After four years of uncertainty, Spurs find breath of fresh air

A clean slate and a clearer sense of direction allows San Antonio to finally put a wrap on the fallout from the Kawhi Leonard trade

The Spurs’ recovery process following the Kawhi Leonard trade has been a rough one from a roster-building perspective, but years later it looks like they’ve got a chance to put a bow on all of it and start anew. (Getty images)

During the summer of 2017, the San Antonio Spurs never envisioned the reality in which they’ve been living over the last four years. At the time they were armed with a roster they believed could compete for a title, and their group felt confident they were just a Kawhi Leonard ankle injury away from realizing that potential in the Western Conference Finals against Golden State’s then-superteam of flamethrowers. But the opportunity never came, and instead that series played out as a microcosmic glimpse of a future for which they were not prepared.

We don’t need to revisit everything that happened between the Spurs and Leonard, as the sands of time coupled with Spurs fans’ personal brands of sports therapy have allowed much of the grass to grow back where there used to be scorched earth. But until this summer, the tangible remnants of that fallout remained.

In 2017, San Antonio had no reason to consider anything other than a “win now and keep winning” approach. The team was committed to LaMarcus Aldridge and Leonard as the focal points, a bolstered group of seasoned and effective role players to support them, and a youthful injection of backcourt life to help preserve the aged legs of Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker. There was a very clear blueprint, but one that was absolutely dependent on that tiny factor of Kawhi remaining a Spur for years to come.

But here we are. Leonard recently signed his second contract since leaving San Antonio, Aldridge has retired due to concerns about his heart health (something that had been an ongoing issue during segments of his career), Parker and Ginobili each have giant jerseys hanging in the AT&T Center rafters, and the last man standing from the 2014 championship team, Patty Mills, has moved on to Brooklyn.

The process has begun anew in San Antonio with Gregg Popovich still at the helm, but it’s impossible to acknowledge the now without addressing a four-year stretch many fans and critics alike view as something of a black hole.

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NBA purgatory, they call it — that no man’s land of basketball comprised of teams stuck in a state of limbo. They’re nowhere near good enough to contend for a title, nor are they bad enough to find much hope that the fluttering cloud of lottery-machine ping-pong balls will reveal the easiest path back to relevancy atop the NBA Draft. It is a dangerous space in which to grow roots amid the everchanging basketball landscape.

For all intents and purposes, San Antonio entered this undesirable territory the second Leonard was dealt to Toronto; the timing of it, Leonard’s contract status, and the team’s determination to the bitter end to try and salvage its relationship with the virtually uncommunicative (outwardly, at least) superstar left them with very few hands to play. Bad teams with draft picks and prospects were rightfully apprehensive about forking anything over for what was widely felt to be a one-year rental of Kawhi (which it was), and contending teams that were interested knew the Spurs had their backs against the wall from a leverage perspective, so they weren’t going to send the farm their way either.

While we’ll never know the details of every offer sent to and from San Antonio, the outcome of the deal that brought DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a first-round pick (that would later become Keldon Johnson) indicated the Spurs wanted to do what they could to remain competitive with the roster they had already built. But make no mistake, there were no delusions of grandeur in the front office. They knew there were going to have to catch some major breaks and stumble in to some great opportunities along the way if they wanted to stay in contention. Obviously, those things never came, and fans in San Antonio became restless.

The conversation starter isn’t necessarily the trade itself, though that, too, will bring about detractors. No, the most audible gripe among Spurs fans was based around the perception the team was unwilling to move veteran contracts in exchange for prospects and picks, which they believe delayed the inevitable rebuild and cost San Antonio a couple of valuable developmental years for the young guys. In a vacuum, it’s a legitimate frustration.

More often than not, the quickest route back to relevance for small-market teams is carved through the terrain at the top end of the draft, so consistently inhabiting the land of playoff-bubble teams can make for a very slow and sometimes fruitless process if picks don’t exceed expectations. But the NBA doesn’t exist in a vacuum, and restarting the team-building process is rarely as simple as starting a fire sale in the middle of your roster.

For some teams, the decision to hit the reset button can be much easier to digest if they have the types of assets in place that would yield a major return in a transaction. In recent years, the likes of James Harden, Russell Westbrook, Paul George and Chris Paul (to name a few) have been dealt in exchange for draft picks galore, but these are all players teams viewed at the time of the trades as top-tier additions, both in the present and for the future. As good as they are and were, DeRozan and Aldridge never held that kind of value, and those were the best pieces the Spurs could offer as the centerpiece of any deal.

It’s also important to remember that up to the point of the Leonard trade, San Antonio had been regularly positioned in the back third of the NBA Draft. While the team has been solid in selecting starting-caliber players over the last five years, none of them necessarily move the trade-market needle as individuals at this point of their careers. The Spurs’ lacked the combination of upper-echelon talent, high-ceiling prospects and/or coveted draft picks typically needed to be first in line for the major trade hauls. It was simply not an easy position, and just another element of the fallout resulting from the Spurs-Raptors deal. That entire situation not only affected San Antonio’s immediate future, but its long-term outlook as well.

So the balancing act began.

We need to be careful to not equate a lack of trades or player movement to general inaction on the part of the Spurs. Given the uniquely private, quiet nature of their front office, the public is unlikely to hear many specifics about its due-diligence processes, but that does not mean the group sat idly by as time passed. San Antonio gauges the market every summer, before each trade deadline and at all points in between, and it clearly felt its best option was to stay the course. While it may not be evident to some, and despite the team occupying an undesirable spot in the standings throughout it all, the template for the future had already been in formation, and it did not include a rinsing of the roster.

