“I think maybe there’s a little smirk on the coach’s face,” Brent Barry, a onetime Spur and now a television analyst, told me as the Spurs were sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers out of the 2007 N.B.A. finals. “And also on the organization’s face, that it’s not that exciting to people outside of San Antonio, that we’re doing it quietly, something special, right here, and we get to enjoy it.”

That they sustained such an approach for so long in a league that not only runs but thrives on a general state of disorder was largely attributable to Duncan, the stoic assassin, and David Robinson, the franchise hub who preceded him. Stars don’t establish team rules, but their acquiescence goes a long way in enforcing them.

Popovich was the acerbic but caring old-school master, R.C. Buford the erudite front-office presence and Peter Holt the owner who let them do their jobs.

Then along came Kawhi Leonard in 2011, in a draft-night trade that might have been voided on the grounds of extreme cruelty to the unsuspecting fans of basketball-mad Indiana. In a very short while he was hailed as the ascendant star and perfectly disposed personality to ultimately succeed the aging Duncan. In the 2014 five-game wipeout of the Heat, he wore an endearingly astonished look when declared the most valuable player of the championship series.

Now Leonard, considered by many to be the best two-way player in the game and among the top five over all, is gone. He and the backcourt mainstay Danny Green were traded by the Spurs to Toronto on Wednesday in a multiplayer deal that brings back an All-Star in DeMar DeRozan, a young center in Jakob Poeltl and a conditional first-round draft pick.