Yous've got a point there.
All opinions were welcome ITT.
Part of some grand organized thought out plan for the Spurs to subject Wemby to this bull shyte.
That does have comedic value.
You're allowed to put me on Ignore. I literally don't give a .
Yous've got a point there.
All opinions were welcome ITT.
Part of some grand organized thought out plan for the Spurs to subject Wemby to this bull shyte.
That does have comedic value.
Were not tanking this season. Its just we are so bad. It also doesnt help pop limiting victor ubder 30 minutes of play per game
I think the goals were changing throughout the season.
1) Try Sochan at PG / Try to win / Player development
2) Fix the lineup and try to win
3) Toronto is tanking? Crap we gotta out tank them to get their pick
But the whole time thinking "no one is worth the #1 pick, so just staying under Toronto is enough"
This is the right answer tbh
They did not giva a about winning. That's not tanking, they did not care about outcome of the games. Pop tested some weird stuff early
Spurs: Actually said the exact opposite of the bolded portion
Sniffers: Make up their own version of what the Spurs said to cope
Given what Pop said at the start, how they were going to be bad either way and the projected weakness of the top of this draft, I don't see a credible argument for thinking they were doing so.
Two other things indicate otherwise: An (inexplicable) preseason extension for Collins and Pop's continued bizarre praise for Branham (by "catch-all" metrics, one of the worst rotation players in the league).
I'm sure they expected starting a PF at PG and two C's together to be rough offensively, but I don't think they thought it'd be untenable (even though it was obvious).
They clearly thought (hoped?) Collins, Branham, Johnson and Champagnie would shoot the 3 better and along with Sochan take more of a collective "step forward".
They flat out overvalued their talent.
There answer is yes and no.
The front office prioritized trying to develop the younger players in different ways vs playing the high IQ savvy veterans with little room for growth (players like Tre or Mamu)
Since all of our young players sans Devin and Victor are ing trash it led to the spurs sucking . So really it just depends on how you view it, the FO clearly prioritized development over winning, but does that make it tanking?
Tre not getting much playing time?
He averaged 5th most mpg (about 28mpg vs Mamu’s 9mpg).
Also Tre led team with over 400 assists per game so he had plenty of growth time.
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/teams/...rStats-Scoring
He didn't even start until like the 35th game of the season.
Does it really matter? When you’ve won 5 chips it’s championship or bust; we weren’t winning any championship this year so being in the lottery only helps our path to success. That poodle trade was genius no matter when it conveys.
Spurs under achieved. The 17 game slide near the start of the season, during the experimental parts of the season, made us look worse. Winning 30% of those games is an extra 5 wins. Playing Graham more, and your looking at a high 20 win team.
It was a soft tanking
They made sure there was always something to limit the number of win (no PG especially, « injury » time restriction etc)
But once on the court they tried to win the games
I think it was a tank. It better be a tank; if not, we've got huge issues on the bench and in the FO... I mean, if they weren't trying for another high lottery pick, why was there no attempt to improve the roster after picking up a foundational superstar (Wemby)? Why were there so many crazy lineups this season? Remember that Point Sochan became Point Branham, and Tre didn't become the starter until Branham got hurt...
With respect to the last 10 games thing, look at what happened last year (when I think we all agree that we were tanking ). The team was content to get into the bottom 4 slots... the Spurs had a surge at the end of the season, winning 3 of 5, even though we were competing with the rockets for 2nd/3ed in the draft order. But the Rockets won 4 or their last 5, so the teams ended up tied (for a tie breaker that, IIRC, we ended up losing (ie in the 3ed spot for the lottery - which then jumped to 1st overall. Thank you Gods of Basketball...)). The current surge wouldn't have affected a top 4 lottery slot, except that we won, unexpectedly, against Denver. I'm guessing they didn't think the team would pull that off; and now, Wemby is sitting out Fan Appreciation night against Detroit...
As for why,
wtf was soft about losing 17 straight games?
The end justifies the mean; don’t care how we reached the desired result as long as we made it! We should at least have 1 top 10 pick = success for this season. Trust me, the rest of the league would love to have our problems!!
Was this year a tank ? Of course it was. The spurs won a few games early, then someone said hey we're aren't getting a decent draft pick if we continue this, especially in this draft so they started experimenting their way to a 17 game losing streak and hopefully a better draft pick. You don't do that if you're trying to win - are you listening Popovitch.
Injuries (some real and some not) and overall lack of top talent led to more losing so once they reached the point of no return, they actually went with some better lineups and won a few games here and there. The trade deadline came and went with no real changes (other than McNuggets) and you could see the team be more compe ive, actually beating some decent teams.
You could say the team was more interested in development, but how much did the players actually develop ? Branham sometimes looks like he took a step backwards, Wesley isn't that much better than last year and Sissokko developed in Austin. The rest of our backups (like Champ, Mamu and Trey) developed because of more playing time due to the starters injuries - not because the coaching decisions. Luckily some of these guys came through. I think they always had that talent, they just needed an opportunity to show it.
Now that this season is over, we know that Wemby is all that and a bag of chips, Vassell and Keldon are their usual selves- good but not great, Mamu, Champ, and Trey are players that have a future as good backups/part time starters . The rest of the team needs to be reevaluated so that the team doesn't make the same moves that resulted in this 20 + win season. We just need a bit more talent, emphasis on talent not developing talent, and we could be on our way to real contention next year.
So goalpost change is from Tre not playing much to Tre did not start until like 35th game of season.
Heck of a strategy to develop young players: front office intentionally gave Tre 5th most player minute average and not not starting him ala Ginobili.
Though I agree that Mamu did get screwed by Pops.
Sounds fairly far fetched when you reframe it that way.
You're so ing re ed Stop posting. Celebrating for having a top ten pick in a weak draft and saying that was the plan all along. Jesus Christ
It's obvious they were trying to figure out various things:
1) Figure out Wemby
2) Figure out the lineups
3) Figure out what kind of players they have and how Wemby plays with them
4) Development
5) Experiment
Whether or not that equated to wins isn't the point. It was more of a evaluation year. To say they were tanking is pretty stupid honestly. It was a "whatever happens happens" kind of year.
Considering he was the only ing PG on the roster not named Devonte Graham yes.
It was not only the spurs soft tanking but also wemby was not that good at that time
Wemby was promising and fun to watch. But the truth was he was hurting the team with the low efficiency and turnover during the 17 games.
But who care of these 17 games if it helped wemby getting better?
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