Sansterre's Top 100 Teams, #7. The 2014 San Antonio Spurs

[sansterre]

Glossary:

Spoiler:

Overall SRS: My combo-SRS from the regular season and playoffs as discussed in the master thread
Standard Deviations: Standard Deviations of Overall SRS from the league mean.

When I post the roster makeup of the team, I try and do it by playoff minutes. The numbers are age, regular season BPM and Playoff BPM (basketball-reference's BPM is being used here).

So if I say: "C: Vlade Divac (22), +2.3 / +4.3" I mean that Vlade Divac was their center, he was 22, he had a BPM of +2.3 in the regular season and a +4.3 in the playoffs. Yes, BPM misses out on a lot of subtle stuff but I thought it a good quick-hits indicator of the skills of the players.

I also list the playoff players (20+ MPG) in order of OLoad (which is usage that integrates assists) and it has everyone's per game average for minutes, points, rebounds, assists and stocks (steals plus blocks), but all of those (including minutes) are adjusted for pace.

I then cover the three highest players in scoring per 100 (with their true shooting relative to league average) and the three highest players in Assists per 100. I realize that these are arbitrary, but I wanted a quick-hits reference for how these teams' offenses ran.

I then talk about Heliocentrism, Wingmen and Depth. Basically I add up all of the team's VORP (again, basketball-reference) and then figure out what percentage of that VORP comes from the #1 player (Heliocentrism), from the #2 and 3 players combined (Wingmen) and Depth (everyone else). I include the ranking among the top 100 for reference. There are only 82 of these rankings, because 18 teams pre-date BPM/VORP, so I only have 82 to work with. I'm not saying that these are particularly meaningful, I just thought they were cool.

Playoff Offensive Rating: Amount by which your playoff offensive rating exceeds the offensive rating you'd expect given the regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents. If you would be expected to post a 99 given your opponents but you post a 104, that's graded as +5. This way we can compare across eras.
Playoff Defensive Rating is the same as Offensive Rating, just the opposite.
Playoff SRS: Is SRS measured *only* in the playoffs. Overall SRS is a mix of both playoffs and regular season.
Total SRS Increase Through Playoffs: Basically their Overall SRS minus their Regular Season SRS. This is basically how much better a team did in the playoffs than you'd guess, relative to their regular season performance.
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: The average regular season offensive rating of your playoff opponents.
Average Playoff Opponent Defense: The average regular season defensive rating of your playoff opponents.

Rankings of any kind are out of my list. So if I say that the '91 Lakers had the 42nd best regular season offense, I don't mean "42nd best of All-Time", I mean "42nd best of my Top 100 Teams of All_Time". Which will be pretty comparable, but I want to be clear about this.

I also walk through the playoffs at each round, covering their opponent their SRS (at that time), how many games the series was, the margin of victory (and a "+" is always in the favor of the discussed team; losing a series by +2.0 means that you outscored the other team by two points a game on average despite losing) and for reference I put in an SRS equivalency (beat a +5 SRS team by 5 points a game, that's an equivalent +10 SRS series).

In later entries I also add the Offensive and Defensive Ratings for each playoff series. This is just how well the team did, adjusted by the opponent's regular season average (if you play a team with an average Defensive Rating of 102, and you play them with an offensive rating of 106, you get credited with a +4). Pace for teams below 1973 or so is estimated based on regular season numbers, so it could easily be wrong by some.

In writeups, if I ever say a player shot at "-8%" or something, that means "his true shooting was 8% lower than the league average that year". Any time I say "a player shot" and follow it by a percent, I am *always* using true shooting percentage unless otherwise indicated.

I also have a modern comps section for any teams pre-2011. It's basically me weighting each statistical characteristic and feeding each player's stats into the BackPicks database and choosing the best-rated comp from the list. I might list something like this:

PG: 2017 LeBron James (worse rebounding, better passing, way fewer shots)

What I mean is, "This team's point guard was basically 2017 LeBron James, but make his passing better, make his rebounding worse and make him take way fewer shots).

Anyhow. I don't know how clear any of this will be, so please let me know what does and doesn't work from these writeups. And thanks for reading!

#7. The 2014 San Antonio Spurs

Spoiler:

Overall SRS: +12.32, Standard Deviations: +2.47, Won NBA Finals (Preseason 6th)

PG: Tony Parker, +0.9 / -1.4
SG: Danny Green, +3.2 / +6.2
SF: Kawhi Leonard, +5.1 / +4.7
PF: Tim Duncan, +3.3 / +3.1
C: Tiago Splitter, +0.6 / +5.1
6th: Boris Diaw, +1.3 / +3.8
7th: Manu Ginobili, +4.0 / +5.3

Regular Season Metrics:

Regular Season Record: 62-20, Regular Season SRS: +8.00 (24th), Earned the 1 Seed
Regular Season Offensive Rating: +3.8 (47th), Regular Season Defensive Rating: -4.3 (34th)
Shooting Advantage: +5.2%, Possession Advantage: -1.9 shooting possessions per game

Tony Parker (PG, 31): 31 MPPG, 28% OLoad, 18 / 2 / 6 / 1 on +1.4%
Manu Ginobili (SG, 36): 24 MPPG, 26% OLoad, 13 / 3 / 5 / 1 on +4.9%
Tim Duncan (PF, 37): 31 MPPG, 25% OLoad, 16 / 10 / 3 / 3 on -0.6%
Kawhi Leonard (SF, 22): 31 MPPG, 18% OLoad, 14 / 7 / 2 / 3 on +6.1%
Boris Diaw (PF, 31): 26 MPPG, 17% OLoad, 10 / 4 / 3 / 1 on +3.7%
Tiago Splitter (C, 29): 23 MPPG, 17% OLoad, 9 / 7 / 2 / 1 on +3.1%
Danny Green (SG, 26): 26 MPPG, 16% OLoad, 10 / 4 / 2 / 2 on +3.9%

Scoring/100: Tony Parker (28.7 / +1.4%), Manu Ginobili (27.3 / +4.9%), Tim Duncan (26.2 / -0.6%)
Assists/100: Tony Parker (9.8), Manu Ginobili (9.6), Boris DIaw (5.7)

Heliocentrism: 17.8% (83rd of 84 teams) - Kawhi
Wingmen: 27.4% (79th) - Duncan & Ginobili
Depth: 54.8% (2nd)

Playoff Metrics:

Playoff Offensive Rating: +7.67 (22nd), Playoff Defensive Rating: -6.82 (31st)
Playoff SRS: +14.53 (9th), Total SRS Increase through Playoffs: +4.32 (17th)
Shooting Advantage: +5.2%, Possession Advantage: -0.2 shooting possessions per game
Average Playoff Opponent Offense: +4.32 (5th), Average Playoff Opponent Defense: -0.17 (89th)

Tony Parker (PG, 31): 34 MPPG, 29% OLoad, 19 / 2 / 5 / 1 on -1.0%
Manu Ginobili (SG, 36): 27 MPPG, 28% OLoad, 15 / 4 / 4 / 2 on +5.2%
Tim Duncan (PF, 37): 35 MPPG, 21% OLoad, 18 / 10 / 2 / 2 on +2.7%
Kawhi Leonard (SF, 22): 34 MPPG, 18% OLoad, 15 / 7 / 2 / 3 on +6.5%
Boris Diaw (PF, 31): 28 MPPG, 18% OLoad, 10 / 5 / 4 / 1 on +4.1%
Danny Green (SG, 26): 25 MPPG, 15% OLoad, 10 / 3 / 1 / 2 on +10.9%
Tiago Splitter (C, 29): 24 MPPG, 14% OLoad, 8 / 7 / 2 / 1 on +11.8%

