Guitarsoup said:

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Hudson2508 said:

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It's a bit optimistic to think this team gets to the semis considering they might be playing GS, Houston or LeBron in the opening round. The 4 or 5 seed is the only safe spot and they will need to finish ahead of Utah, NO, Portland, OKC to avoid the 6, 7 or 8.

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We had 47 wins last year and replaced Kyle Anderson/Danny Green/ Joffery with the #5 scorer in the league, Beli, Dante Cunningham and Poeltl. I think +8 wins is probably about right. Especially if White is as good as the Spurs seem to think he is.

What significant upgrades have NOLA, Portland, and Utah made?

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Ulrich said:

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Making the playoffs is not the same as competing for titles.

Out of DeRozan, Aldridge, Gay, Beli, Mills, Murray, and Danny Green over the last five years:
Green has the highest Box Plus Minus by a comfortable margin. Aldridge is way out front on VORP; Green is comfortably second. Green's TS% (IMO a better and more favorable metric for Derozan because of the rate at which he reaches the foul line) is ahead of DeRozan and Aldridge, and all but Beli are below league average.

I'm not saying any of that because I think that Green is wildly underrated (although he is underrated by some people). Most of the players on that list can do things that Danny Green simply can not do. He's a role player and not as good as he used to be because he's been asked to step outside his role. If I had taken his best year when he was surrounded by all-star talent, all of his stats would be even farther ahead.

It does show that a guy many of you think is nothing but a locker room presence beats or even dominates these "alpha dogs" when you look a little deeper than points per game. I think a lot of you are liking the highlight reels but ignoring the difficulty of maintaining a culture of excellence.

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I agree that Green has been underrated overall. However, without Kawhi or peek Parker this team needed more play making from his position.

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West Texan said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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Hudson2508 said:

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It's a bit optimistic to think this team gets to the semis considering they might be playing GS, Houston or LeBron in the opening round. The 4 or 5 seed is the only safe spot and they will need to finish ahead of Utah, NO, Portland, OKC to avoid the 6, 7 or 8.

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We had 47 wins last year and replaced Kyle Anderson/Danny Green/ Joffery with the #5 scorer in the league, Beli, Dante Cunningham and Poeltl. I think +8 wins is probably about right. Especially if White is as good as the Spurs seem to think he is.

What significant upgrades have NOLA, Portland, and Utah made?

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They haven't. Memphis should be back in the playoff mix if they can stay healthy and Dallas could make some noise if Doncic is as good as everyone thinks he'll be, but outside of the lakers no one in the West made huge strides. I also think the lakers ceiling is #4 in the West. Lebron is good but he can't csrry that group to a top 3 seed in the West.

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West Texan said:

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LawHall88 said:

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Sucks to suck. Uncle Dennis overplayed his hand.

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Ulrich said:

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I wasn't clear enough. No one is arguing that Green is the missing piece. I'm arguing that DeRozan is also not the missing piece because he can't shoot but still does and doesn't really defend.

Four years ago if someone had showed us this roster without telling us the team, we all would have guessed it was the Knicks or Kings.

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sources saying the forward had been medically cleared to play since December.

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officials within organization had hoped Leonard would let the Spurs declare him out for the season due to his injury, according to sources with knowledge of the situation

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Ulrich said:

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So I just read a bunch of comments on PTR and they all seem to be under the impression that Murray, Walker, White, Bertans, and Poeltl are this great core of young guys and we're already set up to contend after GS comes apart. Am i crazy or does pretty much every team have a comparable group of 20-25 year olds who might have some runway for improvement left? Is there a potential star in that group?

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Pumpkinhead said:

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Read Zach Lowe's ESPN article on this earlier today. He thinks this was an okay trade short-term for the Spurs, as it will allow Pop coach his last couple of seasons without having to deal with a tanking team. He thinks the Spurs can be about a 50-win team next season. Long-term however, he felt the trade was 'meh', just delaying for a bit longer a true rebuild in San Antonio, that it was an example of maybe where a coach having influence on a decision isn't for the best long term. Though he said the Spurs could perhaps trade DeRozan later for other assets.

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Pendragon12 said:

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Pumpkinhead said:

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Read Zach Lowe's ESPN article on this earlier today. He thinks this was an okay trade short-term for the Spurs, as it will allow Pop coach his last couple of seasons without having to deal with a tanking team. He thinks the Spurs can be about a 50-win team next season. Long-term however, he felt the trade was 'meh', just delaying for a bit longer a true rebuild in San Antonio, that it was an example of maybe where a coach having influence on a decision isn't for the best long term. Though he said the Spurs could perhaps trade DeRozan later for other assets.

