Spurs' guard trio must embrace new duties after Mitch Johnson's quote about fit

Mitch Johnson covered a lot during the San Antonio Spurs' media day, but one of the most important topics he dove into was the team's three-guard lineup. His statements should prepare Dylan Harper, De'Aaron Fox, and Stephon Castle to take on even more off-ball duties.

"I see all three of them playing together", Johnson said. "I don't know the definition of a lot more, but more than we did in the regular season, for sure."

While we don't know exactly how often these three will share the court, we should expect them to work together more than last season. Regardless of the minutes, the best way for this three-guard lineup to work is if Harper, Fox, and Castle can be threats without the ball in their hands.

The Spurs' guard trio needs to master off-ball scoring

The allure of this three-guard combination is their collective ability to create shots. Each of them can terrorize opponents by driving aggressively to the rim and finishing in the paint or hitting mid-range jumpers off the dribble. But what they do off the ball is most important.

Harper, Fox, and Castle each need to be floor-spacing threats to open up those driving lanes in the first place. If they can't make shots from the perimeter, it's very easy for opponents to help off the three-point line and crowd ball-handlers, hindering their path to the rim.

Ideally, it's great to have three dynamic shot-creating guards on the floor at the same time. But the only way for that setup to truly work is if each of them can make defenders pay for sagging off the three-point line to contain the interior.

Another way they can dominate together is by aggressively cutting to the rim. Just one of them having the rock is enough to draw a ton of attention, so the others can take advantage of ball-watching defenders by using backdoor cuts to generate easy paint points.

They need to expand on the flashes we already saw last season

While Mitch Johnson's three-guard lineup wasn't used heavily last season, we still saw flashes of Fox, Harper, and Castle embracing some off-ball duties to optimize their time together.

Fox had no issue taking a cut in shots and touches to give Castle space to grow as a playmaker and shot-creator. Harper and Castle also had some good moments on the floor together last season, especially during Game 7 of the Western Conference. They held their own during a big fourth-quarter stretch to help pull away from the Oklahoma City Thunder.

So we already know these three can do what's necessary to share the court. Now, it's about them perfecting those off-ball skills, so they're even more dangerous during their increased minutes together. Not only will this be important for the regular season, but it could definitely be a driving factor behind another deep playoff run.

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