The San Antonio Spurs Don't Care About Trends

There has always been a certain iconoclasm about the Spurs that is difficult to ignore. The organization's greatest trait may be its desire to disregard the NBA's emerging trends. They provided another example of this low-key defiance over the summer.

While the rest of the NBA was going smaller and faster—an evolution keyed by Golden State's title run last season—the Spurs got bigger and remained just as deliberate. They targeted and signed LaMarcus Aldridge, pairing him with the ageless Tim Duncan in their frontcourt.

The addition helped change the fabric of the team. With Kawhi Leonard at least now a top-10 player in the league and Tony Parker's game not quite its consistent best, the Spurs' offense has transformed and their defense remains without peer. It has also turned San Antonio into an intriguing counter-argument against the Warriors, who they will face on Monday in Oakland in the marquee matchup of the season so far.

The two teams are uniquely well-matched, and near-perfect contrasts. The best offense in the NBA against the best defense; the glitz and pomp of the Warriors against the workmanlike virtuosity of the Spurs. The contrast will be seen most sharply in their styles of play, the turbo-charged champions against the ground-bound fundamentalists. Unlike so many others in the NBA, Gregg Popovich has resisted the urge to turn up the dial. He's stuck with what has worked for this team for years, and it is working as well as it ever has.

In 2013, San Antonio reached the Finals while finishing the regular season sixth in pace. This season, they are sixth-slowest in pace. They still average about the same amount of possessions per 48 minutes, but the league has sped up around them.

"We are not trying to play slower, actually we are trying to play faster," Manu Ginobili said. "It is just the way it is happening. Maybe we are trying to play faster but then we move the ball a little more than average. That's why the possessions are a little longer. But TD always likes to play with another big and LaMarcus likes to play with another big, so both are trying to learn to play with each other. There's some games where when we have to adapt and play with four smalls but so far it's going great for us."

The Spurs' pace may be more attributed to their style of play, which centers around ball movement and crisp passing and movement. No team has had its players run more on offense than San Antonio. And they rank in the top-four in passes per game, hockey assists, and points created by assists. The Spurs reject the idea that they are getting slower. Instead, they point to their flexibility. Their starting lineup allows them to play through the post. Their reserves allow Popovich the versatility to mix speeds and play smaller lineups if he wants.

"We have a mix," Danny Green said. "We can go small-ball, we can go inside-out, we can still have a good pace, we can play a couple ways, but we're attacking differently. We're attacking inside out."

The Spurs have seamlessly integrated Aldridge into the offense. A player who led the NBA in two-point attempts in each of the last three seasons is just 21st in attempts this season. He is playing the fewest minutes since his rookie season and his statistics have diminished, in part, because of it. But what was already a very strong team is that much stronger for having Aldridge in the mix, if also different for it.

Aldridge's integration has also changed how the Spurs shoot. Long seen as the NBA's smartest franchise, the Spurs are shooting fewer three-pointers and taking more mid-range shots, which goes against current basketball orthodoxy. During that 2012-13 season, they took the seventh-fewest field goal attempts from 15-19 feet away from the basket. This season, they rank fourth, and have taken fewer threes than just four other teams. And yet they remain a brutally efficient offensive team. Despite their pace, they rank sixth in the NBA in points per game.

"Our personnel is different so we had to change. Not our system, but our mindset and approach to each game," Green said. "We're more inside-out, get inside the line, get into the post, but it doesn't mean that we're playing slow. It's a little slower than before, but we still want that pace, we still push the pace, especially with that second group."

Aldridge's addition has also boosted the Spurs' defense to new heights. The Spurs have allowed the lowest field goal percentage to opponents shooting within five feet of the basket this year; perhaps by no coincidence, the Trail Blazers have fallen from sixth to 12th in that category. San Antonio also went from 15th to first in rebounding rate this season.

Their defensive net rating this year, which measures points allowed per 100 hundred possessions, is 5.4 points better than the second-place Celtics. If they maintain the mark, it would be the second-lowest on record, behind only the 1974-75 Bullets, per basketball-reference.com.

"It's been very easy because he's a veteran," Popovich said of Aldridge's assimilation. "If he was a rookie it would be different. But LaMarcus is smart, he's played nine years in the league already so it's not rocket science, it's basketball. I don't know if there's much he hasn't seen. But the part that takes a little bit more time is learning about your teammates and figuring out where to be on the court and how things fit, the roles of everybody. He's settled with that very quickly."

Now, comes the hardest test for the Spurs' new composition. The Warriors are a bad matchup fit for everyone. They can play big or small and play fast either way. It's why they've seemed nearly unbeatable all year, that and the fact that Stephen Curry is a powerful wizard.

But if there's one team that can stop the Warriors, it's the Spurs. The Warriors may be two games better in the standings, but the numbers say the Spurs are even better. Their 14.5 point differential would be the highest all-time, far surpassing the 1971-72 Lakers and blowing away the Warriors—whose 12.1 point differential is itself on pace to be the fourth-highest ever. As always, the Spurs have done it by choosing a divergent path.