of guys. We really played well against Toronto, scored a lot of points, we knew it was going to be much tougher against Dallas, so guys came out with a lot of confidence, shot well, played well, and it really helped to build even more confidence."

Advantage or not, Jefferson also admits that it's hard to really get a feel for his new team when so many guys are in and out of the lineup.

"The only difficulty for me has really been having guys in and out. I feel once we get together and can play together consistently, plus our schedule has been one game, sit for three days, one game, sit for three days, so we haven't had a lot of game time to get used to each other and that's what's important right now."

Of course, it's not easy to be patient. Fans certainly aren't patient. They want to see their Spurs go out and dominate right away, especially give the way the Western Conference has been extremely tight down the stretch for the past few years. As for the Spurs themselves, they're not nearly as caught up in the timeframe.

"We don't have a timeframe . . .by the time the playoffs come around," Duncan said, smiling. "Hopefully we're in the mix, hopefully we're in the top eight, and if we're playing the way we want to play we like our chances."

Indeed, by the time the playoffs come around the Spurs team out on the basketball court should closely resemble the one we see on paper . . .and that's scary for their Western Conference foes.

[phyzik]

good article.