Scoring/100: Manu Ginobili (29.2 / +5.2%), Tony Parker (28.8 / -1.0%), Tim Duncan (25.8 / +2.7%)
Assists/100: Manu Ginobili (8.4), Tony Parker (8.0), Boris Diaw (6.7)

Playoff Heliocentrism: 17.8% (84th of 84 teams) - Kawhi
Playoff Wingmen: 30.1% (72nd) - Ginobili & Green
Playoff Depth: 52.1% (2nd)

Round 1: Dallas Mavericks (+2.9), won 4-3, by +2.0 points per game (+4.9 SRS eq)
Round 2: Portland Trail Blazers (+4.6), won 4-1, by +13.4 points per game (+18.0 SRS eq)
Round 3: Oklahoma City Thunder (+7.5), won 4-2, by +10.5 pints per game (+18.0 SRS eq)
Round 4: Miami Heat (+6.4), won 4-1, by +14.0 points per game (+20.4 SRS eq)

Offensive / Defensive Ratings from Opposition Regular Season Average:

Dallas Mavericks: +4.4 / -0.3
Portland Trail Blazers: +5.7 / -12.3
Oklahoma City Thunder: +10.5 / -7.2
Miami Heat: +15.0 / -6.1

Shooting Advantage / Possession Advantage per game (unadjusted):

Dallas Mavericks: +4.9% / -6.3
Portland Trail Blazers: +6.5% / +0.7
Oklahoma City Thunder: +3.5% / +3.6
Miami Heat: +6.6% / +2.9

Postseason Usage/Efficiency Change adjusted for Opposition:

Tony Parker: +1.8% / -2.3%
Danny Green: -0.6% / +7.1%
Kawhi Leonard: +0.6% / +0.5%
Tim Duncan: -3.3% / +3.4%
Tiago Splitter: -4.3% / +8.8%
Boris Diaw: +0.8% / +0.5%
Manu Ginobili: +1.5% / +0.4%


In 1415, the English King Henry V landed an army across the channel to make his claim to the throne of France. That he did this for no substantively better reason than one gang has in challenging another gang for the control of valuable turf is not relevant to this story. Anyhow, the English besieged the city of Harfleur, near the coast. The city eventually fell but took longer than expected. This delay put King Henry in a quandary. His army was not large (about nine thousand troops) and it was suffering attrition from dysentery (15th century sanitation + lots of men camping outside together for months = dysentery). Henry had issued challenge to the French Dauphin at Harfleur, but had been unable to provoke the battle he wanted. The French stayed away and gathered a far larger army, one that the English would struggle to match. The safe choice was for the English to go back to their boats and head home before the temperature fell (campaigning in these times was generally halted for the winter, then resumed in the spring). Henry V was loath to do so. He had hoped for bigger victories than the surrender of one port. And so he and his men, tired and short of food, marched across Normandy to Calais, to provoke the French to battle.

Was this prudent? Perhaps not. Henry must have known that the French army would be larger and fresher than his own. But he knew that his army was comparably battle-tested, unified by the hardships of the campaign. And he dreamed of glory.

The French moved their army in behind the English, denying them a chance to retreat to their boats. Henry withdrew south with the French army in pursuit but unwilling to attack. Finally, with their food almost run out Henry chose the field where he would give battle. His forces were outnumbered and under-equipped. The French boasted 10,000 platemail-wearing men at arms, plus another 5,000 footmen. The English army was only 1,500 men at arms, with his remaining 7,500 men being lightly-armored archers. But Henry had chosen an optimal spot. The ground underfoot was recently ploughed (which recent heavy rain had made very muddy), and bracketed on either side by thick woods. Henry drew his army up, knowing that the French would be forced to attack in the morning.

Where the French (according to some accounts) drank and slept the night away, confident in their imminent victory, the scene was very different at the English camp. They stayed awake the night in somber reflection, praying, with Henry allegedly going from campfire to campfire to build the confidence of his men.

That morning, October 25th, 1415 (Saint Crispin’s Day), near the town of Agincourt, the matter would be decided. Before the battle he gave a fierce speech to his men, almost certainly not as good as the one Shakespeare would write for him centuries later (and here cited in part):

He which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us . . .

And [October 25th] shall never go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered -
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he never so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

How close this was to the real speech is unknown. But one couldn’t help but be moved. The King offers to pay the way of any man who fears the coming battle too much to stay, because he would not share the fellowship of desperate battle with such a man as that. That fellowship makes them, King and commoners, a band of brothers (the origin of the name of the excellent WW2 series). And he assures them (with some validity) that centuries later tales of their heroism would still be told. And that all who could not be part of it (whether by fate or by choice) would be consumed with jealousy that they could not be part of the bond that united all who fought together on this field.

Hell of a speech.

Henry drew up his men at arms in thin lines between the woods, with the archers drawn up on the edges of the trees, protected by wooden stakes thick enough to discourage horses. The French sent out their heavy cavalry to attack the English archers and try to disperse them. Behind the cavalry the French marched their masses of heavy infantry to smash the much smaller English host.

The French plan backfired.

The cavalry were repulsed by the stakes the archers had set up. The English arrows did little damage to the riders but the French horses were not so lucky. Repulsed and panicking many horses tore back the way they came, plowing through the incoming french infantry. Perhaps the greatest thing the charge achieved was to churn the muddy field into a veritable bog. Now the French heavy infantry advanced, wading in heavy plate through knee-deep mud. By the time they reached the English line they were worn and exhausted. Through sheer weight of numbers they pushed the English back, but the archers swarmed in from the flanks with hatchets, pouncing on fallen French knights. Struggling through the mud, pushed back by the English and pushed from behind by more French soldiers many were felled and unable to rise, some killed with attacks to the joints of their armor, others drowning as their helmets were submerged in the mud. King Henry fought on the front lines with his men, having a piece of his crown broken off in the melee.

In the end the French were beaten back. In fact, the battle turned into a route. The French lost some six thousand dead and another several thousand were captured, while the English casualties numbered in the low hundreds. And Henry V went down as one of the more notable kings in English history, including getting an eponymous play written about him by the bard.

So, you may be asking, what in the ever loving heck does the Battle of Agincourt have to do with the 2014 San Antonio Spurs?

There are a lot of commonalities between the two. The most notable characteristics of the English at Agincourt are the following:

On paper the English looked completely outmatched;
Given that the English didn’t have the resources of the French, they had to be far more creative with using what they had;
They deployed what they *did* have in an optimal way;
Their shared experiences unified and focused them where the French were unfocused and overconfident; and
The English absolutely smoked all comers.

Full disclosure, do you realize how . . . I guess, underpowered the ‘14 Spurs were? Imagine this conversation:

Person A: “I’m writing about one of the best teams ever.”
Person B: “Ah, they had a big star?”
Person A: “Well, they did have a former #1 overall pick.”
Person B: “Ayyyyyyyyyyy!”
Person A: “He was 37.”
Person B: “Ahhhhhhhhh.”
Person A: “It wasn’t LeBron.”
Person B: “Oooooooooo.”
Person A: “But they did have Kawhi Leonard.”
Person B: “Ahhhhhhhhh.”
Person A: “He was 22 years old.”
Person B: “Oooooooooo.”
Person A: “They were still great.”
Person B: “ . . . but their role players were in their primes?”
Person A: “Their top four scorers (per game) were all either older than 30, or younger than 23.”
Person B: “ . . . how great were they again?”

90% of great teams are an ATG stud in their prime getting enough supplemental help to do some damage. There are exceptions; the ‘72 Lakers had both West and Wilt post-peak for example. But the ‘14 Spurs didn’t have anything *close* to a stud in their prime.

