Sixers Need to Emulate Spurs Success Statistically
By Josh Wilson
The Philadelphia 76ers should be looking to emulate the San Antonio Spurs and their success statistically in almost every season.
Having role models and people you strive to be like can be healthy in reaching success. Personally, I have a few people that I like to look at in my field and what they’ve been able to do, and I also like to look at their career paths and how they got there.
Too often, we fall into the iceberg theory of success, which is something I discussed in a post last month here at The Sixer Sense. We often look at our role models and what they’ve accomplished and are currently doing that is successful, but fail to recognize the intense workload that went into getting up to that point of success.
For basketball teams like the Philadelphia 76ers, they surely have benchmarks that they want to reach. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that the San Antonio Spurs are one of the benchmarks, considering the team’s current head coach, Brett Brown, worked underneath Gregg Popovich as an assistant coach for quite a while. Additionally, the early stages of this era of the Sixers greatly resembles the Spurs, a developmentally minded team that focuses on ceilings rather than current talent.
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That in mind, the Sixers need to be careful of falling into that iceberg theory of success. They need to make sure they’re looking at what the Spurs do from season to season rather than what their final product looks like. Yes, the Spurs are a force to be reckoned with, but how do they get there? What goals and metrics do they reach in order to be as good as they are every year?
The Spurs are a team that is every analytically-minded basketball person’s favorite. They do everything right, eliminating wasteful shots and implementing better ways of getting point totals up. That’s just on the offensive end. They also pride themselves on their defense, something that certainly sets them up for success.
Looking at the numbers, the Spurs were in the top tier of the NBA in many categories, but two of the most important for them were 3-point percentage and defensive rating. The Spurs had the league’s best 3-point shooting as a team, hitting 39.1 percent of their attempted shots from beyond the arc. The next highest was the Cleveland Cavaliers with 38.4 percent.
They also led the league in defensive rating at 100.9, coming in just before the Golden State Warriors at 101.1.
Now, the big blemish is that the Spurs were not able to turn that 3-point success into more points relatively, as they are 14th in the league in points scored. But with them able to hit those 3-pointers and also limit their opponents, they were almost always set up for success. Additionally, the Spurs were the 25th team in the NBA as far as 3-pointers attempted, which is a troubling number considering the rate they hit them at. That seems like some untapped skill right there.
But you still have to hand it to them. They don’t attempt them often, but when they do, they make them count.
In the playoffs this year so far, the Spurs are third in 3-point percentage and fourth in defensive rating. They’ll certainly have to improve in those areas if they want to stick in it. That said, they are second in offensive rating in the playoffs so far, a good sign for them.
Overall, the Spurs emulate the idea of basketball and success in basketball. You don’t have to be a numbers guru to understand and see that it works. Hit your 3-point shots, and limit your opponents’ points, and you will be primed for success.
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That needs to be the mantra for the Sixers moving forward.