LAS VEGAS -- San Antonio Spurs assistant Becky Hammon belted out a near dismissive giggle in June when pondering the mere thought of the organization harboring even the slightest hint of concern about repeating its Las Vegas summer league championship.

"Honestly, I don't think the organization could care less," Hammon joked. "They do not care, believe me."

Sure about that, Becky?

Maybe it's true that San Antonio doesn't express much outward enthusiasm regarding its annual trek to Sin City, but the organization certainly has benefited from the live-game experience gained by younger players transitioning into full-time contributors on the main roster. Two of the team's stars from last summer, Kyle Anderson and Jonathon Simmons, parlayed Las Vegas summer league success into more significant roles in 2015-16 on the regular roster, and appear to be on a similar path this summer. The duo combined for Simmons' game-winning bucket as time expired Saturday during San Antonio's 63-61 win over the Golden State Warriors.

"It's not so much about defending the title," Hammon explained. "We're gonna go in there, and we're gonna try to win. But the main thing is our guys get better, we don't get injured. For me, I need that work of managing that game, holding that clipboard, calling timeouts, dialoguing with these guys."

Based on the team's moves thus far in free agency, it's become increasingly clear the Spurs expect to ramp up the minutes for Anderson and Simmons as the club scours the roster for an infusion of youth and athleticism on its aging bench, which has been decimated by recent losses of David West, Boris Diaw and Boban Marjanovic among others.

The Spurs asked Anderson and Simmons to attend three-hour sessions (2 hours and 20 minutes are dedicated to on-court work), four days per week (Monday through Thursday) at the team's facilities over the summer, and both have even voluntarily kicked up those sessions to five, and sometimes six days per week.

"It's a bunch of things, really [I'm working to improve]," Anderson said. "I would say shooting is a big focal point, getting stronger, playing longer stretches of minutes. I'm not sure. There's a bunch of things we're working on."

As for Simmons, he's working to tweak his jumper by keeping the ball away from his face, which in turn will result in the rising second-year man being "taller" upon release. The bulk of the work done to improve Simmons' shot has been performed by Spurs assistant Chip Engelland and Marlon Garnett, a video quality assurance assistant, who is also serving as an assistant coach on the Las Vegas summer league squad as former Spurs assistant Chad Forcier left in June to join the Orlando Magic.

For the Spurs, summer league isn't so much about the overall team dynamic as much as individual improvement for the players they'd like to keep close tabs on during the games. The Spurs typically go into competition focused on a just few key players, and they're looking for each of those players to meet specific criteria.

Every now and then, an unknown player such as Gary Neal finds a way to catch the staff's attention and earn himself a spot on the regular-season roster.

As of right now, Anderson and Simmons are the only players on the summer league roster who contributed meaningful minutes last season with the Spurs. With 1.3 seconds left to play and the score tied at 61 on Saturday, Hammon expected the Warriors to switch on defense. So she rang up a play that called for Anderson to handle the inbound pass.

Anderson took the ball and faked, which shook the defender, and left just enough room for him to float a pass up to a leaping Simmons. Simmons hit the quick turnaround jumper for the win.

Situations like this are exactly what San Antonio's coaching staff likes to see in summer league games.

"This is a great experience for them. They get out on the court, and they're going against quality competition in an organized setting. It's not like you're just playing pickup in the summer time," Hammon said. "This is a great setting for them to be in situations like this. That's how you build confidence in them, and that's how coaches get confidence in them, too. If they see that putting Kyle in as a decision maker at the end of the game is a good option for us… there's different things that we're always trying to pick up, learn on and also stretch them mentally, and get them better as well as work on their individual game."

Anderson played in 78 games last season with 11 starts, averaging 4.5 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.6 assists over 16.0 minutes, while connecting on 46.8 percent from the field. The MVP of the 2015-16 Las Vegas summer league championship game, Simmons played in 55 games last season for the Spurs, averging 6.0 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 14.8 minutes. Simmons hit 50.4 percent from the field, but just 38.3 percent from deep.

"We've put in a lot of work this summer because we're both looking to improve our games in as many areas as we can," Simmons said.