George Karl offered an endorsement of Gregg Popovich as the next coach of Team USA.

"I hope he gets the USA job," Karl said. "I think he wants it. He's a military guy who, I think, brings a dignity to representing the United States, and he's also earned the respect of the basketball world."

Popovich has led the Spurs to fourteen straight 50-win seasons and has a .605 winning percentage in the playoffs.

"I think the one thing I respect about him is he puts as many quality possessions on the court, in the course of 82 games, as any coach in the NBA," said Karl, who is sixth all time with 1,123 wins. "He builds a team system that magnifies team but also magnifies stars, which is sometimes a lot more difficult to do than fans think it is. Incorporating the talent of your star into the team. I'm not sure in San Antonio if everybody is happy, but everybody seems to be."

The San Antonio Spurs have announced that they have assigned center Aron Baynes to the Austin Toros of the NBA Development League.

Baynes, who is making his fourth stint with the Toros this season, has appeared in five games for Austin, averaging 15.0 points and 8.2 rebounds in 24.6 minutes.

In 11 games for the Spurs this season, Baynes has averaged 2.2 points and 1.4 rebounds in 6.6 minutes.

The San Antonio Spurs improved their defense by using statistics as a basis for evidence-based decision making.

“This summer, we looked at our defensive efficiency, which for years had been very high. And last year, we went in the 10-15 range,” Spurs general manager R.C. Buford said. “And I think we were valuing some things that weren’t nearly as important as the data showed us. We learned from the Celtics.

“While they were really high in defensive efficiency, they weren’t very high in defensive rebounding. And that was a big part of where our emphasis was, and it made us question is that really where we should be paying attention. And those were discussions that were then brought to Pop from our coaches and from our analytics team. And some great discussions came from that, that ended up having us reevaluate what was important to us.”

The Spurs have fallen from 1st to sixth in defensive rebounding percentage, in part, because they’ve put in a revised defense designed to better contest shots and force more turnovers.

As a result, the Spurs improved from 11th in defensive efficiency last season to third this year.

Tony Parker is active and available for the San Antonio Spurs' game against the Utah Jazz on Friday.

Parker will return from a severe ankle sprain that he suffered on March 1. The injury sidelined him for three weeks and he made major progress in returning earlier than expected.

Despite Parker's absence, the Spurs remain the first seed in the Western Conference at 52-16.

The San Antonio Spurs have recalled center Aron Baynes from the Austin Toros of the NBA Development League.

Baynes, who recently made his third stint with the Toros this season, has appeared in five games with Austin, averaging 15.0 points and 8.2 rebounds in 24.6 minutes. In his most recent game Baynes tallied 15 points and 11 rebounds versus Maine on March 16.

The Australian native has played in 11 games this season with the Spurs since being signed on Jan. 23, averaging 2.2 points and 1.4 rebounds in 6.6 minutes.

The San Antonio Spurs have assigned center Aron Baynes and guard Nando De Colo to the Austin Toros of the NBA Development League.

Baynes, who is making his third stint with the Toros this season, has appeared in three games for Austin, averaging 17.3 points, 9.0 rebounds and 1.3 assists in 26.7 minutes.

Also making his third assignment to Austin this season, De Colo has played in two games with the Toros, averaging 14.5 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 2.00 steals in 36.5 minutes. He has appeared in 57 games for the Spurs this season, averaging 3.4 points, 1.7 assists and 1.6 rebounds in 11.5 minutes.

Gregg Popovich expects Tony Parker to beat the original four-week prognosis that followed after Parker injured his left ankle on Mar.  2.

“He’s doing fine,” Popovich said. “I guess he’s on schedule. Two weeks is (Friday). Initially they told us four weeks probably.

“I don’t think it will be quite that long. I don’t know if I’m being too hopeful, but I think it will be shorter than four weeks.”

Parker has progressed to running on a treadmill, and recently began taking some shots at the team’s practice facility.

Tony Parker ran on a treadmill for 15 minutes as he continues to progress from a severely sprained ankle.

In fact, even Gregg Popovich believes Parker will return to the San Antonio Spurs' lineup before the four weeks he was expected to miss.

Before suffering the injury last week, Parker was having an MVP caliber season, averaging 21 points and 7.6 assists.

Gregg Popovich was asked on Thursday if he may put in special plays for Cory Joseph.

Joseph has averaged 17.7 minutes per game in March filling in for the injured Tony Parker.

"We'll put in stuff for (Joseph) when we put in stuff for Mario Elie," said Popovich in reference to the journeyman role player who played with the Spurs for several seasons late in his career.

"He knows 80 percent of what we're running," said Popovich.

Tony Parker is expected to be out four weeks with a Grade 2 left ankle sprain.

Parker injured the ankle late in the third quarter of San Antonio’s 130-102 win over the Sacramento Kings.

Tim Duncan expressed confidence that the Spurs can thrive without Parker.

“Obviously it’s a huge loss,” Duncan said. “He’s been our leader all year long. But we’ve played with all kinds of different people this year. We’re going to rally.”