A San Antonio Spurs team in transition is enduring a panicking fan base accustomed to the members of the 2014 championship team, but the summer of 2016 is mostly a period of changes that the team has seen before.
Antonio Daniels. Jaren Jackson. Will Perdue. Do those names mean anything to you? If so, you’ve been a San Antonio Spurs fan since at least the first championship.
If you don’t recognize those names, here are some that might be a little more familiar: Avery Johnson, Sean Elliott, Steve Kerr, Malik Rose, David Robinson and Tim Duncan.
At least one of those names should stand out to you, since Tim Duncan’s still holding the team together as of this writing.
Those other names? Malik Rose went on to one more championship with Timmy. David Robinson established the character of the San Antonio Spurs. Avery Johnson and Sean Elliott formed the first championship core and have their jerseys hanging in the rafters of the SBC Center. Steve Kerr’s gone on to be a formidable coach at the head of a deadly Golden State Warriors team.
What you’ll notice is that only one man, Duncan, is still standing. He was the youngest of that group, a second-year player with a chip on his shoulder but a quiet demeanor that hid his passion. He’d go on to anchor a 2003 championship team with two players by his side that all San Antonio fans still know today: Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili. The rest of the guys around him though?
David Robinson retired that year. Stephen Jackson went on to make money elsewhere and have one of the realest Twitter accounts on the planet. Speedy Claxton, who some Spurs fans were calling for as a Tony Parker replacement, isn’t even in the league anymore, though he’s taken a respectable position on the basketball staff at Hofstra University. Steve Smith and Kevin Willis are bygone names, though they’re fondly remembered by older fans of the Black and Silver.
The championship 2005 team was a little more stable for the Spurs and would mostly stick together through the 2007 title run. Old Man River, Tim Duncan, still had Parker and Ginobili by his side. Bruce Bowen made one of the two greatest defensive plays in the history of the Spurs by blocking a Chauncey Billups three that could have lost the Spurs a championship (a play tied only by a Kawhi Leonard block of Russell Westbrook en route to the 2014 championship).
Robert Horry and Brent Barry were new additions that were bombing away from three, and the post was being anchored by Nazr Mohammed and Slovanian favorite, Rasho Nesterovic.
As good as that 2005 team was, Rasho and Nazr didn’t make it back for the 2007 title. The post was being filled by guys like Jackie Butler, Francisco Elson and Fabricio Oberto. None of those guys are even in the league anymore. The forward position that Kawhi Leonard would go on to fill was being manned by an end-of-his-career Michael Finley.
The biggest disruptions occurred at the center position, and the team managed to keep most of its 2005 core together, but this would be the last time the San Antonio Spurs would see this type of championship consistency.
Why? Because the drought came. Seven long years of being out of serious title contention ran up against the Spurs as a resurgent Lakers team once again found glory and super teams like the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat brought multiple All-Stars and superstars together in the quest for a championship. Still, the Spurs somehow did it again in 2014. Look at that roster though.
Jeff Ayres. Aron Baynes. Marco Belinelli. Boris Diaw. Danny Green. Kawhi Leonard. Patrick Mills. Tiago Splitter. Horry had retired into glory, with more rings on his fingers than Michael Jordan. Brent Barry was in the broadcast booth with his brother. Guys like Beno Udrih were young enough to find spots elsewhere, but the team as a whole had changed.
The only constant was the Big Three of Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker (plus Gregg Popovich favorite Matt Bonner). The Spurs put together a championship caliber team that thrived on team ball, some outstanding individual performances from guys like Green and particularly Leonard, but nothing in the way of superstar power that Duncan commanded at the peak of his powers between 1999 and 2007.
Change is a constant — in life and the NBA. Today, Spurs fans are in a minor panic. Fan favorite Boban Marjanovic is on his way out, quirky Frenchman Boris Diaw is Utah bound, and one-year-hire David West is packing his bags for Golden State. These things happen. Science fiction fans will recognize the phrase, “All this has happened before, and all this will happen again.”
Except.
Except this time, it is just a bit different. It’s a bit different because, for 20 years, it was easy to say that as long as Tim Duncan was around, the team had a chance to win. That statement applied, to a lesser degree, to both Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. Now? Now there are no promises.
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Duncan is not guaranteed to return, and if he does, he’ll be far from his glory days. Even as recently as 2014, you could see him flashing that past brilliance, but the wheels of time are always turning and everyone slows down year by year.
What’s different about this year isn’t Pau Gasol joining the team or Boris Diaw leaving for Utah. Long time fans have seen that for years, going all the way back to that original core championship team of 1999. No, what’s different this year from every other year is that, for the first time in a long time, it won’t be a team whose foundation rests on Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker.
Even if that trio sticks around, it’s a team that’s going to find its success in NBA Defensive Player of the Year Kawhi Leonard. His breakout in 2014 was a surprise. Now? Now his success is a necessity. The culture remains pretty much the same, but the foundation for success has changed.
That’s a monumental shift, one that hasn’t happened in nearly two decades for the San Antonio Spurs. The team is going to need Leonard to rise and make All-Star teammates Gasol and Aldridge better. They’ll need him to be the creator that gives sharpshooters Green and Mills the chance to fire away from outside.
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And they’re going to have to do it without being able to fall back on Duncan, Ginobili, and Parker the way they were able to just a few years ago. That hasn’t been the case in San Antonio for almost two decades. That’s the change that’s been put off for years.
That’s what’s scary.