Even in Defeat, the NBA has Learned Nothing From the Spurs

BTW the Spurs used to chase superstars too - remember Jason Kidd to San Antonio? This was all but a done deal in 2003 until his then wife balked because her "career" would be hampered in a small market.

That was back when Kidd was dragging the Nets to the finals (to be beaten by the Spurs...)

 

Too bad you just can't emulate the Spurs

Their organization is one of a kind in the NBA

 

Getting McHale to emulate Popovich would be nice.

 

They should have published this article last year or the year before that. Oh wait... the teams winning titles were the ones chasing the stars.

 

One of a kind in being lucky.

 

Tim Duncan hasn't played like a top 10 player for along time. His game is all built on his reputation now

 

with the big 3 splitting, the miami heat might have learned a lesson from the spurs.

 

People act like there is only one way to build a team that wins...

 

Yeah, because anti-Spurs teams like Miami and Boston never won championships. The Spurs just happen to be one successful model, not the only model. If their's was the only model it wouldn't have taken something like 6 or 7 years to win another title.

 

Dynasty? Maybe, maybe not.

Perennial play off contender and eventually a championship contending team? Highly likely.

People focus on the idea of drafting Duncan at #1 or getting "lucky" drafting Manu or Parker, but that entirely avoids the point. It doesn't matter HOW you get your star players (draft or trade), what matters is WHAT you do once you have them.

The Spurs are what they are because of the things they do exceedingly well...

-drafting players consistently
-developing their players
-tweaking their system to fit the players available including role players
-signing FA's that are misused and either fitting them into their system, or finding a way to maximize their skill set by tweaking the system
-seeking to maximize the strengths of Every player on their roster from 1-15 and not just their Stars
-places high value on defense as well as offensive skills
-establishing a culture of Team vs individual glory
-unity of purpose and direction between the FO and the HC

And what would Pops do if his All Star had ego issues? Given his choice, he would trade them for another All-star that had fewer issues that fit his system better.

Pops can do that because the FO and Owner implicitly trusts him. You wouldn't see the behind the back stuff you saw with SVG and Howard. And players that aren't prepared to play would either end up on the bench or traded regardless of whether they are "all star" talents or not.

The difference is that Pop understands that while you need talent, All Star talent for the most part is interchangeable. With limited exceptions (Lebron, KD), you can trade almost any all star player and get a similarly talented all star for their position if you work an appropriate trade.

LMA - Love - Millsap ... different talents and strengths, but contribute similar things
Howard - Noah - Lopez ... different talents and strengths, but contribute similar things

Not everyone is directly replaceable of course, but even trading apples and oranges can still yield similar results.

An interesting exercise that I like to engage in is I look at various team rosters and ask:

How would Pops use those players differently?

Who isn't being utilized to the maximum of their ability?
Who is being asked to do things that aren't their strengths?
Who is being asked to do too much?
Who is not being developed well?
Who is being permitted to put sub-par effort on the floor?
Who is being allowed to make poor decisions?

Now apply that to a team like the Pacers. Or last year's Knicks. Or Sacramento. Now to your own team.

Now how much better would those teams be if they asked those basic questions and worked to tweak their organizations to improve in those areas.

And that's before you talk about applying any of the Spurs offense or defense...

 

Stick to soccer, basketball isn't your strong suit.

 

Let's stop right here and test this assumption and see if it's true, excluding the Big 3

So let's go over this

98 - nothing,

99 - Manu, but we're not really looking at him here since it's not just the big 3, amirite?

00 - nothing

01 - Parker, but we're not concerned with him, and two other picks that were nothing.

02 - Salmons, Scola, that's 2 rotation or starter-quality players, seems like a good haul right? Except they ended up with neither of these players.

Salmons, they drafted for Philly and turned him into Speedy Claxton, who stuck around for a year and didn't do much.

