Addition by subtraction, the Spurs best offseason move

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Two bold predictions. First, the biggest and best possible acquisition of the offseason for the San Antonio Spurs will be Tony Parker the All-NBA point guard replacing Tony Parker the above average one.

Second, the biggest offseason moves concerning the San Antonio Spurs will be those not made by their Western Conference rivals. And they just might be enough to merit keeping the core intact for one last run.

The San Antonio Spurs might have excluded themselves from being a player in the summer of LeBron, but that does not mean the offseason will not reap major benefits for the team.

At the time of this post, the best signing of the summer has been the Los Angeles Lakers locking up Steve Blake. Marketed as a league wide phenomenon, the summer of LeBron really is an Eastern Conference exclusive event, and the power shift could put the Spurs back in prime position for a Western Conference Finals date with the Lakers.Â

With the signing of Hakim Warrick the Phoenix Suns all but announced the departure of Amare Stoudemire, removing the team that swept the Spurs last season from the equation for at least next season.

In Utah, with so much salary cap space around the NBA and so few players deserving of it to go around, it stands within reason that Carlos Boozer has played his last game in a Jazz uniform. With Paul Millsap on board, the loss would not be as damaging as the Suns loss of Amare, but it definitely weakens the Utah Jazz.

That’s one of your Western Conference finalists and the other semifinalist out of the picture. Of the other Western Conference contenders, the Blazers have huge question marks regarding their durability and management. The Nuggets seem to have imploded and peaked, and the Rockets have yet to make a significant addition.

It would appear that the top of the Western Conference belongs to the Lakers, followed by a grouping of the Spurs, Mavericks, and Thunder.

The Thunder can rely on the internal improvement of their young, dynamic core, while Mark Cuban can only hope that the growth of Rodrigue Beaubois can offset what age diminishes in Jason Kidd and Jason Terry.

But no team in the Western Conference can claim the addition to their core of an All-NBA point guard and Europe’s top big man as the San Antonio Spurs potentially can.

And the one team whose style the Spurs were completely unequipped to deal with-the Phoenix Suns-has been broken up through free agency.

Looking back at last season, the Spurs may have been swept, but I’m not sure they would not have been a better matchup against the Lakers. The Spurs played the wrong matchup (against a team that could completely spread out the Spurs defense) at the wrong time (with Jason Richardson insanely on fire).

With this in mind, I will conclude my anti-Tony Parker trade argument with the following two statements.

Trying to match strength for strength with the Los Angeles Lakers is a useless endeavor. Pau Gasol, Lamar Odom, and Andrew Bynum are better than your frontline. Kobe Bryant is better than your wing player.

The best strategy then would be to offset those players as much as possible-which the Spurs can do as well as most with Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and hopefully Tiago Splitter-and break through at one of their weaknesses.

Enter Tony Parker. With the rules in the NBA, quick point guards are everyone’s weakness and the San Antonio Spurs have one of the best in Parker.Â

For those worrying about resigning him, that’s where the summer of LeBron could put the Spurs in a winning position again.

The players have submitted their CBA proposal to the NBA, with speculation that the excess spending this summer will likely weaken the owner’s stance and result in a lockout.

Most of the teams who cleared cap space are intent on blowing their load this summer. Those that have room cleared for next season are either in undesirable locations or on non-contenders.

All of this swirls around an unknown Collective Bargaining Agreement that promises to reduce players’ salaries and will likely result in a season lost.

Therefore, it would be in Tony Parker’s best interest to workout a reasonable extension with the San Antonio Spurs in order to avoid an unfavorable CBA and an entire year’s loss of salary in the lockout season.

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  • Jim Henderson

    td4life
    July 9th, 2010 at 3:58 am

    I don’t disagree with much of what you said, but it does not provide data that weakens my central point, which is:

    The data show that considerably better than average “shot-blocking” is associated with winning championships, and with the Spurs and their system, the “shot-blocking” has been MUCH higher than average in championship years. And I’m not talking about getting shot-blockers that don’t play fundamental “D” as well. That’s what loser teams like the Warriors do.

