NBA evolution

[Barolt]

San Antonio hasn't ran the same system though. The ran an inside out team around Duncan and the Admiral, ranking 24th in 3pt attempt rate.

Four years later, they won the title as a 3pt shooting team, ranking 7th in 3pt attempts around Ginobili, Kerr, Stephen Jackson, Steve Smith and Bruce Bowen with Duncan in the middle.

Then two years later they won the title on a lower 3pt rate again, but a dominant defense(1st in the league in DRtg).

Then two years after that they were back up to 6th in the league in 3pt rate.

And two years ago they won the title as a top ten pace team, after winning all their other titles as a bottom ten pace team.

Now this year they're playing slow with a dominant defense again.

San Antonio doesn't have 'one system', they have the right system for their personnel. Every time.

[octothorp]

Popovich and Buford have been running largely the same system and vision for a decade or more, and I don't think you can argue (as the author of the S.I. piece does) that only now, other teams are trying to replicate this. San Antonio executives and assistant coaches have to be the most sought-after in the league, not simply because they're great individual basketball minds, but because teams have been trying for years to 'crack' the code of how to be like San Antonio.

Bad teams get high draft picks. They draft potential superstars. And then almost immediately, the 'this team is going to be in the finals in a few years' rhetoric starts. But all that's happened is that they're now a bad team with a superstar. The reality is that building a playoff team (let alone a championship-contending team) is damn hard, and some great basketball minds fail at it. There is nobody in the league who's just now thinking, 'hmmm, maybe we should be more like San Antonio or Golden State.'

I guess I'm kinda baffled by what this writer is trying to say. I don't really believe there's any sort of sea-change going on in the league. There will always be bad teams with superstars, and good teams with superstars, and bad teams without superstars, and great team without superstars.

[Cross]

is he getting stars to follow the trend? No
is he creating stars to make jersey sales? No
is he creating stars to win championship? No

is he building a TEAM to win championship? Hell, yes

Pop has a TEAM vision, he gets proper character guy he believes can buy into it. Next he puts the guy in position to succeed. Trusts him. PLAYS him.

becoming a star in such system is by-product of coach's approach to the game, it's not initial goal. The fact, that almost every player under such approach gets labeled "star", speaks highly about productivity of the system.

[slaw]

Yep, you need coaches who maximize the talent, GM's to get the talent, and players to buy into it all.

But that would have been a much shorter article.

And, at the top, you need an ownership group that believes in management's plans and vision and provides them with the resources to make it happen.

A better, more progressive coach, would find ways to get more out of this roster as a whole.

Maybe. That's what Memphis and Chicago and OKC all thought when they hired progressive new coaches, too.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

Only LA came to SAS as a star. And only Duncan was drafted as a star to be.

and i firmly believe Pop was the main reason the rest of the list have label "star" attached.

But you were using Pop's not caring about superstars or trends as a reason why other coaches shouldn't, but they don't have the luxury of trotting out multiple superstars, stars and veteran-former-stars that he does. It's like saying that because some billionaire says that you don't need to worry about money, everybody else should stop worrying about money; easy for the billionaire to say, not so much for everybody else who's just struggling to get by.

[Cross]

I don't disagree with you, but using San Antonio to support your argument is a slippery slope.

It's really easy for Pop to not care about superstars or trends, when his team is built on superstars and dominant wing play.

Superstars (or even just stars, at this point in their careers): Duncan, Parker, Ginobli, Aldridge, Leonard

Wings: Leonard, Ginobli, Green

Only LA came to SAS as a star. And only Duncan was drafted as a star to be.

and i firmly believe Pop was the main reason the rest of the list have label "star" attached.

[Cross]

absolutely

[Mess]

Trend is nothing. empty words. marketing.

Talent still wins regular season. and will forever.

The team, that maximizes the output of the roster (WHOLE) not the output of the stars wins titles.
that's the reason why Pop is so great - he doesn't care about "trends". He doesn't care about small ball, he doesn't care about stars and superstars. What he cares about - every player on the team must be a threat on offense and not liability on defence. No players you can cheat on and no players that cheat on the team.

Yep, you need coaches who maximize the talent, GM's to get the talent, and players to buy into it all.

But that would have been a much shorter article.

[Mess]

A lot of his points don't really make much sense but he just moves on to the next one so you don't think about them too much. Interesting I guess.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

Trend is nothing. empty words. marketing.

Talent still wins regular season. and will forever.

The team, that maximizes the output of the roster (WHOLE) not the output of the stars wins titles.
that's the reason why Pop is so great - he doesn't care about "trends". He doesn't care about small ball, he doesn't care about stars and superstars. What he cares about - every player on the team must be a threat on offense and not liability on defence. No players you can cheat on and no players that cheat on the team.

I don't disagree with you, but using San Antonio to support your argument is a slippery slope.

It's really easy for Pop to not care about superstars or trends, when his team is built on superstars and dominant wing play.

