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Media Day - 09/26/2014
Start of Camp - 09/27/2014
Open Scrimmage - 10/01/2014
First Pre-Season Game - 10/08/2014
Regular Season Start / Ring Day - 10/28/2014


Pre-Season Schedule:
10/08 - @ Berlin (Berlin, Germany)
10/11 - @ Fenerbahce Ulker (Istanbul, Turkey)
10/16 - @ Phoenix Suns
10/18 - vs Miami Heat
10/20 - vs Sacramento Kings
10/22 - vs Atlanta Hawks
10/24 - @ Houston Rockets

ROSTER: (15 guaranteed contracts)
G- Tony Parker
G- Patty Mills
G - Cory Joseph
G - Manu Ginobili
G - Danny Green
G - Marco Belinelli
G/F - Kawhi Leonard
F - Austin Daye
F - Kyle Anderson
F/C - Boris Diaw
F/C - Tim Duncan
F/C - Jeff Ayres
F/C - Matt Bonner
C - Tiago Splitter
C - Aron Baynes

New additions: Kyle Anderson
Departures: None

Fighting for Roster Spot:
G - Bryce Cotton (Providence)
G - John Holland (Boston)
F/C - JaMychal Green (Alabama)
F/C - Josh Davis (San Diego State)

COACHING STAFF:
HEAD COACH - Gregg Popovich (College - Air Force Academy)
ASSISTANT - Jim Boylen (College - Maine)
ASSISTANT - Ime Udoka (College - Portland State)
ASSISTANT - Ettore Messina (Europe)
ASSISTANT - Chip Engelland (College - Duke)
ASSISTANT - Chad Forcier (College - Seattle Pacific)
ASSISTANT - Becky Hammon (College - Colorado State)
ATHLETIC TRAINER - Will Sevening (College - Wisconsin-LaCrosse)

SCHEDULE
SPURS WORLD TROPHY TOUR

http://friendlybounce.com/2014/09/25/can-now-buy-punisher-comic-featuring-tim-duncan/

Link to buy the comic.

Best of luck to you guys this year. Hopefully we get a Rockets/Spurs playoff series this year in the playoffs. At least some entertaining regular season games would be fine too.

Checking in for the title defense.

In

It's happening this year.

Go Spurs Go.

Another great nba finals mix:

Really looking forward to the open scrimmage this year. Pumped to see Kyle Anderson get some court time.

I still think we missed an opportunity this offseason to really distance ourselves by getting either a stretch four (like McBob) or Gaso, but it wasn't due to lack of effort. Both those players made poor decisions.

Still, you can't be anything but excited that the Spurs are bringing back everyone from one of the most dominant teams the NBA has ever seen. Plus none of the contenders got all that much better.

I am really curious to see if the chemistry is as good to start the year as it was at the end. I imagine they might be a little stagnant in the 2nd unit until Mills gets back.

Homecourt ended up being pretty huge for the Spurs last year, so I expect Pop will value that a tad more than he has in years past. I think the Spurs are poised to have a pretty impressive regular season and I bet they come out of the gate hot.

Pop and the Spurs will most likely play it safe for most of the first half of the season. Boris is not even being told to report to camp. He is staying in Europe until the Spurs go overseas to play and then he will meet up with the team. Shows you how "hard" Pop is going to be running his guys during camp which is not hard at all. Pop will be on them but I expect a lot of resting and a lot of spread out minutes to start the season. For any other team this would result in a slow start but with the Spurs system they will still most likely pile up a bunch of wins while implementing this strategy.

Kawhi sitting out this summer was huge and he will be key for the Spurs the first half of the year since he is the young buck. I don't expect many minutes out of the guys who played this summer at all.

I never get tired of watching that clip of Pop counting to 5 on the river barge. Hopefully he'll be counting to seis come June!

This is the team than can finally get that elusive back-to-back title. We are in a great position to repeat.

I will say this - nobody in the East can handle whoever comes out of the West. Not the Cavs, not the Bulls, nobody.

I'm calling a Spurs vs. Thunder WCF, once again.

Hopefully Kawhi will get to carry the team a little early in the year to stretch his wings on offense, then coast mid-year when everyone else rounds into form, then re-enter beast mode in the playoffs. It would be nice if he could have an injury free year, too.

Danny Green will be wearing #14 this year. That will be a little tough to get used to.

Will repeat. Love that Pop gif.

Tiago is already hurt.

Great start.

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Hopefully Kawhi will get to carry the team a little early in the year to stretch his wings on offense, then coast mid-year when everyone else rounds into form, then re-enter beast mode in the playoffs. It would be nice if he could have an injury free year, too.

Danny Green will be wearing #14 this year. That will be a little tough to get used to.

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Why? I wish he'd stick with #4.

