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Where do the Spurs go from here?

Bob Donnan / USA TODAY Sports

It took seven years and a whole lot of lineup tweaks, but at long last, the San Antonio Spurs are back on top of the NBA mountain. With the same coach and same Big Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili - though some of their teammates are just as Big now - the Spurs have won their fourth title of the 21st century, over a span of 12 seasons, demonstrating in the process that championship windows are only ever as closed as you allow them to be.

Of course, it's a lot easier to stay competitive year in and year out when you're the best-run organization in the Association, probably in all of pro sports. The Spurs not only kept a winning core together for over a decade with the same coach and same GM, they persuaded their stars to take less money over fewer years than they all could've gotten elsewhere to allow the team to properly build around them. They never panicked when things went worse than expected, they were always ready to cut bait when a player became more trouble (or more expensive) than they were worth, and they never let any individual stand above the franchise as a whole. Everyone else in the NBA should - and does - take notes. 

As many times as one could've written the Spurs off for dead over the last seven years, here they are now, beating the two-time defending champs with what clearly looks like their best team yet. Now, even with Timmy, Tony and Manu all well into their 30s - Duncan even contemplating retirement - it seems downright silly to talk about this being the Spurs' last run, or anything close to it. The Spurs will eventually have a number of tough transitions to make, but none of them are likely to come this summer. And if we haven't learned by now to trust that they'll be able to handle them whenever they do come, we probably should be paying closer attention. 

But in the meantime, for posterity, let's talk about the good and the bad of where they went this season and where they look to be heading this off-season. 

The Good

If age is in fact something besides just a number, the Spurs gave little evidence of it this season. At age 37, Duncan continued to provide elite two-way production for San Antonio, averaging 15 and 10 with three assists and two blocks a game, finishing 12th in MVP voting. At 36, Ginobili bounced back from a rough playoff finish to again emerge as a Sixth Man of the Year candidate, posting a PER of 20 for the ninth time in his career. At a spry 31, Parker had the hardest go of it, seeing slight dips in his scoring, shooting and playmaking stats from the prior season, but still led the team in points and assists while shooting 50% for the field and making Second-Team All-NBA. 

Around the core trio, several role players took a big step forward. Patty Mills emerged as a Most Improved Player candidate after doubling his scoring from the previous year without losing a drop of efficiency. And after missing about a month of the season with injury, Kawhi Leonard reignited the team upon his return to the lineup in February, shutting down the perimeter on defense and shooting and passing and filling the gaps in the team's offense more productively than he ever had before in his NBA career. And Marco Belinelli, acquired for a pittance in free agency, was exactly as hoped for as a reserve wing, posting the highest PER of his career (15.0) and leading the league in three-point percentage for much of the season. 

It resulted in a 62-win regular season, and after a most unexpected hiccup against the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs - in which Rick Carlisle's group took somehow San Antonio to seven games, despite lone star Dirk Nowitzki shooting just 43% for the series - the Spurs hit their stride, going 12-4 for the remainder of the playoffs. Even players like Danny Green and Tiago Splitter who struggled to find consistency in the regular season proved brilliant in the postseason, and Leonard validated those (including coach Gregg Popovich) who said he could be the future face of the franchise by lighting up the Heat on both ends in the Finals, winning the series MVP in the process. 

The Spurs appeared to have achieved a kind of higher level of basketball consciousness over the course of this postseason, so transcendentally brilliant with their ball movement, defensive rotations and teamwide decision-making that they could reduce even all-time greats like LeBron James to irrelevant window dressing. They went ten deep, they were unselfish, and thanks to the regular-season brilliance of Popovich - who won his third Coach of the Year trophy, for a mantle that should have at least six or seven of those bad boys by now - they were exceptionally well rested, with Pop not playing any of his rotation guys even 30 minutes a game last year. 

