NBA Season Review: San Antonio Spurs Statement Season

Add that to a barrage of injuries that the Spurs players suffered. The most notable one is Dejounte Murray. After suffering a season-ending knee injury in the preseason. From there, the clearest conclusion seemed to be that “San Antonio’s two-decade-long dynasty is over.”

Yet, time and again, head coach Gregg Popovich and his company continued to defy the odds. The San Antonio Spurs managed to sneak into the postseason.

Relying heavily on old-school perimeter scoring, with the league’s two best mid-range shooters DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge, the Spurs finished with a 48-34 win-loss record in the regular season before suffering a heart-breaking first-round loss against the young second seeds Denver Nuggets in seven games.

Rebuild

The Spurs, unlike any other team which heavily banked on three-point shooting, had to look for different ways to get points last year with DeRozan and Aldridge as their top two scorers.

While the analytics and trends of the modern NBA gearing up toward a more volume-heavy and three-point scoring, San Antonio took the other path and instead settled for high-efficient shots (of course, their league’s second best 47.8 field goal percentage attests to that).

The Spurs shot the least number of three-point attempts around the league last year. They only shot 25.3 three-pointers but still had the highest three-point percentage after 82 games. They were also converting 39% of their shots from the rainbow territory.

Spurs’ shooters Bryn Forbes and Davis Bertans finished in the Top 10 in terms of three-point field goal percentage last year. They were accountable for the team’s success in the three-point land in the previous season.

However, the midrange is where San Antonio put damage against other teams. They finished top two in both the two-pointers scored and two-pointers attempted. They also had 32.4 points per game, and 63 two-point attempts per game, according to Basketball Reference.

The Spurs’ top two scorers of Aldridge and DeRozan were the beneficiaries of Popovich’s love for perimeter scoring last year. They both shot at least 23 attempts each in the two-point area.

Diamonds in the Rough

With Aldridge and DeRozan, San Antonio was pretty much solid enough to be as good as a nearly 50-win team. However, the Spurs’ success last season was about their young guns stepping up big-time.

Forbes and Bertans provided the team’s much-needed three-point scoring. Especially  following the departure of Danny Green

Then there’s second year point guard Derrick White.  Despite his own injury problems early in the season, he started in place of the injured Murray at the point. Consequently, this paired him up with Forbes at the backcourt.

In the Playoffs, White was  San Antonio’s third-best scorer with 15.1 points. Adding his pesky defense, offensive versatility, and Manu-esque confidence to slice into the middle and look for driving lanes also helped.

Jakob Pöeltl, who is deemed by many as Popovich’s next Tiago Splitter, also delivered valuable contributions with the Spurs. This was a welcomed addition because the Spurs lacked depth at the front court last year.

The Austrian big man had 24 starts for San Antonio last year and played 16.5 minutes.

Meanwhile, despite spending most of their time in the Austin Spurs at the NBA G-League, Lonnie Walker IV, Chimezie Metu, and Drew Eubanks also showed glimpses of what they could bring to the Spurs’ table next year.