The San Antonio Spurs are one of the veteran teams that could potentially make a deep playoff run due to the shortened season. However, with the recent loss of Manu Ginobili to a broken shooting hand, the Spurs are left scrambling for offense. Gone are the days of Greg Popovich’s offense being ran around Tim Duncan. Duncan’s rebounding, scoring, and minutes have regressed dramatically over the last two seasons. Last season was the first time in Duncan’s career that he did not average double figures in the rebounding category. Sure, the Spurs raced to a 61-21 finish and the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference. But their age showed up in the first round of the playoffs as Duncan and the rest of the Spurs couldn’t handle a much younger and more athletic Memphis Grizzlies team led by Zach Randolph.
The season is still mightily young, but the Spurs offense has been revamped around the agile Argentinian Manu Ginobili. Through five games this season, Ginobili is leading the team in scoring at 17.4 points per with Dejuan Blair second in scoring at 14 per night.
With Ginobili out indefinitely, the main question for the Spurs to answer is: Where will they find enough offense to win ball games?
The San Antonio way has always been to win games with their defense and grinding down their opponent. In recent years however, the team has struggled with that concept as they have not consistently been able to produce enough points to win in the playoffs. James Andersen, TJ Ford, and Kawhi Leanord all figure to see a significant increase in their minutes with the injury to Ginobili. Tony Parker would be the most suitable candidate to run the offense through with Tim Duncan having to bulk up his minutes of play. Sure, the big man has lost a step or two, but he still has the best fundamentals and smarts of any PF to ever play the game. The Spurs are also expected to gain SG Gary Neal back on Wednesday night against the Golden State Warriors from an appendectomy that kept him on a rehab stint with the NBADL Austin Toros. Neal averaged nearly two three pointers per game during his rookie campaign last season and could provide this aging Spurs team with a much needed offensive punch (ATTENTION NBA Fantasy players). Neal alongside Dejuan Blair made the Spurs look much younger and explosive last season and could do the same with Ginobili out.
The Spurs are hitting a tough stretch in their schedule as they will have games against Dallas, Denver, OKC, Houston, Portland, Miami, Orlando, and Atlanta coming up. San Antonio will also endure six back-to-backs as well during the rest of the month.
Therefore, the main question for the Spurs appears not to be who can fill Ginobili’s void. But, how long can the Spurs last without their leading scorer?
Alex Rosencutter is a former NCAA basketball player at Clarke University and a kinesiology major at Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Originally from Kenosha, Wisconsin, this hoops addict and die hard Miami Heat fan, who is obsessed with old school hoops, has a fever for basketball and the only prescription is more basketball.
