“Our future was already bright,” managing partner Peter J. Holt said in May when the San Antonio Spurs won the 2023 NBA Draft Lottery. “Now, it’s going to be through the moon.”
In a previous blogpost, from May 22, 2018 entitled Quantum Entanglement: Kawhi, the Spurs and Beautiful Basketball, I discussed and described the San Antonio Spurs franchise in physics terminology. In a belated installment, I continue to discuss the franchise and its next phase.
Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs have made significant contributions to sports management in the areas of leadership, talent development, and organizational excellence in running their franchise.
Leadership: Popovich is widely regarded as one of the greatest coaches in NBA history. He has led the Spurs to five NBA championships, more than any other coach in franchise history. He is also a two-time NBA Coach of the Year. He gives his players a lot of freedom to make decisions on the court, and he holds them accountable for their actions. This has helped the Spurs develop a strong team identity and a winning culture. Popovich is known for his calm demeanor and his ability to get the most out of his players. He is also a strong advocate for player development and diversity.
Talent development: The Spurs have a long history of developing young talent. They have drafted and developed several All-Stars, including Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Kawhi Leonard. The Spurs also have a strong track record of signing free agents and developing them into productive players.
Organizational excellence: The Spurs are one of the most well-run organizations in sports. They have a strong culture of teamwork, accountability, and respect. The Spurs are also known for their commitment to community service. This commitment to excellence has helped the Spurs achieve sustained success across the past four decades.
They have a strong culture of teamwork, accountability, and respect. The Spurs are also known for their commitment to community service.
The contributions of Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs to leadership, talent development, and organizational excellence are a model for other organizations.
This week the San Antonio Spurs are expected to draft a generational talent in Victor Wembanyama as the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft.
Soon after that the Spurs plan to open their new state-of-the-art multi-phase $500 million facility called “The Rock at La Cantera,” which will feature a human performance research center.
This facility provides the launching pad for a new era of championship success for the Spurs. Wembanyama should serve as the catalyst needed to blast the franchise into a future of sustained success more rapidly than initially expected four years ago, when the organization first targeted the 2023 NBA Draft as the one that could change everything.
San Antonio envisioned years ago what we are about to see on Thursday at the 2023 NBA Draft. The Spurs worked hard to align their basketball goals with their strategic plans and business goals. This No. 1 pick will likely play a meaningful role as the Spurs look to make another run at multiple championships.
The Pivot
The plan that emerged in 2020 before San Antonio traveled to Orlando for that NBA season restart. The plan was to develop the team’s youth while also advancing causes for social justice and racial equality.
While in Orlando, the Spurs experimented with an up-tempo style on offense, augmented by a swarming, pestering defense. Following that season, the Spurs decided to stick to that more modern style of positionless basketball.
“The strategy, the philosophy, the way we play is gonna stay the same [as in Orlando],” Popovich said entering the 2020-21 season.
That meant San Antonio would spend time looking for versatile, all-around players with size that could play with or without the ball. That would allow the Spurs to play a more modern style both on offense and defense. San Antonio has always coveted players capable of dribbling, shooting, and passing with a high-level of decision-making skills.
The changes came about after internal discussions about where they were as a team, where they were headed, and how their style would need to change. Up to that point, San Antonio was looking to remain competitive. But that approach would force the Spurs to build their team from the bottom of the lottery (or just outside of it) for an organization with no cap space or flexibility going forward and no future draft picks. San Antonio saw no way out of this vicious cycle, nor to build something truly sustainable. The club decided it was time to pivot.
Strategic Planning
Four years ago, having identified the 2023 NBA Draft four as a significant place to speed up the rebuild, San Antonio worked to draft or bring in veteran players versatile enough to thrive in any type of system, but most importantly they’d mesh well with their teammates.
Simultaneously, the Spurs knew they needed a Plan B just in case the talent they signed did not pan out as expected.
The franchise understood its first-round pick in 2023 would be its most valuable asset. But it also hoped to improve their chances at improving their position in the draft while making room to develop a roster filled with young, inexperienced players. That meant losing, a lot. The city of San Antonio has maintained exceptionally high standards with a fanbase accustomed to competing year after year at a championship level. The organization didn’t want to disappoint their rabid fanbase. But the fastest way to return to that level while ensuring a sustainable future meant the Spurs needed to jettison their core piece by piece with an eye toward maximizing the return in each transaction to obtain future assets for potential trades.
If the organization failed to hit big on its 2023 pick, it needed flexibility for the short term with its salary cap to bring in free agents as well as draft assets to make potential trades.
The Spurs wanted to be able to pivot at a moment’s notice. If one approach failed, they would still possess the tools necessary to successfully facilitate the fragile rebuild first put into motion back in 2018, after the sudden and departure of Kawhi Leonard.
In all, the Spurs currently sit on five first-round picks and nine second-rounders between 2023 and 2029 to go with a couple of pick swaps, not to mention nearly $40 million in cap space to upgrade the talent around Wembanyama if the club so chooses.
“Obviously, a long road still ahead and a lot of work to do to build this out and get to where we want to be,” Spurs general manager Brian Wright said last month after the club won the 2023 NBA Draft Lottery. “You enjoy the entire journey. It’s not always fun and it’s not always just the great things.”
Leadership and Succession Planning
During discussions in 2019, the organization promoted longtime GM R.C. Buford to CEO to handle the business side of the Spurs, while Wright stepped into his current position after serving three years as the team’s assistant GM.
The new facility has long been Buford’s brainchild, and another innovative way for San Antonio to gain a competitive edge in elite human performance, while improving potential free-agent recruiting, with the 134,000-square-foot Victory Capital Performance Center, which is expected to be equipped with the latest in sports technology. Buford credits Dr. Andy Walshe, a globally recognized expert in the field of elite human performance, as one of the driving forces behind the new facility.
“The human being is one of the most complex systems in the universe,” Walshe said. “Thanks to technology, we’re starting to peel back the layers to unpack what really makes elite people operate at peak performance.”
The Spurs also expanded San Antonio’s market by hitting the I-35 corridor last season for a pair of games up the road in Austin, one in Mexico City and an exhibition game at the Alamodome in which the Spurs broke the league’s all-time attendance record. Long considered a small-market club, San Antonio played those four out-of-market home games in an attempt to deepen the fanbase from Mexico to Austin. This plan could develop San Antonio into one of the NBA’s largest markets.
That’s partly where an international talent like Wembanyama comes into play.
Nearly every move made, such as creating cap space, adding draft assets the past few years aligns with this drafting of yet another exceptional big man like David Robinson and Tim Duncan before opening a new facility, and expanding their market.
“Brian, R.C. and [coach Gregg Popovich] deserve a tremendous amount of credit,” Holt said. “It’s not easy to go through transition. They have laid out a plan, a vision, for getting us back to championship-winning teams. That’s our goal. We are blessed to have this amazing team that will take this Draft process and add it into the overall framework to make sure we have sustainable success, and our legacy is one that’s living.”
The Spurs Quantum Entanglement continues!
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