What's next for Spurs

For the first time since 1998, neither Tim Duncan nor Shaquille O'Neal will be seen on the NBA Finals stage.
For the fourth time since 1999, San Antonio has tried and failed to follow up a championship with a championship repeat.
Yet you're assuming a lot, and unwisely so, if you're thinking that Thursday's Game 5 elimination in Los Angeles was the last we'll see of the Spurs as a Western Conference force.
While it's undeniably true that the Lakers should be even better next season with a healthy Andrew Bynum -- and that New Orleans, Utah and Portland have everyone out West worried -- San Antonio is certainly best positioned of the recently fallen giants (Spurs, Suns and Mavericks) to maintain its position among the elite in the face of this ongoing revolution.
For one simple reason.
As Spurs owner Peter Holt said earlier in this series: "Our core is not changing. I believe that we can [reload again] and we don't want our core guys to go anywhere."
Core headliners Tim Duncan and coach Gregg Popovich are both under contract through the 2011-12 season. Tony Parker is signed through 2010-11 and Manu Ginobili is locked up through 2009-10.
There's no question that the Spurs need an infusion of youth and athleticism more than ever. Duncan could clearly use some springier legs up there with him on the front line to help at both ends. A wing threat that can score would help even more to take some pressure off Ginobili, who had his best season ever at 30 ... but whose battered body doesn't seem to recover between games as fast as it used to.
Even Parker, babe of the group at 26, joked recently that "you can throw me in there" with the other old guys after so many years of long playoff runs and summertime duty with the French national team.
Yet it's also fair to say -- even acknowledging the Spurs' history of finding the right pieces to replenish around Duncan after playoff disappointments -- that this might be San Antonio's biggest reloading challenge.
The increasing depth in the West is one factor. Another is the fear that Duncan and Ginobili might have peaked, which makes fortifying the Spurs' supporting cast even more crucial. The series really drove home the reality that relying on their star trio is no longer enough to get out of the West.
It's too soon to know how the Spurs will address their scoring shortcomings on the wing, which has been an area of concern dating to the near-acquisition of J.R. Smith at the 2006 trading deadline. Yet there's hope within the organization that frontcourt help can actually come from within. Even after the financially motivated sell off of Luis Scola to Houston last summer, San Antonio still holds the draft rights to three quality big men in their 20s.
Brazil's Tiago Splitter said this week that he's committed to staying in Spain next season with perennial Euroleague power Tau Ceramica, but the Spurs are quietly optimistic that they'll be able to lure Splitter to the States for the 2009-10 season. In the meantime, D-League sensation Ian Mahinmi will get the first chance in October to earn significant minutes next to Duncan after an intense apprenticeship this season shuttling back and forth between San Antonio and the Austin Toros.
Another less-discussed asset, either to strengthen the current frontcourt rotation or perhaps help the Spurs fill a need elsewhere via trade, is Lithuania's Robertas Javtokas, who was drafted by San Antonio with the 56th overall pick in 2001 and just had his breakout season in Europe with Dynamo Moscow.
Popovich, not surprisingly, gave few hints when asked about the tweaks in store.
Pop said: "So when you lose, you've got to make changes, right? If we [won it all], we wouldn't have to do a damn thing ... I think that's too superficial of an analysis of any team at the end of the season. Every team makes some kind of changes. So we'll look at our team and see what we need to do. We've made some changes every year, whether we won or we lost."