On ESPN.com, Marc Stein gets 1,811 into his "Weekend Dime" before he talks about the Spurs. On SI.com, the top 2 headlines are about Derrick Rose and George Karl, and the only columnist tackling the Spurs on their NBA page is a narrow look at Gary Neal, by Lee Jenkins. The Spurs are not one of the top five headlines right now on NBA.com. On Foxsports.com NBA page there is finally an article about the fact that the Spurs, not the Lakers, Celtics or Heat, are the only team currently on pace for 70 wins. Of course, it's buried underneath a story on Phil Jackson losing to the Bulls, and the Heat getting their groove back. Maybe it's because the Spurs are "boring." Maybe it's because no one has ever cared about Tim Duncan. Maybe it's because people are afraid to praise Tony Parker since his divorce story broke. Maybe it's because the Spurs have yet to play the big three teams. Or maybe it's because people are sleeping on the San Antonio Spurs.
The Spurs though, should be the story right now. After ripping off four straight wins, the Spurs 19-3 mark currently stands atop the NBA. There are a lot of reasons to say that it's not a fluke either. For starters, their point differential of 9.6 is tops in the league. The Spurs are third in scoring, and though they are allowing more points than a typical Spurs team, they are still a very respectable 11th in points allowed. But while allowing 97.3 points per game seems like blasphemy for the team that twice in the Popovich reign has allowed less than 85 points per game, the Spurs actually allowed 96.3 points per game last season, so this shouldn't be a huge surprise. No, the surprise is the offense. Last year's Spurs team was the first under Popovich to average more than 100 points per game, as they scored an average of 101.4. But this year's squad is blowing that out of the water, at 107.0, a mark bettered only by the run 'n' gun squads in Phoenix and New York.
Looking at the offense, this also doesn't seem like a fluke. The Spurs have scored 100 or better in 16 of their 22 contests, and there is also no ridiculous game artificially pushing their average up. Their high is 124, but that was in an overtime game. Their regular time high is 122, against the Pacers in their first game of the season. Taking the 16 games in which they've topped 100 points as a whole, they are averaging 111.6 points, and 11 of the 16 games have been within +/- five points of that average, showing just how consistent they have been. And while the schedule hasn't been brutal, it wouldn't offend Gordon Gee either. The Spurs have put up 106 on Orlando, the league's third-best defensive team (in terms of points allowed), and twice have dropped 109 on New Orleans, the league's second-best defensive team. They also dropped 117 in Oklahoma City, and 103 on the Bulls, a team that is currently being celebrated for holding the Lakers to 84.
Have the Spurs had their fair share of cream puffs on the schedule? Absolutely. They have twice beat the Clippers, Timberwolves and Warriors, and have also taken the 76ers and Cavaliers to the woodshed, so this new Spurs offensive juggernaut is far from assured over the course of 82 games. But with Richard Jefferson hooked up to the juvenation machine ($1, Simmons) Tim Duncan has been pushed to an unfathomable fourth in points per game on his own team (he's never finished lower than second). That right there is as good a reason as any to believe this will continue. The Spurs are averaging 107 points per game, and Duncan is only contributing 13.6 a game. This is a team that routinely needed 22 out of Duncan just to get to 95 a game. And while that 107 a game may eventually dip to 105 or 103, this is uncharted, and more importantly, exciting water for the Popovich-Duncan Spurs. So how come nobody is talking about it?
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