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Statistics To Help the Spurs – A Retrospective


A little while ago, I made a post about how the San Antonio Spurs could get better using statistics. A season and change later, it’s time to re-examine the players involved in that piece and see how the Spurs are playing.

As of the new year of 2022, the Spurs are 14-20, with the 5 players averaging the most minutes per game being Dejounte Murray, Keldon Johnson, Derrick White, Jakob Poeltl, and Doug McDermott. Murray is the only player who was in the starting 5 from last season. White, Johnson, Poeltl were all on the roster and have moved into bigger roles, while McDermott is a free agent signing in his first season with the Spurs. The previous starting 5 was Murray, Bryn Forbes, DeMar DeRozan, LaMarcus Aldridge, and Trey Lyles. 3 of those players (DeRozan, Aldridge, and Lyles) have moved on. Forbes, after winning an NBA championship with the Bucks, returned to the Spurs this season.

The 2019-20 Spurs line-up had a win co-efficient of 0.579. The top line-up that I looked at was the starting 5 of Murray, DeRozan, Will Barton, Aaron Gordon, and LaMarcus Aldridge, with a win co-efficient of 0.802. As previously stated, DeRozan and Aldridge are on other teams (the Chicago Bulls and the Brooklyn Nets, respectively). Gordon and Barton both play for the Denver Nuggets, after a 2021 trade sent Gordon from Orlando to Denver.

Using the current stats of the players for the 2021-22 season, we can determine the win co-efficient of both the Spurs’ current line-up and their theoretical counterparts.

 


The proposed line-up has a win co-efficient of 0.728, down from the previous win co-efficient 0.802. This can likely be explained by LaMarcus Aldridge taking a reduced role in Brooklyn. The Spurs current line-up has a win co-efficient of 0.596, up from the previous iteration’s 0.579.but still a ways away from being a consistent playoff team and championship contender.

The Spurs also have a group of promising young prospects who could potentially make them championship contenders in the future, with players like Devin Vassell, Josh Primo, and Lonnie Walker IV set to break into the starting line-up and serve as the difference makers that could change the Spurs’ future in the years to come.

Comments

  1. RamanJanuary 11, 2022 at 11:32 PM

    Nice to see the follow up and the validation of your methodology. It will be interesting to see the trades that the Spurs can do in the next window and see if the same players bring value given the new lineup.
    Very nicely done!!!

    ReplyDelete

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