FanPost

An Optimistic Realist Speaks

Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

Yes, the Spurs nabbed the premier free agent on the market. Yes, we signed David West for a couple of tacos and a title run. And yes, we brought back Kawhi and Danny. But don't let those early successes delude the inescapable truth that the Spurs we are accustomed to are changing, and only time will tell what the end result of those changes will be.

We're so spoiled. I became a Spurs fan because of David Robinson, then fell in love with the organization. I've pretty much never rooted for a bad pro basketball team. I wouldn't even know what that feels like. Tim Duncan and Gregg Popovich, as arguably the greatest player-coach tandem in sports history, have ensured that the Spurs faithful have spent the last two decades dealing with #spursproblems, like are we going to make the Finals this year, or just the Conference Finals? Or, which of our front office personnel will be hired away to coach or help lead another organization? Or, boy it stinks that we had such a good season last year, we're picking at the bottom of the draft...again.

Basically, other teams would kill to have the problems we stress about. And it's because they haven't been built for success from the top down as skillfully as Spurs Sports and Entertainment has, from Peter Holt all the way to the parking lot attendants. Which is why we all have reason to believe that as long as the leadership stays the same, the Spurs will always be good. And I think that's true. But how good?

Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and Manu Ginobili. Those three guys have kept us good. For ages. Cheaply. That doesn't happen often. Each one spent his entire NBA career in San Antonio. That means we've had an elite point guard, an elite combo guard-wing (or however you describe Manu's position), and an elite (greatest ever) power forward. Talk about a well-balanced attack. Then we've interchanged wings and centers and bench players around those three successfully year after year, playoff run after playoff run, and have come up with 5 titles to show for it.

Now, things are different. Duncan can still be better than any other big in the league, but he's not going to do it for 82 games, 35-40 minutes a night. He'll do it in key regular season stretches, in 25-30 (we can argue about how many minutes he'll play another time) minutes a night. And he'll do it in the playoffs, cuz then he just turns into the Terminator, and no living creature can do much about it. But getting back to things being different...

Parker. Welp, he had a tough year last year. 33 is getting up there for a point guard, and we all know Tony has even more miles on him than his age, since he started playing pro ball so young. His quickness has been his calling card for a long time, and we're all wondering if he can Ponce de Leon it and find that fountain of youth, or if he's in the process of re-making himself into one of those old, crafty, three-point shooting point guards who can be invaluable to a contender but need a youthful backup behind them.

Manu. Much has been written about PtR-favorite Emanuel Ginobili, so I won't add a lot here. I'm so glad he's back for one more go-round, and he can still see things nobody else sees and do amazing things in certain moments nobody else would even think to do. We all are having to accept, though, that his body just isn't allowing him to be Prime Manu anymore, and while he's a still a valuable bench asset, his value is different than it used to be. We can't lean on him as a team like we used to. And that's ok.

So far I haven't said anything you Spurs faithful didn't already know. So why say it? Because you need to be reminded of it to accept that the team we're currently cheering for and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future is different than the team we've been following for the last nearly two decades.

What's the definition of idiocy? Doing the same thing and expecting different results? Then would the inverse of that be doing things differently but expecting the same results? Just as crazy?

The latter is what I'm afraid many Spurs fans are expecting. Am I saying we can't win championships anymore now that our team is built differently than it used to be? Of course not. I'm saying the on-court product is going to look different, because it IS different. Different players are on the court. Kawhi Leonard and LaMarcus Aldridge and whoever else will be carrying this team for the next few years, and that will look different than it did when our previous Big 3 held the reins.

So as we prepare to watch another season of Spurs basketball, let us keep a few facts at the forefront of our minds:

  1. We have a re-tooled roster. This means the chemistry we are used to with the latest iteration of the Spurs will need to be re-mixed and re-discovered. That means we may have some bumps in the road while that happens.
  2. Our team is being built around different players. We absolutely adore our previous Big 3, and it may be difficult for awhile to see the team orbiting around Kawhi and especially Aldridge, but that's what needs to happen for the transition to take place. That means when we just know they need to put Timmeh back in and feed him the ball, because he's the GOATPUFF and Aldridge is just not, we've got to remind ourselves that Pop's boys aren't just playing for the moment, they're playing for next game too. And the one after that. And the hundreds more to come.
  3. We may not be as good as we have been. This is the most difficult thing to talk about. Here's the truth behind it, though. LaMarcus Aldridge is not Tim Duncan. He's said it himself. He's his own man. Duncan is the greatest at his position in the history of the game. He's phasing out now. That means the Spurs will no longer be built around someone of that level of dominance, at least for awhile. ;) We've all known the day would come, and we haven't drafted another Tim with our late-20s first rounders, unfortunately, so what are you going to do? Well, PATFO did the absolute best they could have done. They got an elite free agent to pair with Kawhi to keep the ship afloat for a few years and still compete for titles. However, this is not the second coming of Tim Duncan. We will be a very good team, barring injuries, and PATFO will be working non-stop as always to build us back to dominance, but, realistically, it may be awhile before that happens.

Again, I'm not just talking about this season. I'm talking about this year and years to come. We knew what to expect from the previous Big 3, because they showed us time and time again. We can't know exactly what to expect from the New Spurs yet for the simple reason that they haven't had their day yet. But they will get their chance.

We should be glad to approach this season knowing we are still a contender, because the possibility of not being one at this moment was very real for awhile. That possibility will have to be addressed again in a few years. It's a good thing we're in good hands.

We're so spoiled. ;)



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