By the late aughts the Spurs’ dynasty seemed to have run out of steam. They were still routinely posting win totals in the low 50s. They made the playoffs in all three of ‘09, ‘10 and ‘11 but were knocked out in the first round two out of the three years. Duncan and Ginobili were getting older, no longer able to shoulder quite the load they had. And yet, the team was stuck with a high win total and so denied access to high draft picks. How were the Spurs to return to contention with their stars aging and no access to high end young talent?

Going into the 2012 season the Spurs were ranked tied for 11th going into the year. Instead the Spurs tied for the highest record in the league and had the second highest SRS in the league. The ‘12 Spurs swept their way through the first two rounds before falling to Kevin Durant and the ‘12 Thunder. The Spurs’ bench handily beat the Thunder’s (239 to 194, despite James Harden) but they simply could not contain Kevin Durant (or Harden). They lost in six by 4.5 points per game.

Coming off a 62-win pace and a Conference Finals berth, the Spurs surely got more consideration in 2013, right? Their ranking certainly improved . . . to 5th. They were behind the Heat (understandable, defending champs), Thunder (defending Western Conference champs), but then Bulls (Derrick Rose seemed to have the Bulls on ascension) and the Lakers (who had added Dwight Howard and Steve Nash). So . . . not outright crazy but in retrospect, fairly wrong. The Thunder lost Russell Westbrook in the playoffs, the Bulls lost Derrick Rose for the season and the ‘12 Lakers turned out to be a collection of past-prime and way-past-prime players who were all injury prone. And that left the Heat and Spurs. The Spurs won 58 games (3rd in the league) and had an RSRS of +6.67 (3rd in the league). And when the Thunder lost Westbrook the Spurs easily advanced to face the Heat in the Finals. And there the Spurs came within a Ray Allen three *and* subsequent overtime *and* subsequent Game 7 of winning the series. Few teams have ever come closer to winning a championship . . . and still lost.

So. It’s 2014. The Spurs are clearly *not* on the way out. They just barely (barely!) barely lost to the Heat in the Finals. So going into the season they’re rated . . . 5th (tied for fourth with 2 other teams. The Heat are #1, sure (but given their +200 odds it seems the oddsmakers learned the wrong lesson from the 2013 Finals which wasn’t “that the Heat are invincible” but “the Heat can be beaten”). The Thunder #2, sure, presuming Westbrook and Durant were healthy (which they were). But the Bulls were *again* put ahead of the Spurs. And two interesting teams were ranked as comparable to the Spurs: the ‘14 Rockets (who had added Dwight Howard) and the ‘14 Nets (who had just loaded up with the remains of the ‘13 Celtics). The Spurs, despite not getting much love, proceeded to post both the #1 record and #1 RSRS in the league. What was their secret? Why were they so underrated?

The ‘12 to ‘14 Spurs were notable for being stupid good but with no obvious superstars. My Helio rating is the percentage of team VORP that comes from the team’s #1 player, and my Depth rating is the percentage of team VORP that comes from all players besides the #1-3. Of 84 teams on this list, here is where the ‘12, ‘13 and ‘14 Spurs finished:

Helio: 84th, 80th, 83rd
Depth: 1st, 6th, 2nd

So. Of the 84 teams on this list from the VORP era, the ‘12-14 Spurs have three of the five lowest Helio scores, and three of the six highest Depth scores. There was no stud to bet on, it was just a deep team. You might guess that Deep teams always get underestimated (and there’s probably some truth to that) but the late 80s Pistons weren’t really. 10th in ‘87 sure, but 4th going into ‘88 and 2nd going into ‘89. Not unreasonable. But the Pistons’ best players were all young-ish. Laimbeer was 31, Thomas was 27 and most of the cast was below 30. Even if they had an unusual team makeup, it was easy to look at their ages and see a team on the rise. The Spurs? Duncan was 37, Parker was 31, Ginobili was 36 and the rest of the roster was late-ish draft picks and guys who had washed out of other systems. Tell me that doesn’t scream like the quintessential team on decline, the dynasty whose stars are aging and who can’t get enough draft capital to rebuild on the fly.

And yet.

The 2014 San Antonio Spurs had 12 players with positive BPMs. Twelve! That’s not twelve guys who are evaluated as being above replacement level, that’s twelve guys evaluated as being better than average (sure, three of the twelve played below 1000 minutes, but still). The 2014 Heat had six (if we make the requirement > 1 minute). The 2014 Thunder had seven. The ‘91 Bulls had *four*, the ‘96 Bulls had six. Obviously BPM is only so good at anything. But TWELVE!? That’s unprecedented (somebody way better with APIs could check this, but I haven’t seen anything close to this elsewhere). Even in the playoffs the Spurs had ten.

Like the English Army at Agincourt the ‘14 Spurs weren’t much to look at from a distance. Let’s get up closer.

In June of 2009, with the 53rd pick in the draft (late 2nd round) the Spurs selected Nando de Colo, a 6’5” SG/SF. De Colo was a French basketball player who was 22 when drafted. Instead of going with the Spurs De Colo signed with Valencia in the Spanish league, where he won the 2010 EuroCup title. After three years with Valencia, De Colo decided not to renew his contract, and to go play with the Spurs. De Colo proved to be a little overmatched in the NBA. He shot well enough from three (37% in 2013, 34% in 2014) but both years posting TS% slightly below league average. He chipped in as best he could; his rebounding was decent for a player of his height (8.7 and 8.4%), and he averaged over 2 steals per 100 both years. But his turnovers were pretty high for a player who mostly finished (4.5 and 3.6 TOV per 100). In 2014 his OBPM was negative; he made positive BPM on account of strong defensive rebounding and high steals. Was De Colo actually that good? The Spurs didn’t think so, they traded him mid-season to Toronto and he was back in Europe by 2016. That said, for a late 2nd it was a decent return.

The next player needs no introduction but I’m going to give him one. Only a mid 2nd round pick, he became beloved by players and the media alike. Kobe Bryant christened him the Red Mamba. Tim Duncan dubbed him the Medium Fundamental. He’s 6’10”, but has made the 5th most three pointers in Spurs history. I’m talking, of course, of the illustrious Matt Bonner. Bonner was actually picked up by the Spurs when they traded away Rasho Nesterovic. Bonner wasn’t particularly athletic but he 1) was tall, 2) was happy to do whatever the team needed, 3) didn’t make bad decisions and 4) could shoot. By 2009 Bonner’s shots were always 50% or more from behind the arc. And he made them at a good clip; from 2011 to 2014 he made threes at 43.7% and his rarer twos went in at 49.4%. It’s not that he took a lot of shots; his usage rate was in serious role-player territory (around 13%) but he always shot above average (+4.1% rTS in 2014), didn’t turn the ball over and played good (if unathletic) defense. I don’t want to oversell him; he only played 690 minutes in the 2014 regular season. But he was a solid all-around stretch 4, a former 2nd rounder acquired for very little. And a great interview on a team that (for better or for worse) was notoriously tight with the media.

Cory Joseph was taken 29th overall in the 2011 draft and he was 22 by the time 2014 rolled around. Joseph wasn’t particularly great at any one thing. He didn’t really shoot threes, but in 2014 he shot 47.8% on long twos. He shot well enough at the rim (around 65%) and these combined to make him slightly above average on twos. He didn’t take a ton of shots (17% usage is slightly low) and was only a sufficient passer by volume (17-20% AST). His turnovers were low-ish (12.3%) but OBPM still grades him as below average on offense. However, his defensive impact was respectable, enough so that BPM grades him as above average in the aggregate. It’s a small sample but for their 10th best player by VORP, Joseph is pretty good.

