The San Antonio Spurs have a long and storied history of defensive dominance during the two-plus decades of Gregg Popovich’s leadership.
Heading into last season, the Spurs had led the league in defensive rating in four of the past seven years, ranked among the top three in that statistic in seven of the past nine years, and had not been outside of the top 10 since the 2009-10 season.
Pop’s defensive formula had helped San Antonio become the model of defensive consistency in the league, but his system didn’t work as well without a certain level of defensive talent, and that’s what the Spurs lacked last season.