San Antonio Spurs second year small forward Kyle Anderson, after spending last season yo-yo-ing from the bench to the NBA Development League, is seeing regular, albeit limited minutes so far this season.
The label “tweener” has traditionally been a negative one, a positional no man’s land often seen from a defensive perspective as vulnerable. “In-betweeners” were too slow to guard small forwards and too small to guard power forwards.
In recent years, however, positional boundaries have become blurred, with “tweener” going from insult to asset, as value was found in their versatility. Suddenly, with offensive glasses on, these guys were too big to be guarded by small forwards and too fast to be guarded by power forwards.
The rise of the tweener has coincided with the value placed on shooting at all positions, on the ability to stretch the floor and create space, which has further devalued the traditional skillset of power forwards. The advantage shooting creates now outweighs the disadvantage in size.
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Furthermore, on the defensive end, the ability to switch in an increasingly pick-and-roll dominated league is easier for smaller but faster players than bigger and slower ones.
Kyle Anderson is an odd animal though, an unconventional tweener testing its limits. Anderson is small and slow. Although tall at 6’9”, and long with a 7’3″ wingspan, he has a slight frame ill-suited to battling bigs on the block.
The size isn’t the oddity though, it’s his sloth like speed. Known as “Slow Mo,” Anderson is slower than a lot of centers, let alone forwards. This is a defensive problem, with his weaknesses posing the curious question: how slow is too slow in today’s helter skelter NBA?
Head coach Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs are betting on Anderson for a number of reasons. Firstly, there are defensive improvements that can be made outside of athleticism. Individually, his shortcomings can be mitigated by clever footwork and proper positioning.
Spurs teammate Boris Diaw is an example of an athletically challenged but solid defender. He can also leverage his length, giving players a cushion in isolation plays to protect his slow first step, but always having a hand up to challenge a shot. Stephen Curry is an example of a much improved defensive player who makes a point of defending with his hands up and out to make himself as big as possible.
In terms of team defense, success is rooted in understanding your scheme, and consistently making the effort to execute it; there is no reason Anderson can’t at least be an average team defender.
Secondly, defensive limitations are less of a worry for the Spurs, whose brilliance on that side of the ball can erase any cracks Anderson creates. San Antonio is a defensive juggernaut this season, leading the league in defensive efficiency while allowing a measly 92.8 points per 100 possessions.
The Spurs combine elite rim protection from Tim Duncan, who is third in the league in opponent field goal percentage allowed at 42.2 percent, with elite perimeter defense, spearheaded by the indomitable reigning Defensive Player of the Year, Kawhi Leonard.
Thirdly, and most importantly, the Spurs are willing to concede Anderson’s weaknesses, considering how much they value his strengths, passing and basketball intelligence. The Spurs offense, more than most, can utilize the basketball IQ and vision that Anderson has in abundance.
Predicated on player movement and ball movement, San Antonio’s system is a distributor’s dream. A symphonic flux that similarly natural playmakers and fellow Spurs, Manu Ginobili and Boris Diaw, thrive in. The latter is the perfect example of a not especially athletic, but super smart, super skilled, pass first forward who has flourished in the Spurs ecosystem.
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The ideal scenario for Pop would likely be to develop Anderson to gradually fill Diaw’s role as the Frenchman ages and plays out his contract through 2017-18, which happens to be the last year of Anderson’s rookie deal. A natural passing of the torch.
Already a solid shooter, if Anderson can even slightly mimic Kawhi Leonard’s fairy-tale rise to three-point prominence, he will be an extremely valuable commodity as a running mate for the new cornerstones of the roster, Kawhi and LaMarcus Aldridge. He’d perfectly complement the duo, who for all their offensive talents, are not natural distributors. There’s no reason to doubt the league renowned Spurs Player Development Staff can’t turn Anderson into a three-point threat.
Anderson’s development, although characteristically slow paced, has been steady this year, helped in part by limited but crucially regular minutes. Slow Mo is averaging a modest 11 minutes per contest, exactly the same as last season, but has played in all 22 contests this campaign, as opposed to 33 all of last season.
There will be opportunities for more minutes sprinkled throughout the season, as a result of Popovich’s habit of resting his aging stars against lesser opponents, such as Monday’s matchup against the lowly Philadelphia 76ers (1-19).
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Anderson played a season high 31 minutes in the teams’ first matchup of the season on Nov. 14, putting up a nice line with 10 points, seven rebounds, three assists, three steals and one block. “Slow and steady,” is Anderson’s on-court — as well as developmental — modus operandi.