San Antonio Spurs: 2018-19 NBA season preview
By Luke Swiatek
Storyline 3: Will Pop go small?
Historically, Popovich has liked to play two bigs together. He has played some small ball as the league has evolved — including playing Rudy Gay at the 4 for 84 percent of his minutes last year –but he still prefers to at least start games with two bigs.
With the construction of the roster, that’ll be even more difficult this year. The San Antonio Spurs only have three decent bigs on the roster (Aldridge, Gasol, Poeltl), but they have six or seven good guards.
The wing rotation is even worse; beyond Gay and maybe Davis Bertans, guys like Dante Cunningham and Quincy Pondexter aren’t particularly inspiring. Let’s hope there aren’t any injuries.
Pau Gasol is 38 years old now, and last season his minutes per game (23.5) was a career low. That trend is likely to continue.
He was and is an important player for the San Antonio Spurs, but playing a rickety old big like him more than 20 minutes in today’s pace-and-space NBA is just not feasible.
What Pop probably should do is slide everyone down a position. Start Gay and Aldridge together in the frontcourt, and leave room at the 3 for DeRozan and/or Belinelli to get most of their minutes. This helps the backcourt issue as well as providing more spacing and talent.
Gasol and Poeltl could play a combined 40 minutes as the backcourt of the bench unit, as Gasol’s shooting and Poeltl’s athleticism and defense should complement each other nicely.
However, Pop could keep doing what he’s been doing, and starting Gasol but rotating him out quickly. It’s hard to find as many minutes for Poeltl in that scenario though, because he and Aldridge aren’t the cleanest fit on paper.
Maybe Pop will lean completely in the big direction and starting Poeltl over Gasol and keep all the center minutes between the two.
No matter what he chooses, Pop’ll face the same issue: the more he plays two bigs together, the more out of place his wings become. Excluding Pondexter, the wings all project to be better as 4s than 3s in today’s NBA.
Playing them at the 3 should reduce their effectiveness and only just make the San Antonio Spurs slower and less athletic than they already are.
If Pop says that playing big in a small league is the best plan, then he’s probably earned the benefit of the doubt. Still, let’s hope he embraces the trend and goes small.