Superstars (or even just stars, at this point in their careers): Duncan, Parker, Ginobli, Aldridge, Leonard

Wings: Leonard, Ginobli, Green

[Cross]

This whole GSW pace and space trend is getting overblown, imho, in the same way Jordan's impact reverberated through the league for a decade. Kobe, Vince, T-Mac, AI - everyone was trying to be the next Jordan, and it took several years for the NBA to realize no one would be the next Jordan and they should probably move on from trying to build teams around "next Jordan" players.

Many of the contributions analytics have made will affect the game permanently, but the pendulum's swinging too far right now, at least in narratives like this that are trying to make sense of the whole thing. Talent still wins championships and teams that maximize their talent most successfully are the most successful teams.

Trend is nothing. empty words. marketing.

Talent still wins regular season. and will forever.

The team, that maximizes the output of the roster (WHOLE) not the output of the stars wins titles.
that's the reason why Pop is so great - he doesn't care about "trends". He doesn't care about small ball, he doesn't care about stars and superstars. What he cares about - every player on the team must be a threat on offense and not liability on defence. No players you can cheat on and no players that cheat on the team.

[Axel]

Boston has a lot of right pieces, probably more above average NBA players than any team outside of the Spurs. All Boston lacks is the superstar.

I don't know about that, they lack a lot of shooting and have some serious overlap issues with their back court and bigs. I very much doubt that the players they have really fit the vision of the system.

[Bendit]

The article is fine with a few quibbles...like by what measure did some of the names listed make the "superstar" list. eg, Wall & Carmelo to name a couple.

Re the Raptors specifically...is the revelation that certain teams mentioned alongwith the Raptors ever projected themselves seriously to be in the running for the brass ring? That would be a fallacious supposition. The Raptors are still an unfinished build. I dont believe Masai or Casey ever projected anything (for the time being) other than to develop a consistent hardplaying identity and work towards a championship. Some teams with similar standards are just more ahead than others.

And then there is "luck". The Spurs are still dining out on the Duncan selection and GSW were blessed with Kahn of the Wolves picking Rubio & Flynn (both PGs) allowing Curry available. The Raptors keep losing fucking coin flips to climb a spot and allow a Ben Uzoh to put a notch in his belt in the last meaningless game of the season. Such events also count towards the ascendancy of a franchise. Hinkie as well may have a few words on this category

[3inthekeon]

But the Celtics, for example, don't have the right pieces and yet are making things work. So the GM hasn't yet brought the right pieces in and despite that, the coach and system have produced.

Boston has a lot of right pieces, probably more above average NBA players than any team outside of the Spurs. All Boston lacks is the superstar.

[CalgaryRapsFan]

You know, Casey is really countercultural this way with his systems, isn't he? Just look at this article - the Raptors aren't winning the title because they're a superstar-less team, like the Celtics and Hawks. But the Celtics and Hawks are having success with no superstar because their coaches are geniuses and they're playing this evolved style of basketball? So why did the Raptors grab 56 wins and the 2nd seed? They also have no superstar. But Casey's not one of the evolved genius coaches because the Raptors play slow, don't move the ball, and feature a 7 foot post-up centre as one of their key pieces of the future. Doesn't fit the narrative, does it? Is having just as much success as some of the superstar-less new wave teams, isn't it? Would be a finals contender with the exact same roster, system, and coach if you just added a Durant, LBJ, or Paul George, wouldn't it?

I actually think the Raptors do fit the narrative, but on a lower tier than the true contenders.

They have 2 second-tier stars in Lowry and DeRozan, who get the team wins during the regular season, so the Raptors maintain their status quo (similar to OKC and Cleveland, just with lesser stars).

I don't believe that Casey maximizes the talent on the roster, for the fact that he doesn't fix what isn't broken (in the regular season, at least). He has a dominant young big man that could be developed to counter the small-ball approach, yet he gets criminally underutilized. He has several good shooters, who happen to excel on the defensive end as well (ie: Carroll, Ross, Patterson, Powell), yet they're spare parts who play 4th/5th fiddle to the Kobe-era style of play that DeRozan/Lowry employ.

A better, more progressive coach, would find ways to get more out of this roster as a whole. Doing so may not even result in more wins in the short-term, but I believe it would eventually make them more of a threat as a title contender, while allowing them to bring in players who fit the "Raptors system/culture". A pass-happy, inside-out game with a dominant two-way C (Valanciunas), 3 interchangeable 2-way 3&D 'wings' (Carroll, Ross, Powell, Patterson), along with a star PG (Lowry), could prove to be lethal (as more/better players are brought in to fit the system, via draft, trades and free agency). It's about developing both the system/culture and the individual players playing in the system.

Lowry showed in game #2 that he has a smart BB IQ; his shot wasn't dropping, yet he was incredibly effective in a variety of other ways, to help the team win. DeRozan is the player that seems to stick out as being stuck in the Kobe-era past and, as a focal point of the team/franchise, he is essentially preventing the team from discovering a new, progressive, and unique (and potentially better) identity for the Raptors.