SAN ANTONIO — Danny Green stepped out of the training room last Friday following the San Antonio Spurs’ biggest Kawhi-less win of the season, ready to flex for the ’gram. Not because Manu Ginobili beat the Boston Celtics with rafter-scrapping rainbow three-pointer over Al Horford, or because the Spurs continue to defy what teams are supposed to do when their best player — a perennial MVP candidate, no less — is sidelined. No, Green wanted to take a picture to post on Instagram with the handful of teammates who showed up wearing their best flannel shirts to the game.

Patty Mills, Pau Gasol, Brandon Paul and Derrick White were all ready and waiting. Green was growing impatient and nudged Rudy Gay and LaMarcus Aldridge to hurry up and get dressed at their locker-room stalls because the Spurs had a plane to catch to Phoenix. He went back in the training room for a few minutes to let Aldridge button his shirt and poked his head out once again for Gay.

“What, man? I’m right here,” Gay said as he slipped on his red and black flannel shirt. “Give me five seconds. I’m always ready for a picture — ’cause I look good.”

Gay is looking even better these days in San Antonio. Longing for the chance to feel relevant again, Gay took a significant pay cut last summer for the chance to join an organization in which a player’s strengths are magnified and flaws masked by a system that has been humming without interruption for two solid decades. Even questionable fashion choices (lumberjack attire) and decisions (you sure you wanted to tuck that shirt in, Gasol?) are no longer ridiculed when wins come with regularity. They can be celebrated with “Flanny Fridays” — as Gay referred to the flannel-shirt festivities. Green posted the photo later that night with the hashtag “#flannygang.”





Playing alongside Kawhi Leonard was also part of the appeal for Gay when he decided to come to San Antonio. But that opportunity hasn’t yet been afforded to Gay, who has served as part of the hole-filling spackle to help the franchise function in the absence of its franchise player. The ways in which Gay can contribute to a team beyond scoring are being recognized and appreciated like they never would have in previous stops, where losing made them easier to ignore.

“It’s a situation where, you have to pay a lot of attention to detail and it’s a winning mentality. That’s something I was away from, for so long, you kind of create bad habits. I’ve had to re-teach myself. And I’ve had to continue to do it every day,” Gay told Yahoo Sports. “It’s great. Everybody helps each other. Everybody is held accountable. Everybody is on the same page. Everybody has one thing in mind, and that’s win. I wanted to be a part of that.”

The Spurs will soon welcome back Leonard from one of the more peculiar injuries — a right quadriceps ailment whose origins and treatment haven’t been clearly explained. What San Antonio has done without Leonard — a 19-8 record that’s good for third in the Western Conference — proves it is the one organization that doesn’t have an indispensable player in the regular season. Most of those wins also came with Tony Parker dealing with a ruptured right quadriceps sustained during the conference semifinals last season against Houston. The Spurs also have gone 33-12 without Leonard the past two seasons combined, a stunning 60-win pace.

“Whoever is not there is not there. We don’t worry about him or think about it too much. We’ve got to take care of as much of the business as we can,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. “When he gets there, he gets there. We’re playing a lot of different people, a lot of different combinations. Some nights, it doesn’t work out real well. Other nights, it looks really good, but I think down the stretch, it’ll help us.”

Popovich offered a hint as to how the Spurs refuse to crumble in the face of adversity during one of his must-watch, in-game television interviews last month. The Spurs had rallied from a 23-point deficit to eventually beat Oklahoma City, and Popovich said it was because of “an attitude change from ‘poor me’ to ‘screw you.’”

That is what the Spurs are and have been for some time. The culture Popovich has established is why veterans like David West in 2015 and now Gay left significant money on the table to join the fold, why Duncan held on until he was 40, Ginobili has done the same and Parker is begging to follow. Players and coaches speak of “The System” when it’s actually a long-preached philosophy that involves sacrificing for the good of the team, trust and instilling confidence. Believing in what you have allows role players to take the occasional star turns and the really talented players like Leonard to ascend to unexpected heights among the league’s best.

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