Tiago Splitter was taken with the 28th overall pick of the 2007 draft. Splitter (like De Colo) played in the Spanish league. He was a serious impact player there, winning MVP in both the 2006 and 2007 Spanish Supercup tournament. He was theoretically available for the 2006 draft but no NBA team wanted to shell out the buyout of his contract in Spain. But in 2007 the Spurs took a flier on him, knowing that he’d likely play in Spain for another several seasons (which he did). He went on to make the 2009 All-Euroleague second team and was the 2010 Spanish League MVP. In 2011, at the age of 26, he joined the Spurs. Splitter was, frankly, a traditionally solid big man. He scored almost exclusively at the rim at a decent rate (+3.1% rTS) on a low-ish load (around 18% usage). He was a strong (but not great) rebounder and he was a sufficient big-man passer (barely above 1 AST/TO). And his defense was solid, but unspectacular. Splitter was nothing to brag about; he was simply a solid all-around big. But as the 9th best player on the team, he was pretty great (especially for a back-end 1st rounder).

Boris Diaw was drafted with the 21st pick of the 2003 draft by the Atlanta Hawks. He was a strange player, both on and off the court. He was 6’8”, struggled with weight issues, was either surprisingly quick or agonizingly slow (depending on the year and game in question), smart, competitive and an excellent passer. He didn’t work out in Atlanta but was traded to the D’Antoni Suns where he blossomed as a secondary distributor out of the post with Steve Nash. He was then traded to the Bobcats where he had a few years before falling out with new coach Paul Silas. Diaw was widely panned throughout the league for being one of its laziest players, something of a known clubhouse cancer. When Diaw hit free agency the Spurs snatched him up in a heartbeat. He was a surprisingly good fit. His turnovers were higher than the Spurs system preferred, but he was an exceptional facilitator for a power forward. He would prove to be a fierce competitor on defense (defending LeBron capably several times) and picked his spots on offense well, shooting above 70% at the rim and above 50% from the post. He was never great, but he took smart shots and set his teammates up to succeed. The Spurs added him cheaply in free agency because few other teams wanted him.

Marco Belinelli was a 6’5” Italian sharpshooter who went #18 to the Golden State Warriors in 2007. He developed as a high-volume sharpshooter, who could post usages in the high teens but rarely shot better than league average (except from three). He was good off-ball and hit threes well, but wasn’t particularly athletic, struggled at the rim and was an unremarkable passer. He bounced around the league, a good shooter but a worse-than-average offensive player and borderline-liability on defense. The Spurs snatched him up for the 2014 season when he was 27. He proceeded to put up the best season of his career. In the Spurs’ offense he both shot from a distance well (43% from three, his best ever) but was also lights out at the rim (76.7% - only 18% of his shots though). Before the Spurs he was a replaceable part. On joining the ‘14 Spurs he’s suddenly getting more open looks, hitting them better and getting clearer paths to the rim. And Belinelli, suddenly, became a strong scorer. The Spurs picked him up for next to nothing, and for them he shot at +6.4% rTS and spaced the floor like a boss.

Patty Mills was drafted with the 55th pick of the 2009 draft. He was a 6’1” point guard, but was not a particularly effective passer. He bounced around the G League for a while and was released. The Spurs snatched him up in free agency for nothing (is this starting sound familiar?) and over the next several years Mills blossomed into an increasingly effective scorer. In 2014 he shot at +4.7%, including 71.6% at the rim and 42.5% from three. He also generated a fair number of steals, but I won’t try to over-represent his defense. But he grew into a sort of offensive spark, coming off the bench and posting above average usage (low 20s), scoring well, passing only some (mid-teens AST%) and rarely turning the ball over. He wasn’t an all-star . . . but he was an excellent bench scorer and the Spurs signed him for next to nothing.

Danny Green was a 6’6” SG/SF taken with the 46th pick of the 2009 draft by Cleveland. He struggled there (on only 115 minutes) and was waived after a year. The Spurs signed him for nothing (I really ought to copy and paste this part) and played him very little in his first year with the team (2011). And in 2012 he hits the scene shooting 43.6% from three (shooting 40+% from three for each of the next four years). Green grew into nothing more than the quintessential 3&D player, blossoming into a starter whose job was to play strong defense and can threes on high-teens usage. He did both excellently.

Kawhi Leonard was a 6’7” wing from San Diego State who was selected with the 15th pick in the 2011 draft. Leonard was basically Michael Kidd-Gilchrist lite, a ferocious defender with giant hands, supremely athletic, great rebounder . . . but couldn’t shoot. His free throws were fine (75.9% his final year in college) but his jumper was spotty at best (29.1% from three that same year). Leonard was drafted by the Pacers but immediately traded to the Spurs for solid shooting guard George Hill. At the time this seemed like a bit of a reach, even if calculated. Of course by the start of the season in 2012 Kawhi was shooting 37% from three. The Spurs kept his usage low (he never broke 20% through 2014) but in those spots he shot well (+6.1% rTS in 2014), rebounded well, didn’t turn the ball over and played extraordinary defense. He wouldn’t blossom into a full-on superstar until 2016 (when his scoring game would take a big step forward) but Leonard brought great defense, athleticism and a varied scoring game to the team. Though his usage was low, he took at least 10% of his shots from every range, and hit them all well, from 69% at the rim, 51% from the post, 47% from 10-16, 51% from 16-3p and 38% from beyond the arc. Whether Kawhi was, as the numbers say, the Spurs’ best player in ‘14 is questionable. But shooters and passers like George Hill they had aplenty; players with incredible athleticism that could be trained into those things . . . Kawhi was very valuable to the ‘14 Spurs, and would become more so in the years ahead. And he only cost them George Hill, who was good, but well short of Kawhi in value.

Tony Parker came up playing in the French leagues. Multiple colleges tried to recruit him but he declined in order to stay playing professionally in France. This apparently quelled interest in him from much of the NBA, but the Spurs scout (some nobody named Sam Presti) brought Parker to the attention of General Manager R.C. Buford. They loved Parker’s intensity and agility, how aggressive he was in carving up defenses as he attacked the basket. So they flew him in to give him a tryout. And Parker was humiliated in front of Coach Popovich, his lack of toughness exposed against a tougher NBA-level defender. Parker flew home sure that he’d blown his shot, and Pop went to Buford wondering if the whole thing had been a prank. Buford arranged for a second tryout, and this time Parker showed why the front office was so interested in him. He fell all the way to the Spurs with the 28th pick in the first round of the 2001 draft - Charles Barkley pithily summed up the situation by remarking “I don’t know that much about him, but they got him in the first round, so he must be a good player”. Tim Duncan surprisingly had been hesitant about the pick, reflecting the suspicion the league had for European players when he said that the Spurs couldn’t win a championship with a European point guard. His estimate of winning zero championships with Parker as their PG was off by about four. Parker evolved to be something of a throwback player. He had no real three point shot until late in his career and he didn’t have a ton of verticality, yet most of his scoring was at the rim. It’s sort of a Kobe-style shot selection situation; it takes an enormous amount of skill to make a living attacking the rim as a short player with limited verticality, but there’s a serious cap on how efficient you can be doing it. And Parker never became a particularly efficient scorer (around +2-3% rTS). But Pop didn’t need him to be; his aggression and passing were the keys to unlock opposing defenses. With defensively-centered lineups Parker could generate viable (if not great) offense out of thin air. But as the Spurs in the beginning of the teens began transitioning into a more fluid European-style motion offense with lots of spacing Parker’s value exploded (averaging a +5.7 AuRPM from 2012-14). Surrounded by shooters and smart passers, the tiny pebbles of Parker’s rim attacks cascaded into avalanches of threes rained in from all over the court. I don’t want to make like Parker’s career with the Spurs was tension-free; Parker had a hard time with Popovich’s abrasive method of giving feedback and Popovich had a hard time working with a player who often seemed to coast on defense and in practice. But after a decade together the two had brought out the best in each other; Parker credited Pop with building his mental toughness and the Spurs front office (through use of the SportVU technology) learned that Parker’s on-court expenditures on offense were far higher than anyone realized. Parker’s AuRPM in those dominant ‘12-14 years show how invaluable he was to the team, however imperfect his box score stats may have been. Of all the players in the 2001 draft, only #3 pick Pau Gasol has (to date) posted more Win Shares and VORP than Parker. And the Spurs landed him with the 28th pick in the draft.