Scola, well we all know what happened there. Great job identifying an undervalued player. Except....they got rid of him for Spanoulis' expiring contract in order to shed Jackie Brown, because they somehow inexplicably gave a lot of money to Jackie Brown (who? yeah...) they year before, and didn't want to play luxury tax.

This move arguably cost them 1 or 2 titles - they had 0 depth behind Duncan when Scola finally came over and it showed, as the Lakers beat them up.

So, 02 - they got nothing except a brief rental of Speedy Claxton, despite having a couple of decent players in their hands momentarily. They got nothing, and actually it's worse, they had something in Scola, just somehow turned it into nothing, due to poor personnel moves

03 -Barbosa, he was a decent player, except, they drafted him for Phoenix, accordingly, they got nothing. Well, actually, they did get a pick, who eventually turned into All-star forward David Lee. So good move, right? Except......Lee was drafted by the Knicks, because the Spurs sent that pick to NY in exchange for 2 year rental of Nazr Muhammed, who was a backup. Um- great drafting again, San Antonio!

04 - Slightly more than nothing, congrats - Beno Udrih who was basically a 10-15 mpg deep bench guy while in SA.

05 - Ian Mahnimi, another deep bench guy who barely played, so pretty much nothing

06 -nothing

07 - Tiago Splitter - hey the Spurs finally drafted an NBA starter-caliber player for themsleves, other than the big 3 for the the first time in ten drafts. How's that for consistency!

08 - Goran Dragic! Gogi! Who blossomed into an all star caliber player, great drafting, Pop and Buford did it again...oh wait, they drafted him for Phx, and traded him for drumroll please......Malik Hairston. BOOM!

George Hill - Decent backup, more important for who he became.

09 - DeJuan Blair - an NBA rotation quality bench player - boom! Now he's in Dallas.

10 - nothing, unless you count former Rockets journeyman James Anderson

11 - they flipped Hill for Kawhi Leonard, a borderline all-star. Also Cory Joseph, a deep bench player.

12 - nothing

13 - nothing

So let's recap. Here's who they have obtained via the draft of any consequence, aside from the big 3, in 16 years:

Leonard (all star caliber)/Hill(solid backup/borderline starter)
Splitter (solid starter)
Blair (solid backup)

And pretty much journeymen/deep bench/non-NBA players/nothing other than that.

That's what you call "drafting players consistently"?

Really? 3.5 hits in 16 years? Along with several notable botches, such as getting rid of Scola for Jackie Brown salary dump and sending both Barbosa and Dragic to Phoenix for crap.

The Spurs reputation about drafting that you are pimping is a myth. It's largely based on having a first mover advantage with international players 15 years ago and landing 2 HOF's, and having hte luck to win the lottery in the Duncan year.

The only thing their drafts do have consistently - getting either nothing, or deep bench next-to-nothing scrubs. This happened in 10 of their last 16 drafts, even counting Parker/Gino.

I don't blame them for not having more amazing drafts, since they're always picking at the back, but honestly for every Tony Parker they managed to pick up late, there's a Damir Markota and a Nando de Colo and more trash.

I'm not going to bother with the rest of your posts but it's very circular, the Spurs draft well because they are the spurs, and their role player are great because they know their role and are on the spurs. Blah blah blah.

 

First, you can't exclude Manu and Parker from the draft as they weren't lottery picks.

Second, the hit rate is actually solid versus the rest of the NBA. Whether they keep those players, or move them for other draft picks and players is another discussion entirely.

I refer you to THIS analysis...

http://www.82games.com/bestdraftingteams.htm

It's more than about which ones turn out to be starters/role players, it's relative to the EXPECTED return on the draft. The Spurs are consistently drafting in the 20-30 range. That's what happens when you're playing for 15 CONSECUTIVE seasons of 50+ wins.

