PtR Survey: The Spurs’ best shooters of all time

The Spurs have had plenty of good shooters at all levels in their storied history.

Welcome back to the PtR Survey, where we are following an online trend where fans are voting on players from their team to fill out a grid like the one below. Most recently, we did the best Spurs defenders of all time, and these were the results:

Best perimeter defender was unsurprisingly mostly down to two players, Bruce Bowen and Kawhi Leonard, and the former ended up pulling out a relatively comfortable victory with 100 more votes and 51% overall. Although Leonard has more hardware to show off than Bowen, fans went with the player who’s defense helped lead them to three championships (and perhaps the more loyal of the two).

Best rim protector was also mostly dominated by two players, and it was the closest poll yet. Winning by just 12 votes at the time of this writing and making his second overall appearance is Tim Duncan, who just barely eked by his predecessor and fellow Twin Tower, David Robinson. Again, while Robinson is the one with more actual hardware and was a dominant force on defense, it’s hard to ignore the GOATPUFF. (And it’s worth noting that the two winners here won three championships together and each received plenty of Defensive Player of the Year votes, so it’s pretty likely they took votes from each other, hence why neither ever won.)

Next up are the Spurs best scorers, split into three zones: three-point shooting, midrange, and down in the post. While it would be easy to rely just on statistics to answer these questions, other facts matter, such as longevity, consistency and reliability. (For example, Pau Gasol leads all Spurs in three-point percentage with the franchise at 44.4%, but no one is going to think of him as the Spurs’ best outside shooter of all time.) These are players who had a pure stroke, and when they went out there, you felt like you could always count on them to hit shots.

For three-pointer shooters, the players the best fit all these descriptions while hitting at a good enough rate are below. (This may shock some, but I did not include Manu Ginobili in this one. While he holds many Spurs three-point shooting records in terms of volume, he was actually a sub-37% shooter from outside for his career and was inconsistent from season to season, which at least for me just doesn’t place him among the best. If I’m wrong, vote other and explain in the comments.)

For midrange, which is inside the three-point line but outside the restricted area, we have some expected candidates like LaMarcus Aldridge and DeMar DeRozan, who practically lived in the midrange, but also a couple of surprises. There’s George Gervin, who is with little doubt the Spurs’ best scorer of all time in general, but he wasn’t just your standard jump-shooter. There was also the finger roll, which because it was usually taken from the top of the paint, would constitute a short mid-range shot. I also included a current riser in that category, Devin Vassell, who in his four-year career has made over 46% of his midrange shots. (In case anyone is wondering, that’s pretty darn good.)

Finally, there’s the Spurs best post player. It’s quite possible that like some other topics, a certain player from France will overtake this spot someday, but not yet. For now, we have the Spurs’ two most dominant big men ever in Tim Duncan and David Robinson, plus a couple more recent players who were very accurate down in the post. Aldridge may not be a surprise, but Jacob Poeltl was about as reliable as it comes down low. While the post-up was about all he had in his offensive arsenal, he was good at it, and he owns several Spurs records for offensive efficiency for a reason.

Be sure to vote, and remember, if “Other” wins in either poll, I will check the comments here and on social media, and the most liked will win.