Manu Ginobili debuted in Argentina, but quickly made a name for himself such that he was scouted and brought to the Italian league. But even before that Ginobili crossed paths with the Spurs. R.C. Buford happened to be attending the U-22 World Championships in Australia, scouting other players. He’d never heard of Ginobili, remembering “He was like a wild colt out there, just doing crazy ----. Some of it made sense and some of it didn’t.” But Buford remembered Ginobili and in the ‘99 draft the Spurs took him with the 57th pick overall. Ginobili declined to join the NBA right away, playing in Italy for the next several years. In 2002, the year before he came to the NBA, he led the Argentine national team to a second place finish in the FIBA World Championships. Popovich, an assistant for the USA team, watched Ginobili play for Argentina first-hand (when the USA lost to Argentina 87-80). When he came back to San Antonio he told Tim Duncan “This guy is coming, and nobody in the U.S. knows how good he is.” Duncan, characteristically, raised an eyebrow. And when Manu finally came to the US it was a constant battle. Manu *loved* taking risks, *loved* lunging for steals, throwing ballsy passes for easy buckets, *loved* taking good looks early in the shot clock. And Popovich, being Popovich, hated every second of it. After years they moderated each other, with Popovich conceding that Manu’s gambles were almost always a net positive and with Ginobili finding ways to explore his creativity from within Popovich’s system. But the one thing nobody questioned was his competitiveness and commitment to the team. In one of the very first practices Manu was intentionally decked with a pick and Ginobili bounced right up without a word of complaint; went Bruce Bowen beat the crap out of him in practice Manu kept going. And when Popovich asked Ginobili to come off the bench, wanting to spread the offensive load between Parker, Duncan and Ginobili more evenly, Manu did it. He blossomed into an excellent creator, excellent at attacking the rim, shooting threes and setting up teammates. By 2014 he was 36 but still shooting 70% at the rim, still wreaking havoc from off the bench. Manu was a big part of how viable the Spurs’ bench-heavy system was; if a player as good as Manu was willing to come off the bench, what right did any other player (no matter how skilled) to complain? A Hall of Fame career, bought with the second to last pick of the 1999 draft.

So . . . we’re talking two picks from the end of the second round (Ginobili and De Colo), a pick from the mid-second round (Bonner), four picks at the end of the first (Parker, Splitter, Cory Joseph and Kawhi Leonard, acquired for George Hill, a former late 1st) and four cast-offs picked up for nothing in free agency (Diaw, Belinelli, Patty Mills and Danny Green). That doesn’t sound like the stuff of which all-time great rosters are made. Miami had a 6th overall (Shane Battier), two 5th overalls (Dwyane Wade and Ray Allen), a 4th overall (Chris Bosh) and a #1 overall (LeBron James). The Thunder had two #2s (Durant and Thabeet), a #4 (Westbrook), a #10 (Caron Butler), two #12s (Collison and Steven Adams) . . . And yes, Miami built their roster using their market as a lure instead of drafting them, but the general point holds. The Spurs weren’t a little less flush with draft capital than the teams they were competing with; they had a *ton* less draft capital than the teams they were competing with. Since 1999 the Spurs have had one pick above #26 (it was a #20). This is the tragic reality of successful teams; they lose out on draft capital and slowly recede. Their only defense is to leverage the status of their market to lure players in free agency (which doesn’t work if you’re San Antonio), mortgage future assets for the present or gracefully recede into the sunset. And that’s what the Spurs were supposed to do. Keep going through the motions as Duncan, Ginobili and Parker got older until they finally had to rebuild. Just like the English at Agincourt *should* have looked at the superior French numbers and retreated back across the channel.

It reminds me of a scene in the original Rocky. The champion Apollo Creed agrees to fight local stiff Rocky Balboa as something of a publicity stunt. The entire buildup to the fight right up to the first bell is handled by Apollo as a show. But Rocky makes an actual fight of it. And there’s a scene where Apollo’s trainer is yelling at him to wake up, saying, “He doesn’t know it’s supposed to be a show! He thinks it’s a damn fight!”

The English “didn’t know” that they were supposed to retreat in the face of superior numbers, so they had to work with what they had. The Spurs “didn’t know” that they were supposed to roll over until they could land another several top picks. So they had to figure it out.

In the 1920s Branch Rickey had a problem. His St. Louis Cardinals were a fairly small market team and struggled to buy top amateurs (the draft didn’t start until 1965). And they had no good ways of scouting and developing players - teams generally bought prospects and played them on their Major League roster. So Rickey had an idea; buy a bunch of teams in other, lower, leagues and use them for scouting and development. This network of teams would grow players for the Cardinals, hence the term ‘Farm System’. By the early 30s this innovation led to a strong series of teams for the Cardinals, capturing two championships. Soon everyone copied his innovation, but for one precious decade he had the upper hand.

In the 1940s Rickey sensed another opportunity. He suspected that there were major league quality players on the other side of the Color Barrier, waiting for their chance. And while I don’t doubt that Rickey was in part motivated by moral concerns, winning motivated him most. And there were potentially hordes of Black players waiting to play for the team smart enough to take them. So Rickey brought in Jackie Robinson, he brought in Don Newcombe, he brought in Ray Campanella. And the Dodgers suddenly became extremely competitive.

When the Spurs selected Manu Ginobili, nobody realized it at the time, but they made two different innovations. First, they realized that the NBA was collectively undervaluing international players and letting them fall too far in the draft. And second, they realized that if they were willing to be patient with the international players that wanted to play abroad even after being drafted, they could land better players with later picks. Guys like Ginobili, Parker, Splitter and Patty Mills fell because nobody else recognized their value. But the Spurs did; like Rickey with the Color Barrier the Spurs organization recognized that there were untapped markets for players overseas and took advantage of the situation. So that’s part of it, that the Spurs combined strong teams with a draft/scouting strategy that was a decade ahead of the rest of the league. The other part is that they went through the waiver wire without pride, constantly looking for talent that other teams might have missed.

But there were other parts. Consider Chip Engelland, the mysterious ‘Shot Doctor’ the Spurs have employed for years. I can’t demonstrate his effectiveness empirically. But there is a considerable amount of data here. Consider Kawhi Leonard. He dropped into the mid-1st because he couldn’t shoot. From his sophomore year in college to his rookie year in the NBA his 3P% jumped 8.5%. Normally players move backwards from college, but Kawhi went from being an awful three point shooter in college to being a strong three point shooter in the pros. Pretty good improvement, right? Diaw went from being a 33% three point shooter in Charlotte to a 39% three point shooter in San Antonio. You have to admit, there’s a curious trend of players suddenly becoming good shooters when they join the Spurs.

