The San Antonio Spurs continue to find ways to win

Despite both trades and injuries forcing changes to the roster, the San Antonio Spurs still seem to always make do with what they have.

It’s a story seemingly as old as the NBA itself. For all their past greatness, the San Antonio Spurs won’t make the playoffs this season. They’re too old. They haven’t adapted to modern trends. The rest of the West is stacked with better teams.

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end, and the Spurs were looked at as no exception. They had extended their window further than most had expected thanks to the emergence of Kawhi Leonard, but after the trade that sent the Finals MVP north, the retirement of Manu Ginobili and the exit of Tony Parker, these were not the Spurs of old.

Things didn’t get better when projected starting point guard Dejounte Murray tore his ACL in early October. He was one of their best young talents and a candidate to win the Most Improved Player award. The questions kept piling up.

Can DeMar DeRozan lead this Spurs team? Who will be starting in the backcourt? How can this team win when its two best players in DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge shoot about as many mid-range jumpers as anyone in the league?

To say these questions are illegitimate would be to ignore common sense, but as the Spurs have shown the NBA world for over 20 seasons, they don’t really care about problems. They just go out and play basketball.

Following a so-so start to the season, San Antonio has rediscovered its winning ways, currently occupying the sixth spot in the Western Conference with a record of 25-18.

That backcourt you were worried about? Bryn Forbes is averaging 12.4 points per game while Derrick White has picked up his play of late, dropping 18.0 a night in the month of January.

Their analytically ludicrous offense? Yes, it creates the most shot attempts from 15-19 feet, a ranking that would make Daryl Morey light-headed, but the Spurs are the most efficient team from that distance and just so happen to lead the league in 3-point percentage as well.

DeRozan is averaging career-best marks in both rebounds and assists. Aldridge just scored a career-high 56 points in Thursday’s double-overtime victory against the Oklahoma City Thunder. This team seems to be doing just fine with what it has.

The Spurs shouldn’t be as successful as they’ve found themselves recently. Conventional wisdom suggests one should do the exact opposite of everything that’s helped them win games, and yet here they are, having gone 7-3 over their last 10 to get within a game of the third-best record in the conference.

It’s been quite the past year and a half for San Antonio, filled with more chaos than the previous 20 years combined. Those days are firmly in the rearview mirror, though, and while nobody would realistically label this team a title threat, Gregg Popovich has managed to keep this engine running smoothly, and will probably continue to do so until he retires.