BDL’s 2014-15 NBA Season Previews: San Antonio Spurs
It’s difficult to imagine more disparate starting points for seasons than the San Antonio Spurs have had these past two autumns. Last October, San Antonio had to leave behind a crushing finish, catch their breath after that sucker-punch ending, and get back to climbing. This time, revenge and a ride down the river in their rearview, the Spurs must forget they bagged the big prize and keep living like hunters.
“I’m worried for one reason,” Gregg Popovich told Buck Harvey of the San Antonio Express-News. “They are human beings. They are going to feel satisfied.”
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You’d forgive the Spurs for feeling that way after responding to their 2013 disappointment with an NBA-best 62 wins; after vanquishing the Oklahoma City Thunder, who had snuffed out San Antonio’s 2012 title hopes; and after annihilating the two-time-defending champion Miami Heat, an exclamation-point exorcism featuring some of the most beautiful basketball we’ve seen in years that gave Popovich and Tim Duncan their fifth championship in 17 seasons together.
Success breeds satisfaction, which can breed stagnation. For the Spurs to accomplish something they haven’t in this legendary run — a successful title defense — Popovich can’t allow that.
“You got to keep up with it, because teams change, players’ careers change and the makeup of the team changes,” he told Michael Lee of the Washington Post. “Standing pat never works.”
The Spurs seemed to do just that this summer, re-signing all of their own free agents rather than looking outside for upgrades. They’re betting on continuity and chemistry, and that there’s enough room for internal growth — from Danny Green, from Tiago Splitter and Boris Diaw and, above all, from Kawhi Leonard — to prevent looking like a faded facsimile of last year’s model.
Regardless, repeating will require Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili to stay healthy and effective. That could require Popovich to again stretch his minutes management to degrees nobody else dares, as he did last season, when the Spurs became the first NBA team ever on which no player averaged 30 minutes per game.
On other teams, such restrictions, and their depressing effect on players’ statistics, might spark dissension. In San Antonio, though, everyone buys in because they believe in the guy setting the limits.
“If a player knows that you really care and believes that you can make it better, you got the guy for life,” Popovich told Lee. “[…] Loyalty is huge because it gives you a trust factor. It gives you a sense of peace that you can just do your work and not have to worry about other things. Everybody is on the same page. You’re all rowing in the same direction.”
Commonality of purpose can carry a team a long way. But can it carry the Spurs through another season atop the West and to a third straight Finals?
2013-14 season in 140 characters or less:
Bobo, if you would:
