Daniel Dunn-Imagn Images Despite injuries, the absence of their legendary coach and a tough January schedule that has tested them, the young Spurs are still exceeding offseason expectations. The Spurs are hovering around .500 at the midpoint. Do you consider the first half of the 2024/25 season a success? Marilyn Dubinski: It’s definitely a success when you look back at preseason expectations (not to mention the strength of schedule), and at the time most considered .500 to be their absolute ceiling, and yet they’ve made it look easy (until recently). Because they’ve stayed around .500 without any big winning or losing streaks, the mood often lies with whether they won or lost their last game because every game can cause massive swings in the standings due to how tight the West is, and right now, it’s a little somber. One thing is for sure: being able to watch the standings with a purpose again certainly brings a new layer of enjoyment to the season that was lacking the last two years (especially for someone like me who turns off the NBA once the Spurs’ season is over). Mark Barrington: In my opinion, the team has exceeded expectations by such a large margin that you have to feel elated. At the same time, it can be a little frustrating to watch, as the team sometimes seems to be gelling into a juggernaut that can roll over a good team on one of their better nights, and then look like like last year’s hapless team on the next night. You have to be excited about the development of Stephon Castle, who looks like a legitimate NBA player just halfway through his rookie season, and the expansion of Victor Wembanyama’s talent set as he adds dimensions to his game. The team is playing with a lot more discipline and poise due to the additions of Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes. The weaknesses are a lack of depth and inconsistency. Coach Johnson has been playing pretty short rotations, and the starters always seem tired at the end of games, which seems to negatively affect the ability of the team to close out strong. Jesus Gomez: I thought they’d win around 30 games, so the fact that they are 19 at the halfway mark means they have exceeded my expectations. Injuries and the recent tough schedule have set them back a bit in the deep West, but after a brutal January, they will likely be within reach of a play-in spot a year sooner than I expected. They’ve done so well in fact that a record that would have seemed optimistic in the offseason now seems normal and fans want more, which is understandable. Bill Huan: Absolutely - I foolishly picked the Spurs’ preseason under of 36.5 wins and even gave it a Chuckster-level guarantee! To be around .500 halfway through the season is a roaring success, and we’ve seen positive developments across the board: Wemby is now a bonafide top-10 player, Castle has been legitimately impactful as a rookie, and vets such as CP3 and Harrison Barnes have made positive impacts. This is a season where the Spurs are playing with house money, so enjoy it while it lasts, folks. Devon Birdsong: It’s an interesting question, because their current record is about what I expected (I think I tweeted something about 40ish wins at some point), but the way that it has happened has completely thwarted my expectations. If you’d told me before the season that the Spurs would spend significant stretches without critical starters, would be in the bottom 3rd in both 3-point Percentage and True Shooting Percentage, and would get next to nothing from their bench (25th in net rating) and backup big men, I’d have assumed they’d be well below .500, yet here we are. I’m somewhere between impressed and baffled that their record is what it is right now. I think you have to call it a success for now, but I’m reluctant to fully endorse that until the 2nd half of the season plays out. The trade deadline is fast approaching. Do you expect the Spurs to be active leading up to it? Dubinski: I don’t think they’ll be actively looking to move anyone in the top half of their roster, but my hope is they will be working to upgrade areas of need, backup center being chief among them. There are plenty of good ones out there on the market for relatively cheap, such as Jonas Valanciunas or Robert Williams, and even Jakob Poeltl might be on the market. Ironically, Poeltl for Zach Collins almost works straight up, or the Spurs could tack on someone cheap like Malaki Branham or Blake Wesley and/or one of their many draft picks to make the salaries match. Who would be against that? (In San Antonio, at least.) Barrington: I don’t think the Spurs will do anything big this season, because they aren’t yet in a win-now mode. I think they’re content to linger around the play-in range and look for big improvements in the offseason. That doesn’t mean that they won’t do some bargain hunting at the trade deadline and try to pick up some depth if the price is right. Marilyn’s idea of getting Jakob Poeltl back to San Antonio for Collins and a Spurs backup guard who’s stuck to the bench sounds great, but I can’t see Toronto going for that unless the Spurs toss in a first-round pick and some other sweeteners, and that price might be too high for Brian Wright to pull the trigger. Gomez: I don’t. I feel like they’ll likely move Tre