Whether you agree with the approach or not, San Antonio has always placed tremendous value in the overarching importance of competitive basketball, both in games and in practice, in winning in the margins and how to prepare for all of it. While playing time will forever be the No. 1 factor in player development, it will never be the only factor.

San Antonio has built a culture over the course of the last 25 years it tries like hell to maintain. Part of that is having a sustainable structure already in place for each and every new player that joins the roster, not to mention for the young guys waiting in the wings.

Ideally, the concept of Spurs culture doesn’t apply to a single group of players and coaches, nor do its basic tenets change with the eras. What the Big 3, Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford have built in San Antonio is not something they want following them out the door upon their departures. It’s an organizational standard they aim to have in place for any player, coach, executive or staff member who follows them, and the best chance they have of maintaining that order as a small-market team that will rarely be a major player in free agency is to do their best to never break the chain.

Over the last three seasons, Patty Mills, Rudy Gay and DeRozan — and Aldridge prior to his retirement — have been the guys tasked with occupying leadership roles during a period of time in which the franchise found itself in a state of flux, and they did a hell of a job in doing so. It’s inarguable their presence played a part in limiting younger players’ ascensions from a minutes perspective, and their overall ability kept the Spurs perhaps a little too competitive for some fans’ liking, but San Antonio would argue those three did nothing to hinder the development of its team’s prospects. Given the franchise’s track record, it would likely argue their presence on the team did the exact opposite.

We’ve heard the phrase ‘veteran presence’ often enough throughout our lives to disregard it as just another in a long line of sports clichés, but it’s still a very real thing. From how to prepare for and handle situations that may arise during games, practice, film study or training, to navigating locker-room dynamics and the unpredictable interpersonal relationships that exist within a team setting, experience and wisdom are crucial at every level of the sport.

Whether they were drafting and stashing players overseas or utilizing the D-League and G-League as training grounds before it was commonplace to do so, the Spurs have never thrown players in to the fire before they felt they were ready. Even during the lean years of the Big 3 era, between the fourth and fifth titles, San Antonio never overreacted as their superstars aged. It was patient and methodical in its roster construction and player development, building through the draft, taking chances on other teams’ scrap-heap casualties and bringing aboard players from abroad in ongoing efforts to find the right fits without disrupting the chemistry and continuity they’d fostered along the way. They have never stopped believing in this approach.

And yet there is still a balance that must be achieved. The last thing a team wants to do is compromise the development of its draft picks by protecting them for too long. But there’s been a steady progression taking place in San Antonio throughout the last few years.

Dejounte Murray, Derrick White, Lonnie Walker IV and Keldon Johnson have all grown in to important roles with room to improve, while Devin Vassell and potentially Luka Šamanić and Tre Jones are set to be part of the next wave this upcoming season. There’s a foundation of young veterans in place the Spurs have been grooming in preparation for a new era, and they hope the likes of Josh Primo and Joe Wieskamp are not far behind. In the case of Primo especially, they’re hoping they’ve found someone with the potential to eventually become the new head of the snake.

But for all the young pieces it’s got in place, San Antonio is still missing the type of obvious centerpiece-type talent around which to build. While they hope Primo and potentially Vassell (the franchise’s two highest draft picks since Tim Duncan was taken first overall in 1997) can take big leaps in the next two years, the proof is nowhere near the pudding at this point, and the Spurs are going to be faced with some major decisions in the near future. For now, though, they find themselves in a solid starting position.

San Antonio has a very young, versatile backcourt, a veteran frontcourt group on team-friendly contracts that will help provide much-needed depth in that area of the floor, a small surplus of draft picks and a nearly picturesque cap situation that will offer about as much financial flexibility as it could ask for at this juncture. Not a bad place to begin, but it’s all in preparation for the difficult part to come.*

*We’re going to dive in to everything else, from the roster to potential long-term team plans, in the coming weeks. So keep coming back!

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The Spurs face a road ahead that looks like a Google Maps display, with multiple routes of varying distances and estimated times of arrival all leading to the same ideal destination. San Antonio’s model for success has long been built on patience and trust in the process – the Spurs have been using that phrase for ages, by the way, it ain’t just a Hinkie 76ers thing – but never before has it been tested during the Popovich era the way it has been over the last few years and will be going forward.

San Antonio is banking on some big developmental leaps, shrewd cap management, potentially a smart new coaching hire in the not-too-distant future should a certain someone decide to call it a career, and just like every other team in the league, a little bit of luck along the way in order to make this all work.

And perhaps one of the most intriguing things about this team (at least in my eyes) is it has the potential to be a competitive, fun group to watch, but it may also find itself looking way up at other teams in the standings; because of this, the Spurs may also find themselves in a cozy spot closer to the top of the draft lottery by the end of the season should things shake out a certain way. The NBA is so stacked with talent right now that there are going to be very few easy nights on anyone’s schedule, let alone those of rebuilding teams. And you can count on the fact there will be growing pains for a team this young.

A lot of close games AND a bad record? San Antonio fans might be able to have their cake and eat it, too, and they deserve that much after four long, arduous years of relative mediocrity.

Jokes aside, though, it has been a strange run of late for a franchise so accustomed to excellence. There was a lot of uncertainty, many adjustments made on the fly, and a feeling-out process for everyone over the last four seasons, from coaches and players all the way up to the front office; for now, at least, this seems like a breath of fresh air for a team that appreciates where it’s been, but is looking forward to building a future.

The blueprint has been rendered; now it’s time to watch the design.