The Spurs lost by 31 to the Rockets on Friday night, their second straight blowout loss after falling by 39 points to the Timberwolves on Wednesday. San Antonio hasn’t had back-to-back 20-point losses since Gregg Popovich’s rookie coaching season in 1997. Back-to-back 30-point losses? This was just the second instance in franchise history, the first coming in 1987.
While the Spurs are skidding, now on pace for fewer than 50 wins for a second straight season — another second in the Popovich era — Kawhi Leonard’s Toronto Raptors are rolling. Leonard has rejuvenated himself after playing in just nine games last season with a lingering quadriceps injury. His Raptors are the best team in the Eastern Conference by a tangible margin, and he looks every bit as good on both ends of the floor as he did during the Spurs’ championship run, where he claimed NBA Finals MVP honors.
We’re just not used to seeing the Spurs look this bad.
By some measure, it’s not completely their fault. Dejounte Murray was destined for a breakout before a devastating torn ACL ended his year in the preseason. Then, rookie point guard Lonnie Walker IV, who slid to the Spurs at pick No. 18 in the 2018 NBA Draft, tore his meniscus in preseason, too. Injuries are a part of basketball. Two injuries at the same position in the preseason? That’s just bad luck.
The NBA is a point guard-driven league. Patty Mills is a good player, but his role has always been a scorer off the bench. Bryn Forbes can shoot the lights out, but he’s an off-guard learning to run the point on the fly. DeMar DeRozan has morphed into a playmaker, but his nature is to score the ball. There’s no Tony Parker anymore, after the Spurs’ legend left and signed a two-year deal with Charlotte in free agency.
It’s all coalesced into the Spurs allowing opposing point guards to score an average of 26.1 points at league-leading 49.8 percent clip, according to Swish Analytics.
Bottom line: This rendition of the Spurs isn’t that great
Over the summer, San Antonio dealt Leonard and Danny Green to the Raptors for DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a protected 2019 first-round pick). What went out wasn’t nearly equivalent to what came in. The Spurs did not get one of Toronto’s best young prospects: Pascal Siakam, Delon Wright, or OG Anunoby. Any one of them could have changed the complexion of this team. Poeltl is a fine center, but LaMarcus Aldridge plays most of those minutes, even with Pau Gasol injured.
DeRozan is averaging a career-high in assists (6.0) and more points (24) on a better shooting percentage (48.5) than his final season in Toronto, but it’s not enough. As Action Network’s Matt Moore points out, the Spurs are terrible defensively with DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge on the floor together, allowing 109.5 points per 100 possessions. They’re better on defense (102.9 points allowed per 100 possessions) with DeRozan on the floor without Aldridge, and their defensive rating of 117.3 when Aldridge is on the floor without is just putrid. Aldridge, though, is San Antonio’s second-best player. The Spurs have to play him, even if the defense suffers.
DeRozan is also shooting an unthinkable 18.2 percent from three-point range while attempting even fewer than last year. In a league predicated on versatility, the Spurs have little to none. Their only switchable defenders outside of DeRozan are Dante Cunningham and Quincy Pondexter, the latter of whom barely plays. San Antonio doesn’t have enough options on offense, isn’t connected on defense and lacks a true starting point guard to take pressure off DeRozan’s shoulders.
And because of that, it might be time to finally criticize the front office
The thought process was clear: The Spurs were adding DeRozan to a team that made the playoffs without Leonard last season. He was supposed to replace Leonard, watch his game expand beyond his wildest dreams in San Antonio, and help guide the Spurs back into playoff contention.
But San Antonio gave away a quality veteran and 3-and-D guy in Danny Green as part of that Raptors deal, too. Then, the Spurs let a key player like Kyle Anderson walk to Memphis on a mere four-year, $37.2 million deal. Manu Ginobili retired, and Parker went to Charlotte.
San Antonio ostensibly replaced Green with Marco Belinelli, but Belinelli comes off the bench, is a terrible defender, and is shooting the second-worst three-point clip (32.3 percent) of his career. The injuries to Murray and Walker add fuel to the fire. Pau Gasol’s stress fracture nine games into the season didn’t make matters any better, though his minutes and production had declined to the lowest numbers of his career.
Meanwhile, the rest of the NBA has gotten stronger — and more modern — in the blink of an eye. Seeds No. 2 and 14 in the West are separated by 4.5 games. Five teams that made the postseason last year would be lottery-bound if the playoffs started today. The Spurs find themselves at the bottom of the standings with the second-worst record in the conference, though timely wins could vault them into the playoff picture in a week’s time.
More frequent three-point shooting could help San Antonio offensively. The Spurs shoot 37.9 percent from downtown as a team, that’s the fourth-best clip in the NBA. But they attempt fewer than 25 triples a game on the season, the second-fewest, ahead of just Cleveland. In a league where the Rockets and Bucks average more than 40 threes a night, and 20 other teams average at least 29 attempts per game, San Antonio’s number just doesn’t cut it.
But the Spurs have issues that jacking up threes won’t fix. The Spurs lack versatility in a league where versatility is the name of the game and a dynamic point guard in a point guard-driven league. Their pick-and-pop offense with DeRozan and Aldridge has become predictable, and their head coach hates three-pointers.
Clearly, this team needs some help. A player like Trevor Ariza could work wonders for San Antonio should he become available on the buyout market. A trade for a starting-caliber point guard like Brooklyn’s Spencer Dinwiddie or New York’s Frank Ntilikina could shore up their injury riddled backcourt. They might also be interested in Brooklyn’s DeMarre Carroll, or, heck, a motivated J.R. Smith playing competitive basketball outside of Cleveland might actually be of some use, provided he doesn’t make Popovich’s head explode.
These are all temporary fixes, though, to much bigger problems the Spurs need to address. The NBA is in the 21st century, but San Antonio is stuck in the past. A healthy Murray and Walker may help leap them into the future, but the days of the Spurs as the league’s model franchise appear to be at an end.