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I kinda get that. I'm not thrilled with combination of LA and DD. But seriously, what the heck should the Spurs have done in this situation? If they traded him, despite Pop's apparent personal relationship with Kawhi with the team USA looming as an opportunity to get Pop with Kawhi one on one, then it was likely irreparable and would probably be a net negative for the team this season. And that isn't fair for the rest of the team. Look what happened last year.

Trading Kawhi for junk Laker picks, Deng who would still be a money drag, and likely Hart...or for Rozier, Morris, and junk...or Saric as a centerpiece and the chance of a 2021 Miami pick being great..? What bothers me most on this trade is giving up Green for an uber protected pick, and only Poetl back from Toronto. But the real trade was Kawhi, who was likely going to continue being a cancer, for Demar. Which I feel more and more like a win for the Spurs in general. Eventually we'll likely tank. But I think what this trade did was not let Kawhi and his freaking group dictate if we tank or not right now.

And I know you're posting this mostly as a neutral observer. So I'm not attacking you, just to be clear.

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DSAg44 said:

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kawhi's career is over. spurs got what they could get.

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-After letting the trade digest a bit, I still don't love it but I'm starting to understand the thinking behind it.

-Firstly, sad to see Danny Green go. He goes down as one of my favorite Spurs of all-time. He came out of nowhere to give the Spurs more than a half decade worth of championship-caliber starting shooting guard play. I'm proud of the way he bounced back from laying an egg in the 2012 playoffs by putting together a couple of the greatest shooting postseason runs this league has ever seen. Along the way, he became an elite defender, a great teammate and a player who kept a positive, wins-focused attitude no matter what. Thanks, Danny. Well done, man.

-I'm not ready to take a deep dive into Kawhi Leonard's Spurs legacy. (It still hurts ) On one hand, the ride was damn fun while it lasted. On the other hand, it's difficult to forgive Nephew for how things ended. I'm sure the Spurs deserve some blame but to sabotage your trade value by demanding a trade to the archrival Los Angeles Lakers I mean, I can't imagine a more villainous ending to what appeared even a year ago to be a perfect marriage between superstar and franchise.

-Let us take a moment to realize that not everyone is built like David Robinson and Tim Duncan. Those two are true legends. It takes more than just supreme basketball talent to carry a small market team to championship-relevancy year after year. Gentlemen, Spurs fans are forever grateful.

-Considering the trash offers the Spurs were reportedly getting for Nephew, you can't be too unhappy with DeMar DeRozan. He's much better than anyone the Lakers, Clippers or 76ers were offering. He has three years left on his contract and he's due $27,739,975 per season, with the last season a player-option. While there's some risk because he could decline physically during that time (he's turning 29 next month), as it stands he should be worth that amount of money.

-Offensively, DeRozan is elite. Last season, his offensive real plus-minus was +3.42, which ranked 15th in the NBA. His ORPM has been consistently very good the last three seasons. He can create shots for himself in the halfcourt; DeRozan is very capable from all depths inside the three-point line. He has averaged more than 23 points per game for three-straight seasons. Last year, he took a big step forward playmaking-wise. He shattered his career-high by averaging 5.2 assists and was one of the top swingmen in the league in terms of assist-to-turnover ratio. And perhaps best of all, DeRozan is great at getting to the free throw line. He has averaged at least ten attempts per 100 possessions the last five seasons and knocks them down at a nearly 83% clip.

-While a top 20 player in the league on offense, DeRozan isn't as good as a 100% healthy Nephew on the offensive end. I should make that clear. But speaking of health, that brings me to another positive DeRozan brings to the table: durability. DeRozan has been extremely reliable; his only extended absence in his career was a groin injury back in 2014. He has played 675 of 722 (93.5%) possible regular season games in his career. Nephew, on the other hand, has played in 407 of 558 (72.9%).

-Where DeRozan has been a liability his entire career is on the defensive end. He's been really bad on that end and that's probably putting it kindly. DeRozan's defensive real plus-minus was a ghastly -1.76 and that was actually an improvement over his previous campaigns. He has athleticism and length but he's never been able to be even an adequate defender.

-Fit-wise, I'm less than enthralled. For all of DeRozan's talents on offense, he's a poor three-point shooter (28.9% for his career). That's a rather huge flaw considering he'll be playing next to the longball-limited Dejounte Murray while occupying the same space LaMarcus Aldridge likes to operate in. Spacing is going to be an issue. A big issue.

(-Speaking of spacing, it now makes a whole lot of sense why the Spurs went with Davis Bertans over Kyle Anderson. The signing of Marco Belinelli also now makes more sense. As constructed, this team needs every perimeter player outside of Murray and DeRozan to be able to shoot if they have any hope of having decent spacing.)

