The biggest question facing the Spurs

48minutesofhell.com
Friday, August 27th, 2010...8:12 am


Chanel recently launched an ad campaign with plus-sized model Crystal Renn. The promise of the fashion house, or so it would seem, was to capture the outer charm of Christina Hendricks in a tasteful still frame or two. But when the campaign launched, there wasn’t much of anything plus-sized about it. Renn was captured from the shoulders up, and any suggestion of plus-sizes was left in the public relations office.

This is how I felt about the San Antonio Spurs’ last season. During training camp 2009, Gregg Popovich vowed a return to defensive form, wanting his team to get back to the top of the NBA’s defensive rankings. But the Spurs never got there. The Spurs weren’t plus-sized; they weren’t even fat-faced. The promise of a defensive return to form fell flat from Day 1.

Now, of course, Gregg Popovich is not Karl Lagerfeld. There is no doubt that Popovich preached defense as ardently and sincerely as ever before–his intentions were true. The Spurs’ defensive failures were not bound up in a disingenuous promise. The Spurs failed because they didn’t have the right personnel to meet Popovich’s defensive demands. And this was true across the roster–it wasn’t simply a problem of Richard Jefferson’s inability to recreate Bruce Bowen.

The Spurs’ signing of Tiago Splitter will help their front court. Splitter’s ability to defend the pick and roll is well-documented. But what else have the Spurs done to upgrade their defensive personnel?

This is me pleading ignorance, not protesting the team’s offseason. Neither James Anderson nor Gary Neal nor Matt Bonner nor Richard Jefferson nor Alonzo Gee are defensive specialists, at least they’re not billed that way. Tim Duncan is a year older. DeJuan Blair is still short. Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili give great effort, but are, generally put, offensive players. Garrett Temple was a good defender in limited minutes last season, and he is the one “new” face on the perimeter whose defensive abilities put a little pollyanna in this blogger.

In addition to the absence of capable defensive personnel, the Spurs lacked quality perimeter shooters last season. The front office seems to have addressed the issue of shooting this offseason, but left their die hard faithful with questions about their the team’s overall defensive ability. So, in short, the big question facing the Spurs this season is whether Popovich can make good on his ambition to return the Spurs to the top of the league’s defensive rankings, a year later than he had originally planned. And if so, who will emerge as San Antonio’s go-to defensive specialist(s)?

Wasn't it Bogans job to be a defensive replacement for Bruce instead of RJ's?
Not easy trying to find someone with the same size and the same amount of marathon running lung-capacity that Bruce brought every game?
Manu not being healthy all season long was a big part of our defensive flaws last season too.
He brings so much defensively.

Where is more length on the floor ?

My issue with RJ and the reason I did not want him back when he was struggling scoring he would let it effected his defense; you just can not do that. Just pick it up on the other end you can create yourself some easy scoring opportunities and get things going.

That is my issue with RJ I expected that from a veteran not one that looked like he was sulking

Tiago was a great start but we still lack length in the front court we could use one more long body.

We lack at the SF position still need more length

Booner gives us nothing again after 3 years of nothing yet we gave him a 4 year contract for nothing?

1kangaroo wrote:We lack at the SF position still need more length

Yeah, it seems puzzling why the Spurs struggle at getting length at the SF position. The 6-8 to 6-9 guys they get are center/power forwards.