Glimpse of future — today
Murray, Walker and White could be franchise’s backcourt of tomorrow
The first two possessions of the Spurs’ second scrimmage in Orlando, Fla., did not go well for Derrick White on Saturday.
“I started off actually awful,” White said. “Two straight turnovers is unacceptable.”
The 26-year-old guard recovered from his early flubs to star in the Spurs’ 124-119 loss to Brooklyn.
White scored 22 points — including 18 in the first half — and did not play in the fourth quarter as he and the rest of the Spurs’ starting five took a seat.
It was part of what has so far been an experimental two weeks in central Florida for the Spurs.
Coach Gregg Popovich has made no secret of his team’s goal for the NBA restart is to groom younger players for the future. To that end, the Spurs have started in both scrimmages a backcourt never before used together in White, Dejounte Murray and Lonnie Walker IV.
That move shifts DeMar DeRozan to power forward and leaves Jakob Poeltl as the lone big man in the starting five at center.
“It’s just about experimenting a little bit right now and trying to figure out what groupings we like together,” said assistant coach Becky Hammon, who guided the team in a loss to Milwaukee in the opening scrimmage. “We’re just trying to figure out a defensive lineup that can give us a really great chance to start off the game well.”
In the grander scheme, the Spurs are evaluating whether the backcourt they have so far unleashed in Orlando is indeed their backcourt of the future.
It represents the fruit of three of the Spurs’ past four draft classes.
Murray, 23, was the 29th overall pick in 2016. White was selected 29th a year later. Walker, 21, was taken 18th in 2018.
There might or might not be a future All-Star berth among them. The Spurs’ coaching staff will spend the next two weeks, give or take, examining if that group’s combination of defensive potential and raw athleticism can make it a viable starting group.
The young players in question are eager for the opportunity.
“This is something that we’ve been waiting on for a long time,” said Walker, who had 14 points through three quarters against the Nets. “Us three together, the difference maker is we love to play defense. We’re ready to get up under people and play the right way.”
The Spurs’ defense has been slipping in each of the past two seasons.
Through the first 63 games of this campaign, the Spurs ranked 24th in the NBA in defensive efficiency.
Murray was coming off an NBA All-Defensive team season when an ACL tear robbed him of the 2018-19 season. White likewise projects as one of the league’s best backcourt defenders.
Spurs coaches believe Walker has the physical tools to one day join them in that echelon.
There will be growing pains. Walker has started four games in his two NBA seasons. White and Murray have never started together and have shared the court for only 101 minutes this season.
“It’s all a work in progress,” Walker said. “We’re still building up that rhythm as teammates and as players. It’s only a matter of time until that key starts clicking.”
To make room for the Spurs’ new-look backcourt, Popovich has for now moved shooting guard Bryn Forbes to the bench.
Forbes has started 143 of 145 games during the past season-plus, and his 3point shooting has been vital for a group that lacks it.
After hitting 42.6 percent of his shots from distance in 2018-19, Forbes dropped to 38.8 percent this season.
With Forbes out of the lineup, Spurs coaches say someone else — or a couple of someone elses — will need to knock down perimeter shots in order to make the new starting group work.
“I think as this whole shutdown happened and we started back up, we started talking about different lineups and different combinations,” said assistant Mitch Johnson, who led the Spurs against Brooklyn.
“Those guys that are usually out there with a specific shooter; they need to take on that role in terms of attempts. We need those guys to be more aggressive from the 3-point line, looking for those whether they are off the catch-and-shoot or off the dribble.”
There were encouraging signs against the Nets between White and Walker.
The two were a combined 6 of 11 from 3-point range, with White making 4 of 7.
“They’re telling me if I’m open to let it fly,” said White, a career 35.9-percent shooter from deep. “Not to force anything, but a lot of teams aren’t guarding me out there, so I’ll try to make them pay.”
The Spurs will also look to make the first unit functional by pushing the pace and using the speed of Walker and Murray in particular to their advantage.
The team accounted for 27 fast-break points against Brooklyn.
“Obviously I don’t control the minutes, who starts or who doesn’t, but it was fun to get out, just run, go up and down,” Murray said. “Lineups can change, they can stay the same and you build chemistry with experience.”
That experience is a key reason the Spurs, as an organization, were keen on joining the NBA’s restart.
For them, the Orlando bubble makes for quite a laboratory.
To Spurs coaches, the goal for the White-MurrayWalker backcourt is threefold.
“We want them to be aggressive,” Johnson said. “We want them to set the tone defensively. We want them to play fast offensively.”
Like something out of Disney World’s Tomorrow Land next door, the Spurs are able to get a glimpse of what could be their backcourt of the future today.
“We’ve got to figure out what that looks like and what they do when they are all out on the court together,” Johnson said. “Some of that might be something we don’t even know now. You want to see success and want to see guys do certain things, but we’ve also got to evaluate and define what that looks like. It’s a balancing act of all those things.”