Jump to Comments

Back in July I wrote a post called A Note of Caution: Work to be Done. In the post I outlined a handful of concerns for the Spurs, even with their super-recharged roster, going into the season. One of those concerns was the notorious difficulty of learning the Spurs’ system in a single season. It typically takes longer for incoming players to find a comfort level. Here’s a paragraph from that piece:

It’s frequently said that the Spurs’ system takes a full season to learn, with new acquisitions playing better as sophomores than freshmen. That can’t be the case this season. Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili are too old for Richard Jefferson, Antonio McDyess and DeJuan Blair to spend the year in training wheels. Pop and his staff must accelerate the learning curve. A home run training camp is a must.

Popovich and his staff must agree. Mike Monroe has penned a terrific piece detailing Popovich’s attempt to ease this concern-he’s cut his playbook dramatically. The column deserves a full reading, but this snippet should be enough to provoke a click through:

“It is true that guys we bring in usually do better the second year than the first year,” Popovich said. “That’s been pretty steady. So because of that we really made a concerted effort this summer to cut the number of things we want them to remember offensively. We’ve cut back significantly in that regard so we can have a quicker learning curve with the new guys.”

The balance of Monroe’s article describes how Popovich divides training camp between “learners and returners” and the gutting of whole chapters from the Spurs’ playbook.