-Pop has his work cut out for him when it comes to making DeRozan decent on D. If Pop can hide him (Murray should help in this matter) and cajole (gently, I'm sure) more effort from him on that end, it's theoretically possible for DeRozan to become someone who doesn't kill the Spurs on defense. I wouldn't bet on it due to DeRozan's long history of being a sieve, but maybe it could happen.

-In a DeRozan trade, I wanted OG Anunoby to be included. If not OG, then I wanted Pascal Siakam. If not Siakam, I wanted an unprotected first round pick. That said, Jakob Poeltl is a solid young center. Though he was somewhat lost in the Raptors impressive bigman depth, Poeltl is someone you can easily imagine sticking around the Spurs for the next decade.

-Poeltl, a 7-foot-1 center from Austria, has two main strengths: offensive rebounding and shotblocking. He's top ten in the league in both categories on a per possession basis. Those two numbers alone make him a very interesting prospect. The 22-year-old, even though he's 250 pounds, is also mobile enough to survive today's perimeter-oriented NBA. He's not David Robinson reborn but he can move his feet decently enough. I've also been impressed with his basketball IQ in the times I've watched him play.

-On the other hand, Poeltl is a shockingly poor defensive rebounder, especially for someone his size. To put it in perspective, his defensive rebounding percentage last season was worse than Gasol, King Joffrey, Murray, Gay, Nephew, Anderson, Aldridge and even Derrick White. How can someone so big and so good on the offensive glass be so pitiful when it comes to rebounding on the defensive end of the court?

-Perhaps even more damning for Poeltl in Pop's eyes is the fact that he led the league in fouls per minute last season. Pop loathes fouls, even by active bigmen (See: Mahinmi, Ian). Poeltl fouls more than anyone else. That is going to be a rough fit unless the Austrian really improves on that end. Poeltl, even though he can be a sneaky-good passer at times, also turns it over quite a bit for someone who had limited touches with the Raptors. That, too, won't sit well with Pop.

-Since Poeltl doesn't have an outside shot, I can't imagine him starting alongside Murray, DeRozan and Aldridge. That would be a spacing nightmare. But coming off the bench, he could be really useful from Day 1. At 22, he has upside and projects to one day be a possible starter. I wouldn't be too surprised if he's starting in three years and giving the Spurs 12 points, ten rebounds and two blocks per game. All in all, Poeltl was definitely a positive asset to get in the Nephew trade.

-I'm hoping even more now for Manu Ginobili to return because Poeltl could be his best pick-and-roll partner since Tiago Splitter was traded. A big guy who sets solid screens and rolls hard will be good for Ginobili as he quarterbacks the bench. And, probably more importantly, Poeltl's fit on the second unit would be seamless with Ginobili spoon-feeding him. Without Ginobili, he could get lost in the shuffle.

-What will the starting lineup be? I think with the addition of Poeltl, Pau Gasol has to be the starting center, right? That would open up a spot in the rotation for Poeltl and it would help try to mask DeRozan's defensive weakness. If Pop starts someone like Bertans at power forward and slides Aldridge to center, while that could help offensively spacing-wise, that starting lineup would be really bad defensively especially since it looks like Mills, Gay or Belinelli would have to round out the starting five.

-The best fit to me as it stands would be to start Murray, DeRozan, Belinelli, Aldridge and Gasol. That's the best hope for adequate defense and adequate spacing. (Belinelli gets the nod over Gay due to the desperate need for three-point shooting in that lineup and the nod over Mills due to size.) A bench of Mills, Ginobili, Gay, Bertans and Poeltl actually could be pretty strong, honestly.

-I was really hoping for a better haul in the Nephew trade. I can't try to pretend I'm thrilled with what the Spurs ended up getting. (No OG? No Pascal? Only one highly protected first round pick? Man, that's tough to swallow.) That said, following the trade, I think the Spurs can win 50-plus games. Are they championship contenders? I'd say it's fair to call them a dark horse that needs something totally unforeseen (like Murray blossoming into an All-Star in 2019) if they are to reenter that conversation.

-Again, thanks to Danny Green. Poeltl should be a solid piece for a long time. DeRozan will be a breath of fresh air. He's a good guy by all accounts. In fact, you can make the case he's been the most loyal and team-first star in the league over the last half decade. No star player has ever shown Toronto any type of loyalty in their history as a franchise. DeRozan never wavered, never looked for greener and less-taxed pastures, and never tried to threaten his way back to Los Angeles. Basketball is again the focus and the playoffs should once again be attainable. I'm not upset about that.

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