I know, I know, the playoffs are still in view. The Spurs won an exciting first game against the 2nd seeded Cinderella story of the Denver Nuggets. However, I think barring some miraculous sort of Finals run this year, there are some very real questions that the Spurs have to answer about their roster. It's probably not too early to start looking forward, though there is a lot of time in the offseason, I also do want to give a proper look at Pop and his stint these next two years with USA basketball. While I don't think that I have any concrete answers, I think it does help a little to air out some of the issues that we have. Personally, I don't think it's a chemistry issue as much as a roster construction issue. I don't think the issues in this iteration of the Spurs is intentional, but the way the season has played out, we find that there are indeed a number of question marks that we have going into the next season. And honestly, I'd much rather write about this than how the national media hates the Spurs (maybe I'm crazy, but it sure sounds like they're always rooting for the other team on national calls, I'm looking at you, Hubie).
Skill Redundancy
Redundancy in and of itself is not a bad thing, however, at their best, arguably the three most important players on the Spurs roster (currently), in DeMar DeRozan, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Rudy Gay, all sort of thrive in the same spots. This is not to say that they cannot coexist, but it makes spacing the floor a little tricky. So far, Aldridge, at least for the latter half of the season, has been the more consistent, go-to player. He's unconventional in the modern NBA in that his game (offensively) is built much more around the mold of PFs like Kevin Garnett and Rasheed Wallace. While he has added a handful of post moves that help him become more Tim Duncan-like, what we notice immediately, is that the greatest success that his predecessors had (e.g. Garnett and Wallace) had were because they moved away from being the offensive lynch-pin to focusing more on their defense, which LaMarcus currently, while better than we anticipated, is not at that level of impacting the game. This in and of itself is not really the issue though. It is though, when the offense is his greatest asset and overlaps with the same strengths as his two other biggest co-stars and arguably even the budding younger players (e.g. Derrick White and Dejounte Murray) on the team.
DeRozan (like Aldridge and Gay) function well out of the mid-range, and you can see clearly that his mid-range heavy game is modeled after one Kobe Bryant. That's not a bad thing, but with a lack of 3 point shooting, the interior gets rather clogged when playing with a player like Aldridge, their spots are tremendously similar. While some might say that this season, he has attempted to defer too much, overpassing in some spots, and some (including myself) may call into question some of his late-game decision-making, we can't deny that overall as a playmaker, DeRozan is much better than advertised. However, similar to Aldridge's comparison to his predecessors, DeRozan lacks the versatility (e.g. 3 point shooting) and defensive tenacity (he's not bad, just not great) that Kobe had. If we look at Kobe's most successful seasons, he shared the floor with bigs that allowed him to go inside (Pau Gasol) or allowed him to operate out of the triple threat (Shaquille O'Neal), something that I think Aldridge can do both of, a little bit, but is not really part of his game yet. The biggest issue I think we've seen this year with DeRozan is that due to how the roster is constructed, Pop is forced to play DeRozan as effectively an SF all season. He's often asked to guard larger forwards and is often guarded by a bigger body, where he loses a lot of the advantages he normally has at the SG position. While we might be moving towards an era of position-less basketball, and frankly every team begins to start a slew of 6-7 to 6-9 long rangy wings across three positions, there are opportunities I think where if DeRozan is one of the smaller rather than one of the bigger (physically) players in the lineup, it would give the Spurs a bigger advantage. While there isn't much difference oftentimes between the SG and the SF positions, I think there is enough nuance where having a larger wing player (particularly a defender) on the floor would benefit the team greatly. With this understanding, we initially attempted to start Gay where he historically played prior to his Achilles injury, at SF. Unfortunately, that didn't work too well simply because Gay, lacking the explosion he used to have, cannot consistently guard faster wings, and offensively, Gay and DeRozan occupied much of the same space. While Gay's 3 point shooting has improved significantly, he still thrives in the mid-range, and with his redefined game has really thrived now, as a modern stretch-4.
Enter the potential/perceived skill-redundancy of our two starting caliber PGs, Derrick White and Dejounte Murray. This season was something of a blessing in disguise as the injury to Murray enabled White to flourish as a starting PG, and we were able to truly see the impact that he has on the floor. Since Murray hasn't played all season, projecting his play coming back from the injury is a little tricky. However, based on the previous season, I would say that while White is a solid defender, Murray is more impactful overall on the defensive game. That being said, White can do more on offense, making better decisions and shows more overall offensive polish than Dejounte. White is a much better "natural" or "traditional" PG than Murray despite whatever national pundits might say. As much as I want to say that White draws extremely favorable comparisons to one Chauncey Billups, I'll hedge my optimism right now and say that White is currently a much better version of Cory Joseph who hasn't reached his full potential yet. As intriguing defensively a backcourt of White and Murray might be, the challenges of this backcourt offensively, especially coupled with a 3 point shooting light lineup including both DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge doesn't seem like it would be the best idea in this situation.