And look at how many other players went from nobodies to somebodies on this team. Danny Green went from a waived 2nd rounder to an all-league 3&D guy. Marco Belinelli didn’t become an All-Star, but he clicked with the Spurs in ways he didn’t with anyone else. A lot of that’s culture. And a lot of that culture comes from Gregg Popovich. Pop’s bona fide’s barely need discussion. He coached a team to great success in the all-defense aughts and coached a different version of the same team to great success in the pace & space era. His taciturn disposition is the bane of reporters everywhere. And he is capable of soul-searing levels of contempt, never shy about laying into a player, any player, for something they did that he thinks undermined the team. He is not easy to play for. But you cannot talk about those things without talking about his ‘Family Dinners’, where he brings the entire team to a restaurant and they spend 2-3 hours together chatting, bonding and sharing. When the Spurs lost Game 6 of the 2013 Finals, Pop didn’t take the team to the film room, he took them out to eat. A former Spurs player confessed that he had been friends with every single teammate on the team, and the team dinners were a big reason why. Popovich, through force and fatherliness, forged the disparate pieces of ore he was given into one unified cutting blade, time and time again. It is impossible to discuss the Spurs of any year without discussing Popovich.

Like the Spurs the English did the most with what they had. They focused on togetherness where others gave way to dissolution. They picked a field of battle optimal for their small army. They prepared for the French cavalry with stakes in front of their archers. And King Henry V inspired his men to do their utmost.

They still would probably have lost if it weren’t for the mud.

The thick mud of the countryside after a hard rain made the march of the French Heavy Infantry an almost unbearable slog, fatiguing them before they even had the chance to cross swords with the English. And it crippled their already limited mobility, so that when the lightly-armed archers swarmed in the French struggled to defend themselves. But take away the rain and the mud and the superior French numbers and armor almost certainly crumple the grossly outnumbered English front lines and the battle goes very, very differently. Outstanding leadership, planning and performance helped the English to punch above their weight. But they probably don’t win without that mud.

Tim Duncan was the mud for the Spurs.

Where the entire rest of the roster was cobbled together with guile and grit, Duncan was a #1 pick. In the halls reserved only for the greatest of all time, Tim Duncan can stand with his head held high. He was one of the best rim protectors ever, but never chased blocks. He was always ready to grind out an ISO possession in the post when his team needed a bucket, but he never cared about how many points he scored. When his team needed a hub to run the offense out of, because Parker and Ginobili were too green, Duncan submitted one of the better passing big men playoffs ever in 2003. When Parker grew into his destiny as the Spurs’ floor general, Duncan’s role as passing hub disappeared into the shadows without complaint. Tim Duncan’s greatness is unquestioned, but perhaps his most valuable trait was his willingness to submit to the team first. He blocked a lot of shots, but he was famous for deflecting his misses to teammates instead of slamming them out of bounds, and giving the other team another shot. You know how Popovich could be hard to play with because of his blistering tongue? Tim Duncan took it without complaint. And if one of the greatest players ever, un chevalier sans peur et sans reproche, is willing to take it, who are you to complain? Duncan’s submission to Popovich’s authority set an example the entire roster could not help but imitate. If Buford furnished the ore, and Popovich’s ferocity were the roaring furnace fire and the hammer-strikes on the anvil smashing the team into shape, Duncan’s quiet leadership was the quenching oil that muted the heat and let the metal fuse into one. He anchored the team on both sides of the ball for nearly two decades. Buford and Pop made the Spurs what they were. But even in 2014, they don’t win anything without Duncan. Building and molding this team? That was skill. Landing the #1 overall, landing a guy like Duncan with it . . . that was luck. It took both.

The 2014 Spurs are remembered for their passing and rightly so. But their Assists per shot made wasn’t as high as you might guess. It was lower than the ‘15 Warriors. Much of this was because the Spurs had several players that could generate efficient two point looks without help. Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Patty Mills were all assisted on less than half of their twos (Parker only 32.5%) but all three shot above 50% on them. This comfort with ISO-ball in moderation was a big reason that when their assist rate dropped hard in the playoffs their offense barely stumbled. But when this team did pass it was incredibly effective. The Spurs shot 39.7% from three as a team; that’s almost identical to the efficiency of the ‘15 Warriors. Their passing, spacing and smarts opened up looks for everybody, and the ball nearly always found the right man. In 2014 the Spurs won 62 games, and posted a +8.00 RSRS. And they did it playing only two players more than 2000 minutes in the year (24 mpg over 82 games) but playing nine players more than 1000. The Spurs were so deep that they could post the best regular season in the league and they could do it playing their bench more than anyone else.

The Spurs got the one seed, and drew the +2.9 Dallas Mavericks. Ooof. If you were a Spurs skeptic, this was your “SPURS EXPOSED” series. The Spurs’ offense played fine. They shot +4.0% as a team, if only 38.3% from three. Ginobili averaged an 18/4/5 on +7.5% and Duncan a 17/8/1 on +6.7%. But the Mavericks’ offense proved surprisingly difficult to slow. The three hubs of their attack (Monta Ellis, Vince Carter and Dirk Nowitzki) all posted sub-10% turnover rates and DeJuan Blair, Shawn Marion and Samuel Dalembert combined to crack the Spurs’ formidable glass-protection. All told the Mavericks averaged an extra 6.3 shots a game. And they shot decently against the Spurs’ defense, combining for a -0.9% as a team. The Spurs won, but it took seven games and was only by 2 points a game. It was an inauspicious start to the 2014 playoffs for the Spurs. If they had any hope of revenging themselves against the Heat, they’d need to be better.

Against the Blazers (+4.6) they did. The Spurs’ offense was again excellent, shooting at only +1.8% as a team but posting microscopic turnover rates. Kawhi averaged a 17/8/1 on +12.3% with 2.8 steals a game. But the real dominance was on the defensive end. The Blazers were held to an anemic -4.7% shooting as a team, with LaMarcus Aldridge shooting -8.3% and Dame Lillard a -6.0%. The result was a massacre, the Spurs winning in five by 13.4 points per game. The Blazers weren’t contenders, but they were a solid team; a double-digit win against them was impressive, a good sign after the struggles against Dallas.

But in the Western Conference Finals they faced the Oklahoma City Thunder (+7.5). The Thunder had soundly beaten them in 2012. In 2013 they were incapacitated by injuries. But in 2014 they were healthy and raring to go. Fittingly, if the Spurs were to win the championship they’d need to beat the two teams they’d lost to in the prior two years. When they’d faced the Thunder in 2012 they’d been able to stop Westbrook, but not Durant. Time to find out if they could do it this time.

In Game 1 Durant scored well (28 points on +13.3%) but turned the ball over six times. And the Spurs’ offense shot lights out, notably Danny Green (16/4/1 on +60.2% with 2 steals) and Manu Ginobili (18/2/3 on +18.2%). They shot an astounding +10.5% as a team and blew the Thunder out by 17. In Game 2 they completely smothered the Thunder offense, holding Durant to a 15/5/5 on -22.8%, and Westbrook a 15/3/2 on -12.9%. The Thunder as a team shot -12.9%, a mind-blowingly low number. The Spurs shot +6.7% from the field and blew the Thunder out by 35 points. They were up by 29 points going into the fourth. Any delusion that the Thunder were on the Spurs’ level had been completely crushed. The Thunder pulled off 9 and 13 point wins at home, but when the games returned to San Antonio the Spurs won by 28 and 5 points. When the smoke cleared the Spurs had beaten a healthy Durant/Westbrook Thunder by 10.5 points a game, a butt-whipping of the highest order. Durant was held to 26/8/3 but only on +1.9%. The key was walling off the paint; Durant only got to the line 5.7 times per 36, compared with 9.3 in the regular season. When Durant couldn’t get to the rim his efficiency dropped down to normality. And, of course, the Spurs’ offense rolled right through the Thunder. After their series against the Mavericks everybody was ready to dismiss the Spurs. But after the absolute dismantling of the #2 forecast team in the league . . .