Iirc Gary Neal was 14 when Danny came in so he went with 4. When Neal left he put in a request for a number change and that takes 2 years if you stay with the same team.

The story I found, although I can't find a source:

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Last week, the Spurs announced Green would be changing his number this season from 4 to 14. Green shed a little background on why number 14 is so significant to him.

"It was my original number growing up in high school and college," said Green. "Even before I got here, it's something that kind of represents my town too. I just wanted to go back to my original number."

Asked exactly how it represents his town of North Babylon, New York, Green explained: "It's a number that in town growing up a lot of kid, they gave it to the captain and leader. A head football coach, his brother had passed away, and it was his number, so everybody grew up with that. So if anybody makes it out of my town which is not many (they) wear the number, to kind of represent my town."

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Championship DVD is up on YouTube

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It's happening this year.

Go Spurs Go.

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There's a first time for everything, I suppose.

Lakers going to step up and attempt to be relevant this year?

^^ Who cares? ^^

I certainly don't. Thought I'd take a shot at his team after he took a shot at ours.

Anyone planning to go to the open scrimmage tonight?

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I certainly don't. Thought I'd take a shot at his team after he took a shot at ours.

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Fair enough.

I expect the Lakers to suck for the next few years. Hopefully Kobe is healthy enough that the games are at least worth watching. I don't see any quick fixes though, and even if there were LA no longer has the basketball minds to pull it off.

It's clear at this point that San Antoinio was the best francise of this era. Still, I don't think I would trade. I'll take the higher highs over the consistency--although a repeat this year might change my mind

The scrimmage was a great time. The first deck/bowl was pretty much full. Everyone was having a blast. Great event.

After Pop addressed the crowd with some great words he sat behind the benches and let the assistants coach. Udoka and Boylen acted as head coaches it seemed. Becky Hammon was leading huddles, drawing up plays.

No Tiago and Patty due to injury. No Boris as he is in Europe eating croissants.

I was surprised to see the big 3 play as much as they did. Manu played alot and went pretty hard. That was encouraging to see, as I had no idea the status of his leg injury. Danny is an incredible shooter. He was nailing 3s from all over the court. It's pretty amazing how easy he makes the high difficulty 3s look. Bonner played alot and was pretty aggressive. It was fun to watch him play like that.

The biggest stand out to me was Kawhi. Wow. He looked better than Finals Kawhi honestly. His shot looked so smooth. Perfect rotation. Didn't hit the rim on his first 5 or so attempts. Nailing 3s. Midrange jumpers. Post moves. Some new things with Kawhi: he brought the ball up the court a few times and we ran a few isos for him. His confidence was sky high. Getting big boards and multiple steals. He is a monster. You probably shouldn't take a whole lot away from a scrimmage but it's pretty hard to deny his talent.

As for the younger, new guys... Kyle Anderson didn't stand out much. He did post up Marco a few times with success. Austin Daye didn't do himself any favors last night. He spent alot of time complaining to refs, committing bad fouls, hanging his head. He isn't afraid to shoot though. So I guess that's good? Bryce Cotton is damned athletic. He threw down a nasty dunk in warm ups and connected on a really sweet alley oop from Cory during the 2nd half. He was the smallest dude out there but he doesn't play like it. I like him. JaMychal Green ran the court really well and played above the rim a ton. He looked pretty good. Didn't see much from John Holland or Josh Davis.

Can't wait for the season to start. Hard to believe we are just a couple weeks away.

Go Spurs.

The Daye experiment should have ended this offseason, IMO. Ditto with Ayres, except that I think they have to pay him either way. Would like to see a spot opened up for Cotton or JGreen.

Not an Ayres fan at all but he did some nice things last night in the scrimmage fwiw. Players tend to get better their second year as we all know so I definitely think he will be better than last year. Still an extremely low ceiling though.

As for Daye, he's cheap, knows the system and can shoot and pass the ball. Doesn't necessarily surprise me that they hadn't given up yet. If one of the other guys impresses, notably Brice Cotton than Daye will be the guy to go though. I don't think his spot is safe.

Parker, Green and Leonard look ready for the season to start today. I think Tony will have a similar season to his 2012 campaign. He's poised for a big year after an injury filled season last year.

and Kawhi = Beastmode.

Great reports! I am still slightly bummed we missed out on McBob or Gasol, but it was their poor decisions and so there was nothing the Spurs could have done. I do worry about our bigs though, if someone goes down we have a big drop there.

Leonard is going to have a monster year.

The native languages on our team are English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

Ettore Messina can converse with everyone on the team in their native languages. Plus he and Pop both speak Russian, so if they want to talk without the team overhearing they can.

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The native languages on our team are English, Spanish, French, and Italian.

Ettore Messina can converse with everyone on the team in their native languages. Plus he and Pop both speak Russian, so if they want to talk without the team overhearing they can.

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Haha, that is incredibly awesome!

In.