Rebuilding the Spurs

[Rustyman]

We are currently 28th out of 30 teams in opposition 3 point percentage at 39.3%. That is the bulk of the reason for the games we lose.

Even, when the Spurs win, the opposition always has at least one player that pops off for his season high in 3 pointers made.

Forget about getting more players, the Spurs have to improve their defensive schemes as they do have the perimeter defenders to be significantly better. Coaching, coaching, coaching, that is what will be the difference between the Spurs having a successful season or not.

[Rustyman]

This brings us to our roster limitations. Not only so we have players who miss Wemby on alley oop asses or who take their sweet ass time passing it to him on the block, we also have players who waste time over dribbling on the perimeter, waste time passing horizontally without making it work to our advantage in moving D enough to create driving lanes or we **** drive into multiple defenders.

And this is at the heart of my most recent criticisms of the Spurs. Mitch is a first year coach so I am not going to beat him up over the early returns but if he does not show improvement during this season, then we should be looking at someone better at the end of the season.

Coaching has to do 3 main things:
1. Get the best out their current resources.
2. Implement schemes/plans/tactics to optimize usage of those resources.
3. Identify gaps in the current resource group and request acquisitions/departures to mitigate those gaps.

[G R E Y]

We are currently 28th out of 30 teams in opposition 3 point percentage at 39.3%. That is the bulk of the reason for the games we lose.

Even, when the Spurs win, the opposition always has at least one player that pops off for his season high in 3 pointers made.

Forget about getting more players, the Spurs have to improve their defensive schemes as they do have the perimeter defenders to be significantly better. Coaching, coaching, coaching, that is what will be the difference between the Spurs having a successful season or not.

29th! I mentioned both of these points as part of the long O and D post. Some surprises stood out in looking them.

For instance, weird how we're still top 10 in D overall. Makes you wonder how we'd fare if this woeful 3s defending stat were even middle of the pack.

Coaching needs time to gel, lots of new faces. There's no way we get a new coach next season. Nor should we. Mitch has been in our system over 10 years. And no coach, unless he goes full Udoka or gets caught throwing a game gambling, gets only a year behind the bench.

As I said, early Pop wasn't later Pop, even as core principles remained ever present.

Although we've accelerated the rebuild to match Wemby's meteoric rise, we don't skip steps and don't make reactionary decisions. If players get to play through growing pains and grow with experience, so too does Mitch and staff.

That said, if just us fans see the bad 3s defense, surely PATFO's aware of it.

Let's see how we respond with reinforcements returning.