And while their original core continues to age, the emergence in these playoffs of Leonard, Green, Splitter and Mills gives hope that the (presumably) inevitable retirement down the road of the Spurs' core Big Three doesn't have to bring the death of the team's relevance along with it. In the meantime, nearly everyone on the Spurs roster besides Splitter comes off the book at the end of the 2014-15 season, giving the Spurs a natural and simple rebuilding point should the team seem much creakier next May and June than they did this spring.

The Bad

The Spurs seem in such good shape right now and moving immediately forward that it's hard to find much of a negative to dwell on. The only thing really hanging over Spurs fans right now is the possibility that Duncan could still retire in the off-season, and that (as long promised), Popovich would follow him out the door shortly thereafter. It seems unlikely at this point, given how much fun everyone involved seems to be having, but it remains a possibility and a contingency that San Antonio will have to plan for - one which would certainly create quite a void for the Spurs whenever it comes to fruition. 

And while the Spurs might not be as close to their expiration date as previously predicted, they may also never be quite this fresh again. Any year could be the one where true, inexorable decline begins to set in for any or all of their big three. In the meantime, teams like the Thunder, Rockets, Clippers and Blazers are all younger and far more athletic, and might not be more than a move or two away from providing a formidable challenge in the Western Conference playoffs. The Spurs got everything right this year, and had pretty good luck with health all-around, something foolish to count on happening on a year-to-year basis. 

Still, when the only real concerns you can raise about a team's short or long-term outlook is "nothing this great lasts forever," that's a pretty good season you probably just had. And now, the Spurs have an off-season of tinkering to do to keep their team on the upswing. Here's how they might do it. 

The Draft

Not many franchises can strike terror into the heart of rival NBA fanbases by owning a pick at the very end of the first round, but the Spurs have done a lot of their best work in that region of the draft, picking Tony Parker, Leandro Barbosa, John Salmons, Beno Udrih, Ian Mahinmi, Tiago Splitter and George Hill with picks in the final five of the first round. The chance to add a first-rounder to their already formidable roster, even one at #30, is of absolutely enormous value to San Antonio, especially in this loaded draft. 

Who might that sleeper be? Well, I still like the idea of Tennessee rebounding machine Jarnell Stokes going to San Antonio. He doesn't have great athleticism for the NBA, but he put numbers comparable to likely top-ten pick Julius Randle in the SEC last year, has the kind of headiness and toughness the Spurs like, and would help give San Antonio the frontcourt depth to spell Duncan for 20-25 minutes a game next regular season, as Popovich will undoubtedly look to do. 

Glenn Robinson III would also be an interesting option. The tweener forward struggled with too-high expectations and occasional over-passivity in his few years at Michigan, but he could give the Spurs a classic threes-and-D guy to backup Leonard and maybe even be a small-ball four for floor-stretching lineups. And for a team that loves sweet-passing big men, you certainly can't overlook the possibility of the Spurs snatching GRIII's Wolverine teammate Mitch McGary, one of the highest-IQ centers in college the last few years. 

And of course, the Spurs always have the international scene in mind. Attitude concerns could scare them off Serbian shooting guard Bogdan Bogdanovich, but if they feel he can fall in line with Pop Culture, he could be a typical steal for them at #30, a brilliant shooter and scorer with the potential to be a huge playmaker. And I'll admit I don't know much about centers Artem Kilmenko (from Russia) or Walter Tavares (from Gran Canaria!!), but you can bet the Spurs know plenty, and it wouldn't be shocking to see either end up in San Antonio this June. 

Free Agency

First and foremost, the Spurs will have to decide what to do about their own spate of impending free agents - Boris Diaw, Patty Mills, Matt Bonner and Aron Baynes. At 33 with his stats at a career low, Bonner has likely outlived his usefulness - at least he finally got a ring to show for it. Baynes showed some nice flashes when called on last season, but is still pretty low on the team's depth chart and will likely only be retained if he comes back for a minimum. 