In the Finals, of course, were LeBron and the Miami Heat (+6.4). The Heat hadn’t looked as sharp in 2014 as they had the year before. They only posted a +4.2 RSRS and despite playing a very weak set of opponents in the playoffs (-0.9, +0.6, +2.9) they posted only decent margins of victory (+9.8, +5.4 and +6.5 respectively). Heat stans would have argued that the Heat were saving themselves for when their talents were needed (ignoring the fact that in 2013 the Heat had posted two wins by double digits). Either way, the oddsmakers thought this Finals would be almost dead even, with the Spurs very slight favorites. OSRS, predictably, thought that the Spurs were considerably better.

LeBron had a transcendent series . . . scoring. He averaged a 28/8/4 on +13.8%, a curiously empty stat line compared to his norm. In spite of his excellence, the Heat as a team shot only +3.0%. And the Spurs’ offense showed Miami what Heat really was. They ruthlessly exploited the Heat’s trapping scheme, bombing from three and hitting 46.6% of them. The Spurs shot at +9.4% and dominated all four factors. They won the Finals in five games, by a revolting 14 points a game. They won by so much that it almost earned them less credit. Had they prevailed over the Heat in six closely fought games their ‘greatness’ wouldn’t be in doubt. But instead they ripped through the Heat like Germany’s panzers ripped through the Polish cavalry in 1939. There is little honor in such a victory, and that kind of honor often goes hand in hand with greatness.

I’m telling you, the Spurs’ complete obliteration of the Heat may have been the most dominant Finals performance by a team *ever*.

Like the English at Agincourt, they turned what on its face was an unwinnable situation into so decisive a victory that it was unthinkable after the fact that the issue could ever have been in doubt.

12 | Spurs
11 |
10 |
9 |
8 |
7 | Clippers
6 |
5 | Thunder
4 | Heat, Warriors, Rockets, Mavericks
3 | TWolves, Suns
2 | Pacers, Blazers
1 | Wizards, Grizzlies
0 | Raptors, Nets, Hawks
-0 | Bulls
-1 | Knicks, Nuggets, Pelicans
-2 | Bobcats, Kings
-3 | Cavs
-4 | Celtics, Pistons
-5 | Magic, Lakers
-6 | Jazz
-7 |
-8 | Bucks
-9 |
-10|
-11| 76ers

The Spurs absolutely eviscerated 2014. They played the #1 and #2 teams going into the season and destroyed both by double digits. That they didn’t “look” like an all-time-great team (besides playing teams led by future hall-of-famers in their primes and smoking them like brisket) is totally irrelevant. The late 80s Pistons didn’t “look” like a dynasty, but they freaking were. And the 2014 Spurs, I say gently, were on a completely different level from those Pistons teams. They were a star-less team, driven by depth and team execution alone and they completely wrecked everybody. By a lot.

Do I think this is the 2014 Spurs should be #1? No; their regular season was only really good, and their first round against the Mavericks was underwhelming. Do I think they should be Top Ten? Not sure, but I’m comfortable with it.

But I tell you this - the 2014 Spurs were the best TEAM ever.

Think of the long dinners of the entire team bonding over wine and food for hours. Think of the entire team watching Tim Duncan take it on the chin from Pop without complaint, and realizing that they *all* had to buy in. Think of how every new addition to the team was treated as part of the family. Think of those super-cheesy HEB commercials. Think of the fact that their star player nearly jumped ship early on, except that the prospective team wouldn’t allow his family to travel with him. And that the Spurs were far more encouraging of such behavior. Think of the bond forged between these players, year after year, playoffs after playoffs, championship after championship.

Let’s look at that Crispin’s day speech again:

He which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us . . .

And [October 25th] shall never go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered -
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he never so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And gentlemen in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,
And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

For me, that speech sums up the 2014 Spurs beautifully.

I picture old Duncan, still playing smart defense, making smart passes, having an impact that transcends the box score. Of Parker upping his load in the playoffs and seeing his efficiency dip, knowing that his attacks create for his teammates, having danced this dance a dozen times before. Of Ginobili, body betrayed by his intensity, hair faded to a crown, coming off the bench to inject life into the offense one last time. Of Kawhi blossoming into a future superstar in the rich team soil enriched by a decade of team culture. Of Diaw and Green, Belinelli and Mills, of every player that every other team gave up on that the Spurs brought together into a family united by their shared commitment to giving their all. Raising that championship trophy as one.

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.

Back to the Main Thread

[KTM_2813]

I always chuckle when people try to discredit the 2014 Spurs (usually in an effort to criticize LeBron) because they were "old". Sure, they were indeed geezers, but substance is more important than style, and they were a genuinely great team that excelled in almost every area. Teams shouldn't be judged by how they look, but rather what they actually do when the smoke clears.

[Homer38]

Best team in the NBA since 2002 after the 2017 Warriors.Very underrated great team!

[70sFan]

The best writeup about the most exciting team ever! Thank you so much!

[parsnips33]

Another awesome writeup

Boy does this hype me up for the Warriors to make an old man run in a season or 2

[homecourtloss]

Your best writeup yet and that’s saying something.

[Vladimir777]

Absolute hell of a team. One of the best teams I've ever seen, maybe the BEST, since it wasn't just huge amounts of talent like the 2017 Warriors, but an actual team.

I just got off a 12-hour shift and I got another one tomorrow, so I haven't read your write-up yet, sansterre, but from people saying it's your best one ever...God, I can't even imagine, haha. i will read tomorrow.

[AdagioPace]

Reading each individual profile you did it's almost like reading their criminal records. I imagine each one of them holding a sign for the photo shooting in a police department.

They didn't even shoot so many threes compared to what we're saying currently, but, hell, find me a team with a better shot selection

the Parker-Manu-Kawhi-Diaw-Duncan in crunch time would have been interesting to see today

[Odinn21]

the Parker-Manu-Kawhi-Diaw-Duncan in crunch time would have been interesting to see today

If Pop decided to do this in 2013 NBA Finals...

[Jaivl]

Excellent writeup of the easiest Age of Empires II scenario, with Popovich in the role of TheViper

[Statlanta]

I always chuckle when people try to discredit the 2014 Spurs (usually in an effort to criticize LeBron) because they were "old". Sure, they were indeed geezers, but substance is more important than style, and they were a genuinely great team that excelled in almost every area. Teams shouldn't be judged by how they look, but rather what they actually do when the smoke clears.

Teams SHOULD be judged by how the league was at the time and by no means was it strong during 2014.

Consider the league landscape at the time.

Who was peaking in the league at that time? Not many players were at their peak during that season and today's great players were pre-prime besides LeBron and Paul. KD maybe?

The Spurs started the playoffs facing the worst Dirk core ever a team that couldn't make the playoffs last season.
After barely beating that team in 7 games the Spurs would go on to face a team of role players before the prime surrounding LaMarcus Aldridge.
By facing the Trail Blazers, the Spurs faced a team that didn't even make the playoffs last season in the 2nd round, the CONFERENCE SEMI FINALS.
The difficulty did increase in the Western Conference Finals only to have their worst matchup have a big injury in the middle of the series.

I don't think the Spurs are a top 10 team of all time considering the team's the fought, injury luck and lack of league talent during that time even with the beatdown of the Miami Heat in the Finals.

[sansterre]

I always chuckle when people try to discredit the 2014 Spurs (usually in an effort to criticize LeBron) because they were "old". Sure, they were indeed geezers, but substance is more important than style, and they were a genuinely great team that excelled in almost every area. Teams shouldn't be judged by how they look, but rather what they actually do when the smoke clears.

