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The 2020-21 NBA season is a few weeks away and training camp is underway. It took over two decades, but the San Antonio Spurs finally missed the postseason in 2019-20. This isn’t a knock on the Spurs or Gregg Popovich. Sustained success in any professional sports league is extremely difficult. Despite the down season, the Spurs have some pieces and should remain competitive in 2020-21. However, we could start to see the franchise transition into a new era. Here we’re going to take a look at the Spurs’ offseason, plus look ahead to the 2020-21 season.
2020 offseason
Key additions
Devin Vassell, G/F (draft)
Key losses
Bryn Forbes, SG (free agency)
2020-21 odds
Title odds: +15000
Win percentage: O/U 42.5
Dejounte Murray DPOTY odds: +10000
Devin Vassell ROTY odds: +5000
2020-21 roster
Depth Chart
PG: Dejounte Murray, Derrick White, Tre Jones
SG: Derrick White, Patty Mills, Keldon Johnson
SF: DeMar DeRozan, Rudy Gay, Devin Vassell
PF: LaMarcus Aldridge, Trey Lyles, Rudy Gay
C: Jakob Poeltl, LaMarcus Aldridge, Drew Eubanks
Roster battles
Backup PG: Derrick White vs. Patty Mills
6th Man: Rudy Gay vs. Trey Lyles
Fantasy basketball
Best Sleeper
Lonnie Walker IV — We’ve seen players thrive under Pop after going relatively underlooked in the draft. Walker is entering his third season and has shown improvement over the past year. The depth chart would suggest that Walker likely won’t get too much run unless there are injuries. But if he plays well enough, Popovich will give him minutes. Walker is more of a deep sleeper for 12-14 team formats.
Likely Bust
LaMarcus Aldridge — LMA is getting up there in age. He’s 35 and entering his 15th season in the NBA. We saw Aldridge’s numbers tail off last season, dipping to 18.9 points and 7.4 rebounds per game. The only plus side from last season was LMA took more 3-pointers and actually hit at a decent clip (38 percent). If that regresses back to the norm, we could see another fall off in production, which would make Aldridge a bad pick inside the top 50 on average.