Mills and Diaw are trickier, as both have probably earned pay bumps with their extremely solid playoffs showings. After a breakout season Mills may seek a larger role elsewhere if some team offers him starters' minutes and/or money.and San Antonio probably won't match if the amount is over four or five million yearly. The 32-year-old Diaw is less likely to seek out greener pastures elsewhere, but his all-around excellence in the postseason might be enough for some team to tempt him with $6-8 mil a year for a couple years. My guess, though, is that Mills bolts and Diaw ultimately hangs around, since he certainly appears to have found his place in the NBA sun in San Antone. 

The Spurs should also have room for another cheap free agent or two, and may make a run at a couple vets who fit their style. Josh McRoberts, Vince Carter, Elton Brand and Mike Miller would all be pretty good fits if they were let go and came inexpensively enough. There were also rumors that Evan Turner was of interest to the Spurs at last deadline -  it would be pretty much the ultimate Spurs reclamation project to try to rehabilitate Evan's career after his miserable stay in Indiana, but Pop and company have done more with less before. 

The real free agent of interest, though, would be Pau Gasol. Pau is perhaps the most Spursy player to have never played for the Spurs - an unselfish, versatile, brilliant European big man who could make some seriously beautiful music playing in a frontcourt with Tim Duncan, Boris Diaw and Tiago Splitter. It would almost be too much for one roster if Gasol took the necessary pay cut to play in San Antonio, but after a year of futzing around with the Lakers' fourth-string leftovers, he might crave high-level hoops enough to make it happen.

Trade

The Spurs don't go the trade route very often. Since dealing for Leonard on Draft Night 2011, the only deal of any kind of consequence made by the Spurs was to jettison Richard Jefferson's contract to Golden State in exchange for Stephen Jackson. Coming off the season they had, with the players and cap sheet that they have moving forward, it's hard to see that trend reversing this offseason for any particular reason - unless, of course, they see the next Kawhi Leonard in the middle of this year's draft class and are willing to do what it takes to get him.

It would also be interesting to see what would happen if Kevin Love expressed a desire to play in San Antonio. He would be a hell of a successor to Duncan in the frontcourt, a very different type of player but one with plenty of Spursian attributes. The Spurs could possibly have the pieces to make a deal happen, if they included Splitter, overseas draft stash Livio Jean-Charles, and a couple firsts, but the Wolves might be insistent on the inclusion of Leonard, a likely dealbreaker for San Antonio. More likely, the team waits Love out and sees if he's interested in joining in 2015, when the team will have cap space to sign him outright and (potentially) a vacancy at the four.

Big Picture

You wouldn't have imagined that three years after being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs for the second time in three tries, the Spurs would not only be hoisting the Larry O'Brien trophy again in 2014, but have a chance at doing so at least one or two more times before finally opting to rebuild. But that's where the Spurs are currently: The best team in basketball, and the favorites to repeat until proven otherwise. Father Time may still be undefeated, but the Spurs are looking distinctly Buster Dogulas-ish these days.

That's not to say that things will always be this rosy in San Antonio. Everything we know about sports tells us that a team's rise is ultimately matched by its inevitable fall, and that no organization stats at or even near the top forever. We know how important Duncan and Pop are to this team's sustained success, but we might not properly appreciate just how critical they were until they're both gone. Perhaps at that point, the Spurs' magic touch with scrapheap role players and international prospects begins to fade, the team's fabled chemistry starts to short-circuit a little, and the young Leonard proves incapable - as just abut anyone would - of totally filling #21's shoes.

The day will come when we eventually find out about these things, but it's not likely to come for at least another year. In the meantime, the Spurs have proven that their mortality should never be assumed as a given, and that there are few things in pro sports than writing them off even a little bit. We'll probably still be having "Is the Spurs' window finally closing?" conversations in 2019, and they might ultimately prove as laughable as they did five years ago. They might not have the elite young talent of the Thunder, Clippers or Rockets, but their future is every bit as bright as any of those teams. If we haven't recognized that by now, we don't deserve to be a party to the Spurs' once-in-a-basketball-lifetime brilliance.

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