Jones, hopefully for a big man, but I don’t expect them to drastically change their roster or add any big names. It makes sense to just wait until the offseason or even the next trade deadline to make the big moves since there have been too many injuries to know the ceiling of the current team fully and the veteran placeholders have done well enough to remain in place. Maybe a big opportunity presents itself or someone the front office has coveted in the past becomes available and they go all in this season, but otherwise, I’m assuming the changes will be minimal. Huan: Personally, I’d be more than happy to stand pat: it’s not time to push any chips in yet nor should we sell when the team could make the play-in. Unfortunately, I’m not the Spurs’ GM (or perhaps fortunately given my fantasy basketball history...), so what they do might be entirely different. The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is that the team tinkers around the edges. Perhaps they add a depth player or make a move with salary cap implications for the future, but I’d be shocked if a big deal happens. Birdsong: This is a major case of the heart vs. the head for me. In my heart of hearts, I want to believe that the front office has seen how hard the team has played and is willing to give them a deadline boost (within reason) to shore up the bench in some way. It’s been painful to watch the big man rotation outside of Wemby, and that seems like both the easiest and cheapest thing to fix right now. However, my head is telling me that the Spurs are going to be overly patient here. I think on some level they’ve considered this a bit of a lost season without Popovich and the plan was never to be aggressive anyway. However, as we’ve seen with Harrison Barnes this season, there’s always someone willing to do something nonsensical each season, and the Spurs are always willing to exploit that. I see them like a discerning baseball hitter this deadline: they’re looking for the walk, but if someone tosses a hanging curveball, they’re going to hammer it. Do you expect the second half of the season to be similar to the first in terms of record? Dubinski: I think so. While there will be a lot more road games than the first half of the season, the Spurs are improving in that regard. Still, as previously mentioned, while they have shown they are steady and resilient enough to avoid massive losing streaks (longest being three), they have been inconsistent enough that they don’t have any big winning streaks either (longest is four). If I had to guess, they they’ll continue to hover around .500, and making the postseason will depend on what side they’re on (and what other teams are doing). Barrington: I’m a pessimist by nature, so I expect the team to run out of gas in the second half of the season with all of the road games and the fatigue caused by the starters playing a ton of minutes. I’m a bit worried by Jeremy Sochan’s lingering back issues, and if he continues to miss games, it’s going to be tough for the team. I’m guessing that they will fade a bit before the All-Star Break and have a bit of a renaissance late in the season as they play teams that have already locked in their playoff slots in the last few games. The Spurs could make it into the play-in, but their ceiling is probably one-and-done. Gomez: It will depend on whether they want to keep pushing for a play-in spot. I don’t think they’ll tank — those days are behind us. But I could see them tweaking the rotation to give Malaki Branham and Blake Wesley one last chance and being overly cautious with injuries, dropping a few more games than expected. That’s one possibility. The other is they actually make a move for a center and maybe another bench piece and fully go for the play-in at a time in which a lot of other teams decide to take it easy. I don’t think the Spurs can win 45+ games without a major overhaul, but they could get close to it if they are willing to improve their roster this year. Again, it will depend on whether they want to or are fine waiting until the summer. Huan: Yes! It will get both harder and easier simultaneously, given that the good teams will be fighting for seeding, while the bad ones start rolling out lineups full of “who he play for?” guys. I think the Spurs will end with just under the 40-win mark and miss the play-in by just a few games. That might sound disappointing, but it’s a big success given that most of us didn’t think they’d be close to .500 halfway through the year. Birdsong: There’s a part of me that wants to be pessimistic, but their record in spite of current obstacles suggests that there’s some fight in this team now. Yes, the book is definitely out on them at this point. Yes, they still haven’t quite figured out their rotations yet. But they’ve also got steady vets keeping them on the right track, players are largely healthier, and Wemby is still Wemby. Plus, you can never discount player breakout and development. Stephon Castle in particular has been turning it on as of late, with back-to-back outstanding performances against Western playoff teams before a quieter game in Miami. Even if the Spurs don’t add anyone, they could still win 40 games. And if they do make a move, I don’t see how they avoid winning 40+ and pushing for the postseason.