    “This is obviously less true today, and so the need for truly smart, multi-talented bigs is even greater than it was in ’05-’07.”

    First of all, Duncan is still pretty capable. 18 pg., 10 rpg., & 1.5 bpg. is not exactly chopped liver. Blair will be coming on as a 22 year old PF that can score, and he certainly rebounds with the best of them (and he’s actually an okay shot-blocker for his height). Splitter should bring a pretty sound all-around game, but for a 7 footer, he’s not a particularly good shot-blocker. McDyess can still play some decent “D” in stretches (witness play against Dirk in the playoffs), though his age will catch up to him before long. If we add a YOUNGER a guy that can block shots & play sound “D” in the post, that would help our team, in my view. Sure, we’d rather have an all-around stud to add to the front line, but lets stick to realism.

    The Spurs are currently more than 2 bpg. lower that they were during the heart of their championship years. As a result, in my view, that is one area that could stand a considerable upgrade to compete at a high level again. However, it is certainly not the only thing we need. We had overall better perimeter defenders and “clutch” shooters as well during our championship years. ALL of these areas need to be addressed. That’s why at a minimum, I would like to add guys like Morrow, Bell, and Anthony or Amundson, or perhaps D. Jordan, to add critical depth to our perimeter/shot-blocking “D”, and 3-point shooting. Obviously we would need to make a trade (RJ, McDyess, Mahinmi, etc.) to have a shot at getting role players like these.

    Adding Bonner doesn’t help, and is NOT a good sign that we’re going to do anything but play out the string to another early round exit.

  • td4life

    Jim,
    I wasn’t disagreeing with you. Just explaining that posters don’t believe that Amundsen and Jordon the difference we need. I disagree, I just don’t think those guys are attainable. Most additions to our front line require us taking a step backward by losing McD and TP. As disappointing as it is, there aren’t really any big man upgrades over McD.

    For me, I would vastly prefer promising projects such as Anthony Randolf to Matt Bonner. Are we necessarily contenders? No, but resigning MB and RJ virtually assures that we aren’t contenders. We owe it to TD and Manu not to start a rebuild just yet, but all the same, it’s just a long disappointing 48 months until we witness the full-on rebuild beginning in earnest… hopefully Hill, Splitter, Anderson, and DB show tremendous growth heading into that 2012 off-season.

  • td4life

    I meant to write 24 months, not 48 months

  • Jim Henderson

    td4life
    July 9th, 2010 at 3:37 pm

    “Just explaining that posters don’t believe that Amundsen and Jordon the difference we need. I disagree, I just don’t think those guys are attainable.”

    Maybe not, but you can’t honestly say that these two are not “within reason” as a possibility still. It’s not like they’re slam-dunk, 4+ million dollar guys. Their overall skills are too limited for that. We have a 2 million dollar LLE available, what better place to put it on the table than for one of these two guys. If they take it great, if not, we’ll be glad to use it elsewhere. We’ve got other weaknesses to fill.

    “Most additions to our front line require us taking a step backward by losing McD and TP.”

    Most, perhaps, but probably not all of them, and that’s assuming a step back for one season. There are deals that could very likely make us better in year two and beyond. Hell, TP might not even stay here in 2011. Why not get a head start on getting some budding young potential studs in here now so that a “less-than-crash” rebuild project can be pursued more quickly and with less pain?

    “I would vastly prefer promising projects such as Anthony Randolf to Matt Bonner. Are we necessarily contenders? No, but resigning MB and RJ virtually assures that we aren’t contenders.”

    I agree, wholeheartedly.

    “We owe it to TD and Manu not to start a rebuild just yet…”

    We don’t have to call it a “rebuild”, but we should be looking to add quality young pieces NOW, even if that means having to trade TP ( for the RIGHT pieces - and there are some teams where this might work, like NY). We are destined to lose “some” at the point in any TP trade, certainly near term, but we would have a shot at adding at least one or two young players with “star potential”. And I believe that those are the types of moves we should be making this off-season.

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