For the past few years, Spurs fans have been forced to live in the past just a bit. As Bruce Springsteen would say: ”Boring stories of Glory Days”. Once Kawhi Leonard decided he would not return, the Spurs headed into a strange limbo-land. They were simply not talented enough to continue the two decades of being actual, for real, legitimate title contenders year after year after year. Indeed, I wrote an October 2018 piece entitled ”Welcome to a new Spurs reality: non-contender status”.
Because they were the Spurs, they were also not willing to endure years of being, you know, bad — meaning bad enough that they could hope to get a top five pick in the lottery.