The probability of drafting a usable player in the 20-30 range is MUCH lower than when you're drafting top 15 picks. This is borne out in multiple analysis including THIS one...

http://www.82games.com/barzilai1.htm

and THIS one...

http://wagesofwins.com/2013/05/21/f...-draft-pick-and-draft-pedigree-in-the-finals/

And discounting their first move advantage on international players would be like discounting their early mover advantage in Analytics.... IE, you just can't discount the edges they find and exploit just because they're the leading edge.

The Spurs draft well considering the ranking of their picks.

And really, counting picks that they Traded as part of that calculation? That's a serious distortion if I've ever seen one. If you've Traded the pick on draft day before you've even selected that's the same as trading it as part of a normal trade package. If you use that standard then almost every team in the NBA would look far worse than they actually are...

 

^ I'm using your criteria and your arguments.

You said people get hung up on the incredible fortunate timing of tanking for Duncan and getting in early on the intl gold rush in a 6 year span.

As I showed above, they really haven't done ****-all aside from that, 12 goddam years ago, and have been consistently mediocre at drafting. That's why you're forced to resort to composites that are skewed by Manu/Parker, because outside of them it's not very pretty and it destroys the consistency canard.

And lol at not holding them accountable for bad/dumb draft day trades. I guess if you want to do that, we can rescind any credit for landing Leonard, since that was a draft day trade. Cool beans. That means the Spurs are now down to a single above average drafted player since Tony Parker 12 years ago in Splitter.

That's consistency!

 

You're misreading. You don't count a draft day pick IF it wasn't for themselves. You do count it if it was for themselves even if it's another team's pick.

Leonard was a player they drafted on draft day for themselves with another team's pick. Dragic was drafted for Phoenix by the Spurs. One was determined by the Spurs scouts, the other was determined by Phoenix's scouts.

And on what basis are you calling them mediocre? Have you done any sort of comparison between the number of low draft picks done by other teams and their results? Or just looking at the number and saying, "Oh, that's a bad hit rate".

Draft picks are context driven. If you're Cleveland and have 4 #1 picks, you should get much better results than if your picks are consistently low 1st and low 2nd rounders.

The Spurs for the most part have been working with crappy picks.

As for the Spurs tanking for Duncan, you do realize that the team was massively injury ridden that season? Robinson missed nearly the entire season with a season ending injury. Sean Elliott suffered injury issues through the entire season..

Did they intentionally rest their starters a few more minutes that season to get a better draft position? Most likely. Avery Johnson and Vinny Del Negro both had somewhat reduced minutes (30ish vs 35ish minutes). However, with Robinson out for the season and Elliott injury ridden the entire season they were going to be a lottery team anyway.

Robinson missed 76 games.
Sean Elliot missed 43 games.

That's 2/5 starters including their "star".

As for your "picks" analysis, I could start breaking them down where they were incorrectly represented however that would literally take a novel, so I'll just start with the first example on the list.

Scola was a Eurostash player they drafted in 2002. They traded him because they signed Thiago Splitter and felt that Splitter was a better option for their team.

I refer you to the actual events...

http://blog.chron.com/lopezblog/2007/07/why-the-spurs-dealt-scola-for-virtually-nothing/

The Spurs didn't deal Scola because they didn't like him, they dealt him because he was no longer necessary and would help the team in other ways.

Identifying Scola was a good thing, drafting Scola was a good thing, making Scola redundant through Splitter allowed them to position their team better moving forward.

Context matters if you're going to say they drafted X but traded them.

Was Jackie Butler a bust? Sure. However, he was an undrafted player that had a LOT of people thinking he had legitimate upside. Nobody bats .1000.

 

Either their are best at finding GEMS IN THE ROUGH
or
They make due with what crap they get

Rocket River

 

So basically, they just got nothing from a draft pick, when they could have had Dragic. But we should ignore that, and credit them with the beneifts of nothing.

Very well - they get nothing.

On hte basis that the vast majority of their drafts have reaped absolutely nothing. It's you who claime they do "exceedingly well" by "drafting consistently" - again, in the 10 years between Parker and Leonard, and with dozens draft picks - they landed Tiago Splitter, DaJuan Blair, and a bunch of nothing. How is that "consistently well"? It's consistently trash.

