San Antonio early offseason in review (HW/bondom34/dbrandon)

[SAGirl]

Hi Chinook.
Sorry all to use a sentence here for a personal greeting. I am new to this board and can't use the PM feature. Just wanted to say hi. I will keep civil.

And since I greeted Chinook, why not? Let's greet everybody. /hello all.

[Gus Fring]

I think it's weird how everyone hates the Gasol signing for the Spurs, seemingly.

Their anchor retired, they didn't have tons of cash to spend and wanted some flexibility going forward so they signed the closest thing to a Timmy replacement for the short term. How is that bad? I love Duncan, but his impact had been severely hampered by the second half of the season and I'm wholly convinced if Pau had been in his place the Spurs would've made it past OKC. That is not a disrespect to my favorite player of all time, but he was playing on no knees out there.

Spurs have the best team defensive concept in the league and the best perimeter defenders, one of them being the back to back DPOY. Gasol, while definitely slow and immobile, isn't any slower than Duncan at this point and with the league oriented more towards the perimeter I think that the Spurs' wing defense will more than cover for the loss. On the flip side, Pau is incredibly skilled on offense and way better than Tim at this point. Any Spurs fan will agree, Spurs are basically playing 4 on 5 on offense with Tim because he lack of mobility and knee issues took any lift from him, routinely leading to missed chip shots around the basket. Yes our defense may suffer but our offense should improve dramatically. IMO trying to look at past stats are irrelevant and out of context. The Spurs system and Pop in particular are known for maximizing defensive potential, I have no worries that they will make Pau at least serviceable on that end. Let's not forget that Bogut was an elite defensive center and a big part of GSW being elite on that end. Replacing him with Zaza is not going to be the same.

Most Spurs fans are pretty excited going into 2017 and aside from losing Tim, something we could not forsee or control for, I and many others think they have improved and may have a better season. Spurs got rid of some dead weight. Boris was virtually non-existent last season, West was decent in the RS but atrocious in the postseason and I am very happy he left, and Boban wasn't much of a factor either way. Spurs added a nice euro sharpshooter who will make an impact in Bertans, I think this guy is underrated and will be another classic Spurs pickup. I like the replacement of West/Diaw with Lee/Dedmon because Spurs were murdered on the glass against OKC and they added some solid rebounders. I also think we'll by better just by virtue of Green and Mills having better seasons, as both of them had down 3PT% years last season. On top of that I expect Anderson/Simmons to improve and Kyle especially to have a breakout season.

Most importantly is the improvement of our 25 year old superstar. Curry exploded in a season and no one could have seen how amazing he would become, maybe Leonard will take the next step as well. Spurs have a chance to be a lot better on him improving alone, which I believe he will because he is a workhorse and improved every season so far.

tl;dr: I like our moves, I think Spurs did the best they could with limited maneuverability and the sudden announcement of Tim retiring. Obviously I don't see them as the favorites and GS definitely has that respect but I still believe they will win 60+ and can challenge the Warriors in some capacity.

I agree 1000%.