Teams SHOULD be judged by how the league was at the time and by no means was it strong during 2014.

Consider the league landscape at the time.

Who was peaking in the league at that time? Not many players were at their peak during that season and today's great players were pre-prime besides LeBron and Paul. KD maybe?

The Spurs started the playoffs facing the worst Dirk core ever a team that couldn't make the playoffs last season.
After barely beating that team in 7 games the Spurs would go on to face a team of role players before the prime surrounding LaMarcus Aldridge.
By facing the Trail Blazers, the Spurs faced a team that didn't even make the playoffs last season in the 2nd round, the CONFERENCE SEMI FINALS.
The difficulty did increase in the Western Conference Finals only to have their worst matchup have a big injury in the middle of the series.

I don't think the Spurs are a top 10 team of all time considering the team's the fought, injury luck and lack of league talent during that time even with the beatdown of the Miami Heat in the Finals.

Doesn't it get a little perverse though? Your argument basically sounds like the Spurs can't be *that* good because they beat everybody by too much.

1) They definitely had a weak series against the Mavs, but they're hardly the first ATG team to have a weirdly weak series.
2) Attacking them for *only* playing the Blazers in the second round (and vaporizing them) is a little weird, since the '14 Blazers are, historically, probably an above-average semi-final opponent. Or at least, no worse than average.
3) Then they played Durant and Westbrook healthy. Yeah, Ibaka went down after game 4, but the Spurs' had crushed the Thunder at home even with Ibaka. Look, they won the series by 10 points a game. Ibaka obviously wasn't worth 10 points a game. It's not like they snuck by the Thunder; they kind of blew them out.
4) Then they beat the '14 Heat by almost as much as the '18 Warriors beat the '18 Cavs, and the '14 Heat were a considerably better team.

If you're complaining about a team because they didn't play any good players, and when you get asked about it you admit that they played Durant (age 25), Westbrook (age 25) and post-2011 LeBron . . .

If this is your reasoning then the '96 Bulls don't qualify, as they didn't play *any* players as good as those three (or at least, those two, let's not think so hard about Westbrook). The '86 Celtics don't qualify. And the '71 Bucks don't qualify. In fact, you're probably looking at the '72 Lakers, the '16 Cavs and you're going to be drawing pretty thin after that. Very very few teams beat ATG-level opponents on their way to the championship.

And it seems a little skewed that you're willing to consider the Margin of Victory but only in the Spurs' worst series, and you ignore the fact that the '14 Spurs basically took a slightly worse version of the '13 Heat (the defending champion) and blew it out by double digits.

Riddle me this Batman; if the Spurs had barely gotten by the Heat in seven, with a +3.5 MoV, would you think they were a greater team, because they triumphed over challenging opposition?

If so, you're basically punishing the '14 Spurs for being way, way, way better than their year (which they were). Lots of ATG teams completely outclassed their season - there's no shame in that game.

All of this said, they may not end up as a Top 10 team in v2. Their regular season was on the low end for this level, and their quality of opposition was only decent, and not great. But given how badly they destroyed two pretty strong teams, I have no problem ranking them here for now.

If you don't think they're "Great" . . . well, that's up to you. In my experience the definition of "Greatness" is very abstract and varies from person to person. Mostly greatness seems to be about the Heroic Story you can tell about a team. And Heroic Stories usually involve a difficult fight over at least one worthy foe. Luke Skywalker didn't march into Bespin, clown Darth Vader, bust his friends out of jail and take off. His losing is what makes his eventual victory great. Well the '14 Spurs didn't struggle with anyone great. All of the tough teams in their year they destroyed. Which seems to diminish the quality of their heroic story.

The better way to think of it is that the 2013 Finals were the Spurs' Skywalker-in-Bespin moment (except it was way closer). And then the 2014 Spurs (largely the same team) got revenge. Think of the 2014 Spurs like Oceans 11. Tim Duncan is George Clooney, Tony Parker is definitely Brad Pitt . . . Hmm. But yeah. It's a rag-tag team of misfits that get revenge on a foe that looked tough right up until they got absolutely wrecked coming and going. The '14 Spurs were plenty great, even if not in the normal way.

Also, I've said in the past that my list isn't trying to rank Greatness; there's no boost to having a Willis Reed-style goosebumps moment (despite that moment being what Greatness is all about). My list is more driven by Dominance.

And the 2014 Spurs were plenty dominant.

[Outside]

One of my favorite teams. I have an affinity for teams that play unselfishly as a whole, utilizing ball and player movement to achieve relatively distributed scoring (as opposed to its polar opposite, iso-ball) combined with aggressive, cohesive defense. The 1977 Blazers are another favorite, also the SSOL Suns. It brings me joy as a fan to watch basketball played that way.

Besides their play on the court, part of what made that 2014 Spurs team so easy to root for is narrative, which you so appropriately highlighted in your post. Every team has a narrative, but after the heartbreak of 2013, this team's narrative was epic.

Great job. Thank you.

[Vladimir777]

Sansterre, I'm stunned. That was possibly the greatest message board post I've ever read, and I've read a lot in my years. I don't know how you do it. Beyond the points you make about basketball (and I'm curious how you do your research, since you find so much background information on all of these teams), your posts are just so enjoyable to read that they could be published somewhere. Now you're making me want to read the book I have in my basement about the Battle of Agincourt that I got from my grandfather's house years ago. I've always been meaning to read it. I never realized, because I never actually read the Shakespeare play, how much the Braveheart speech clearly borrows from this one. In some ways, they're almost identical. Then again, Shakespeare is the GOAT writer, without question. Don't think I didn't notice the Rocky reference, too, haha, and the comparisons between the wonderfully led organization of the Spurs and some of the baseball teams from earlier in the 20th century.

I've always had a soft spot for the Spurs, and the 2014 season was when I really started paying attention to basketball again since I was a kid. I spent many years away from the game, in which I basically only followed running and track and field, but I was a big Spurs fan by the time 2014 came around, since I loved their blue-collar appeal and team grit that you mentioned. Plus, as you said, they had Pop and Duncan. I mean, how can someone not like them? I remember them absolutely destroying the Heat that year and the great videos that went around the Internet showing their team style of play. If I had to choose a favorite franchise in league history, it's gotta be the Spurs. I would kill to go to those team dinners that you talk about. It makes me long for the days of my high school cross country team.

Honestly, I'm curious about your background. You're clearly a very smart guy, a great writer, and a very astute student of the game. I'm always wowed by the collective knowledge of RealGM, and your series is teaching me a ton about NBA history. You helped get me through my shift today as a nurse on the psych unit. We were short-staffed, so I was "sitting" for a patient, and I figured, I might as well break out Sansterre's epic post about the Spurs!

[Odinn21]

Lol, I posted this on the master thread instead of here. It was about Statlanta's and sansterre's comments.

I agree with both sides of the argument but from statistical POV, no team becomes a top 10-15 ever calibre team by beating the hardest competition.

2007 Spurs is ranked ahead of 2003 and 2005 versions simply because they had an easier route to the title.
There's a massive gap between 1989 Pistons and 1987/1988/1990 versions simply because they probably had the easiest route to the NBA title in 1989 and that did not happen in the other 3 seasons.

2014 Spurs dominated a competition that was not particularly strong. But no team can dominate a particularly strong competition by that extent. However 2014 competition is above average for this type of statistical dominance.

[Freighttrain]

Most underrated championship team ever. They still haunt me with that ball movement. Never felt so hopeless by such a beautiful play of basketball.

[trex_8063]

This may have been my favourite write-up yet (tough call between this and the one with the superhero narrative ['09 Lakers, iirc]).
(also one of the better rebuttles I've read in awhile)