Please do - I want you to tell me why they were geniuses for finding Beno Udrih, James Anderson, Ian Mahnimi and Felipe Lopez.

LOL - there's literally no way to defend the Scola move. Saying "well eventually they found a back up big man ALSO from South America, 5 years later" - is thinly veiled apologism. The Spurs made a horribly bonehead, because of their own stupidity and cheapness to avoid the luxury tax. It probably cost them a title shot or 2. Oops

Which is about .900 points north of where the Spurs are. Consistently.

I have discovered the problem with your analysis - you have started with the conclusion that the Spurs are demi gods and are going to invent your own reality to support it. Great for you and the kiddos at Spurs talk, but boring and stupid for us Rockets fans.

I have an alternative theory - the spurs were able to leverage tanking and sheer dumb luck into an all-timer Big Man who unlike any other contemporary player, hads been able to play at an all time level at the NBAs rarest position for over 17 years. That is a tremendous advantage that no other team has had - basically ever - in the modern era. Combine that with a first mover advantage on the early European players and we see the results.

In other words, nothing they'd ever be able to replicate today, despite the adoration of folks like yourself

 

Every team has dozens players that Could have been drafted if they had kept their pick. If they didn't, there would be no such thing as a "draft steal".

Take any team and break it down and you'll see dozens of potential missed picks. It isn't the picks they missed that year, it's the picks they actually make -- IE do they turn out to be role players, starters, all stars, busts, etc.

And you can try to discount the actual position of the picks all you want, but when you analyze the average team's return on those pick positions the Spurs are a top 5 drafting team.

Give other teams in the NBA the 20-30 picks season in and season out and you won't see results nearly as good for those pick positions. And that's not hyperbole, that's based on the expected performance (IE, what teams actually DID with those picks) of those pick positions as broken down by 82 games (which I linked the analysis previously).

In case you missed it, here is the analysis again. Note that they analyze the *expected* return at that draft position... in other words what history has shown to be the typical performance of the pick at that position when drafted by teams in the NBA.

http://www.82games.com/bestdraftingteams.htm

Note the following comments by the analyst...

That's not theoretical, that's an actual breakdown of the success rate of the picks at those positions over 20 seasons. The Spurs just don't perform above the average, they perform near the top of the NBA (4th).

20-30 picks are FAR less likely to pan out than 10-20 picks, and even ridiculously less likely than top 10 or top 3 picks. This is simple fact and 50 years of drafting history demonstrates it over and over.

Now, you can argue that what they did once they had the picks (IE, did they make smart trades) offsets that, however that's a different discussion.

While you can talk about individual trades for talent, IE saying that letting Scola go just to save money was an error, building a winning team is more than just keeping a talented player. It's about making intelligent decisions of talent vs money.

The Spurs are the 5th best team in the NBA in terms of wins per dollar and the 16th best in all of sports. Here is an analysis from NBA.com and Businessweek.

http://hangtime.blogs.nba.com/tag/smartest-spenders-in-sports/

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-30/smartest-spenders-in-sports

And the Spurs were the best spender this year as well, spending the least per win of any team in the NBA.

http://thebrooklyngame.com/nba-teams-spent-money-per-win-season/

The dollars, win record, drafting record and championships all point to the same thing... the Spurs make the most of what they have, they don't pay for talent that they don't need, and they extract value whenever they can.

Are they perfect? No. However, they are hands down the best run organization in basketball, and arguably all of sports.

 

^Yes, I understand the Spurs drafted Tony Parker in the late 1st and Ginobili in the second round.

Thanks for the update.

What are you hearing on LeBron? Is he going to opt-out? You seem to be very with it.

 

Beggars cannot be choosers as said before.

You take 5 titles in 15 years or the 3 titles in 8 years with the Heat or those threepeats with Lakers or Bulls.