Fall 2018 Preview - DeMar DeRozan and the San Antonio Spurs

OHHH BOY!!! Basketball season is almost upon us and no one is as excited as your boy. This season is uniquely exciting for Spurs fans. Here’s why:

This is the first season in over 20 years that the Spurs will not have one of the Big 3 on the roster. This is a very very sad thought that makes me want to jump out of a window of a 2nd story building so I get injured but not too bad. This also means that this season brings more questions than any before it in the last 20 years. This unpredictability is both exciting and terrifying. Ever since my biological father, Tim Duncan, put on a Spurs uniform, we have gone in to every season knowing exactly what to expect: superiority. Honestly being at the top for so long got a little boring. All those years of excellence and stability were starting to wear on me. Life was WAY too easy and enjoyable. I am ready to step off of my horse with 10 feet long legs and enter the playing field Rockets and Mavs fans have been wandering my entire life. A new team brings a healthy dose of angst mixed with excitement and I am here for it.

Now, many are counting the Spurs out before this season has even started. Vegas and ESPN have the Spurs missing the playoffs for the first time since 1997. They cite the loss of Kawhi Leonard (honestly, fuck Kawhi Leonard, who needs him, he’s stupid and not even good), the loss of Spurs legends Manu and Tony, and an unbelievably stacked Western Conference as factors that will lead to a disappointing season. These people are idiots.

The Spurs have 2 of the 10 players that made 1st or 2nd team All NBA teams last season. Both of those players finished in the top 10 for MVP voting last season. This evidence suggests that the Spurs have 2 of the best 10 players in a league of 30 teams despite Sports Illustrated’s phony player rankings.

Also San Antonio won 47 games last season despite having a roster with the offensive ability of my senior year UT Intramural team (we got destroyed by every team in the easiest division). Last season, the Spurs’ best player quit and refused to play citing a fake injury. We are replacing that bitch with a bonafide All-Star in Demar Derozan who has a chip on his shoulder the size of a large potato chip after being traded by the Toronto Raptors. He pledged himself to the Raptors in an era increasingly devoid of player loyalty and was thanked with a knife in his back.

The Spurs have an exciting young core of Dejounte Murray (2nd team All Defense), Lonnie Walker IV (2018 18th pick), Derrick White, and Jakob Poeltl (2016 9th pick). Walker and Poeltl are the highest draft picks we have had since my biological father, Tim Duncan. All of them are poised for a breakout year.

Combine these pieces with Lamarcus Aldridge, who earned a place in every Spurs fans heart last season by carrying us with perhaps the best season of his career, Rudy Gay, another year stronger coming back from an Achilles injury, Marco Belinelli, the greatest Italian shooter in the NBA, and Gregg Popovich, the best coach in the history of the game. I am telling you right now: DO NOT COUNT OUT THE SPURS, WE ARE A GOOD BASKETBALL TEAM! I am very excited for this season.