The San Antonio Spurs have made in the playoffs for 21 straight seasons. But a forecast by ESPN says that this year will be a playoff-less Spurs.

Kevin Pelton of ESPN, in his yearly standing projection, expects the Spurs to place 10th place in the Western Conference with 38.5 wins.

He explained why he came to that conclusion, citing the loss of Danny Green and Kyle Anderson. He singled out Anderson's impact, who is the second-best player in the team if ranked by RPM:

Article Continues Below

The narrative about the Spurs since the Leonard trade has been that they’re adding DeRozan to a team that won 47 games last season with virtually no contribution from Kawhi. (I even mentioned something similar in my trade grades.) The problem with that analysis is San Antonio lost two other starters in Danny Green and Kyle Anderson, who filled Leonard’s spot in the lineup. Anderson rated as the Spurs’ second-best player by RPM last season and Green (minus-0.2) projects better than DeRozan (minus-0.4) by RPM. Add in aging from San Antonio’s veteran core, and it’s certainly possible the Spurs won’t be as good as they were last season, though I wouldn’t necessarily bet against them making the playoffs.

Though Pelton himself pointed out the weakness of his analytical model, he might have a thing going in here. Apart from an aging roster, their head coach Gregg Popovich, too, is not getting any younger each day. Though he hasn't shown signs of fatigue in any way (he's even coaching Team USA), one cannot discount the wear and tear he's been through over the years.