After this comes the conundrum that is Bryn Forbes. While Bryn Forbes is a great player and a great story of an undrafted, undersized SG making it to become a starter in the NBA, there does seem to be a certain amount of skillset redundancy with particularly Patty Mills. Neither one is great on defense, which means that when both play together, it's something of a defensive nightmare. Furthermore, while Forbes probably can better create his own shot and thereby have a more tangible scoring impact on the game beyond 3 point shooting, Patty is steadier running an offense and understands how to better get his teammates involved. Pop has somehow made it work with both so far, but long-term this does not seem viable, especially if we want to improve defensively. Both are reasonable tertiary ball-handler/playmakers, with Patty having the distinct advantage, but even with solid team defense, both give up a lot (then throw in Belinelli) where it sometimes seems like too much has to go right for it to be worthwhile.
In discussing just the rotation players I have not even gotten to the question of Lonnie Walker IV, whose game looks like it could polish very well into something that requires the ball in his hands a lot, and probably has a large degree of overlap with DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge.
What do we need?
While the big man rotation currently consisting of some combination of Aldridge, Jakob Poeltl, and Gay (with occasionally Davis Bertans playing some stretch 4) seems somewhat thin, I think given the trend of the modern league, we're actually pretty set. We forget that back in 2015 the Spurs did draft Serbian big man Nikola Milutinov, a 6-11 center who currently plays for former Cleveland coach David Blatt on Olympiacos BC. averaging 11.7 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. I was also impressed enough with Drew Eubanks to say that perhaps we give him a bit of a shot, or see if Chimezie Metu can develop into a Serge Ibaka type of center. Perhaps also late season addition, Donatas Motiejunas will become a mainstay. In conclusion, I think we have a lot of options moving forward in our big man rotation. While perhaps not the biggest names on the market say like an Anthony Davis or Karl-Anthony Towns, I think we're pretty okay in the frontcourt.
The one place that I think worries me the most is perimeter defense. The losses of Kawhi Leonard, Danny Green, and Kyle Anderson has left us tremendously undersized out on the perimeter, and the talent we have, lacks that significant perimeter defensive presence that has helped keep the Spurs relevant for the past two decades. Granted, LaMarcus Aldridge is no Tim Duncan defensively, but he has been doing a lot to keep us at least afloat defensively. While the defensive capabilities of Derrick White and Dejounte Murray help significantly, there is one thing they lack when it comes to defending the key players in the league, namely, LeBron James and Kevin Durant, and that is size. While I like the size and strength of Murray, DeRozan, and Walker, I think there is a limitation to who they can defend. We really don't have anyone that can feasibly stay with a dynamic larger forward that can dribble, and while there is only one LeBron and one Kevin Durant, I would imagine others in that mold, say like Tobias Harris or even athletic guys like Paul George or even Aaron Gordon, when they are on, we lack the personnel to contain. While Kyle Anderson lack speed, he understood well how to use his length to bother opponents. Green and Leonard were just that good on defense. While Derrick White has done an admirable job with the major defensive assignments he's drawn this season, we see that this isn't a long term solution. Thus, we, like everyone else, is looking for that solid 3-and-D player that has the size to defend a Kevin Durant but can also hit a 3 consistently enough to not be a complete liability on offense (like Michael Kidd-Gilchrist). Certainly, one solution is to land a dynamic scorer who forces defenses to adjust, but at the same time, we someone we can simply put on the other team's best player. Perhaps in the future that becomes Dejounte Murray, but currently, this is the issue that we have. Naturally, having this player also enables us to move DeRozan to his more natural position of SG and gives us a more tangible advantage there. Maybe Davis Bertans turns into a stellar defensive player. However, currently, this is the major need I see. Naturally, landing this player then begs the question of playing time and rotations, as we'd like to see White and Murray both get their deserved playing time, but playing them together, unless they both develop effective jumpshots that are consistent enough for opposing teams to have to respect, it's a tough challenge to find space for both of them, plus DeRozan, plus Aldridge (plus Gay/Poeltl) in the offense.
Sort of reminds me of 2011 when we started George Hill next to Tony Parker and ran them with Richard Jefferson, DeJuan Blair, and Tim Duncan. We made it work, but it was not ideal.
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