When Pat Spencer showed up at Warriors media day last week, it was a legitimate and pleasant surprise.

Amid the chaos of the Warriors’ offseason, and given his solid playoff performance last season, it was presumed that Spencer had signed to play elsewhere.

It was no surprise, however, when Spencer — after playing a team-high 21 minutes in the preseason opening win over the Lakers Sunday night — was sent to the dais in Chase Center for a post-game press conference.

Spencer’s presence on the roster speaks to the team’s enviable depth. This is a team with 15 players that coach Steve Kerr should feel comfortable playing for at least a quarter every single night.

“This time last year, I would have said we need to get better. I don’t feel that right now,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy said last Wednesday.

And he shouldn’t. This team has a chance to be really, really good.

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Now, the Dubs will absolutely need all 15 of those bodies heading into an 82-game grinder, because the presumed closing core of Steph Curry, Jimmy Butler, Draymond Green, and Al Horford is ancient: an average age of nearly 37, with a staggering 64 combined seasons under the hood.

There will be nights where the Warriors have to lean on Jonathan Kuminga to be the team’s offensive engine. Nights (starting in November, due to cap issues) where Seth Curry has to keep the lights on. Nights where Moses Moody and Brandin Podziemski are the fulcrums. Nights where you say: What would these guys do without Quinten Post?

And there will be a few nights where a two-way guy like Spencer is asked to be the man.

It won’t always go well. In fact, the Warriors might lose more of those games than they win.

But their depth will steal some victories, and that could prove massive in a Western Conference that is likely to be jumbled from spots 2 to 10 once again. Think: the difference between the play-in tournament and a top-six seed; home-court advantage or starting a series on the road.

In a league where top-end talent drives success and failure, depth still plays a vital role.

Specifically, we’re talking about depth that knows its role.

The Warriors have the top-end talent. They might also be triggered by Taco Bell’s “throwback” Y2K menu and can argue the merits of both the Motorola Razr flip phone and AIM, but there’s no questioning that the Dubs’ Uncs still got it.

So how does the depth bolster them?

How can they pick them up when their backs, knees, and necks (or all of the above) hurt?

It’s not by adding another timeline. It’s about embracing this one.

With all due respect to Moody, Podziemski, and the Gui “EnerGui” Santos, Spencer might be the perfect avatar for what the Dubs need this season.

It’s the reason he came back. It’s the reason the Warriors wanted him back.

Simply put: He’s a pro. He’s a basketball player, not just a “hooper.” Give him a job and he’ll do the job — there’s no alternative agenda at play.

Spencer is someone who understands that it takes more than just the ability to touch the back of the backboard to make it in this league — even if Spencer is just barely hanging on to such a spot.

“I think we value all the same things on a [personal] level, but just as much so on the court,” Spencer said Sunday. “I think if you’re a guy who can connect some of those dots and also do some of the other things, like knock the three ball down, there’s always going to be a place for you in this league. Unfortunately, there are a lot of organizations stuck at the bottom that continue to value length and athleticism and youth over IQ, and they tend to stay in the lottery every year.”

The Warriors tried that length-and-athleticism plan. That’s over. The last vestige of it has until February 5th at noon—the NBA’s trade deadline—to adapt to this resolute path or find a new place to ply his trade.

The Warriors — every Warrior — are playing grown-man basketball now. Professional basketball, if you will. (What a concept for the NBA…) The kind of basketball that keeps you controlling the court at the Y on a Saturday morning.

There’s no room for ego or id here — this is an (extremely well-paying) job that only asks you to read-and-react.

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Basketball IQ is the name of the game in San Francisco. It has always been, but no exceptions will be made this season.

The Warriors are planning to put out a team that Kerr has always sought and, at times over the last decade, even had — another revival of a millennial classic: the mid-aughts Spurs.

Perhaps it will all flop like a Microsoft Zune. Maybe this new, exceptionally old core four are, in fact, over the hill. Perhaps building the entire team around tried-and-true veterans will just leave them tired and blue.

But for the first time since the pandemic, there’s no ambiguity about the Warriors coming into the season. Everyone knows what this team is about and how they fit into the larger picture.

Kerr’s contract expires at the end of the season. Do you really think that’s just an administrative oversight from the man whose coaching mentors — Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich — were Machiavellian to the core?

Of course not.

I don’t know if Kerr is staying or going. He might not even know, either.

But if this is, indeed, his final ride, he’s going to go out on his terms.

And the Warriors might just reach a new level in the process.