Spurs flying under the radar, just like they like it

Sam Amick | USA TODAY Sports

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The Golden State Warriors may be the reigning champions, but the San Antonio Spurs are still the gold standard.

At least that’s how Bob Myers sees it.

Never mind that he’s the Warriors general manager, the 40-year-old who has played such a significant part in getting a once-fledgling franchise to the NBA’s mountaintop. Or that his team is in the midst of making the kind of basketball history (23-0 and counting) that even the Spurs never did.

There’s a bigger picture here that’s still very much in play, a history of success and smarts that has netted them five titles since 1999 and currently has them with an 18-5 record that hardly anyone has noticed amid all the Warriors mania. But Myers will never make the mistake of overlooking San Antonio. He’s too busy admiring them.

“They are a model franchise,” Myers told USA TODAY Sports on Thursday. “We are all trying to emulate them.”

Yet this is not a classic case of one rival spewing politically correct platitudes about another. Myers, who made a seamless transition from NBA agent to executive after being hired as Golden State’s assistant general manager in April of 2011, keeps a poignant quote from Spurs coach Gregg Popovich saved on his cell phone as a reminder of how great sports organizations should be built. From Warriors owner Joe Lacob to Myers on down, the Warriors have been taking plays out of the Spurs’ proverbial playbook for years now.

“A synergy has to form between the owner, whoever his president is, whoever the GM is, whoever the coach is,” Popovich said in that quote from March of 2014 that Myers kept as a blueprint of sorts. “There’s got to be a synergy where there’s a trust. There (are) no walls. There is no territory. Everything is discussed. Everything is fair game. Criticism is welcome, and when you have that, then you have a hell of an organization. That free flow through all those people is what really makes it work. And that includes everything from draft to Os and Xs. Nothing should be left to one area – only to the president, only to the GM, only to the coach – or the culture just doesn’t form. At least that’s what’s worked for us.”

To say the least.

To put the Spurs’ early returns in perspective, consider this much: if (scratch that: when) they beat the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday, they will have the same record they had out of the gate the last time they won the title (19-5 in the 2013-14 season). But much has changed since then, with fifth-year small forward/reigning Defensive Player of the Year Kawhi Leonard now taking the lead role (team-highs of 21 points and 1.8 steals per game), new addition LaMarcus Aldridge co-starring (second in scoring at 15.4 points per game) and the familiar foursome of Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, Danny Green and Manu Ginobili filling their roles with absolute aplomb.

The Spurs have always valued depth, combining their talents with a selfless system to overwhelm opponents. But this latest version, this group that will surely ripen from now until the playoffs roll around, has the potential to be great in the kind of way that we’ve never seen from San Antonio. They are already much-improved from last season, when they finished 55-27 and looked very much like a title contender (again) before falling to the Los Angeles Clippers in the first round.

Net rating is as good a measure as you’ll find to truly take a pulse on a team, measuring the difference between a team’s offensive rating (points scored per 100 possessions) and its defense rating (points allowed per 100 possessions). This season, the Spurs’ net rating of plus-11.7 is not only significantly better than their mark from last season (plus-6.6) but better than the Warriors’ mark when they won a franchise-record 67 games (plus-11.4) last season.

For the media and the fans, it’s a hoops tragedy that the Spurs don’t face the Warriors until Jan. 25. Ditto for the strange scheduling that has the Warriors facing the Oklahoma City Thunder for the first time on Feb. 6.

Yet for San Antonio, which has always reveled in its under-the-radar role while gaining admirers like Myers all along the way, it’s just the way they like it.

“This is the perfect position for them” former Warriors coach and ESPN analyst Mark Jackson said on SportsCenter Thursday. “Not many people paying attention to them. They just continue to execute, continue to win ball games, continue to defend at a high level, and it seems like the older guys – when you think they’re going to ride off into the sunset, just continue to do their job. And Kawhi Leonard has arrived as their best player. It’s a perfect situation for Coach Popovich and that Spurs team.”