Fischer: Spurs Repeatedly Mentioned By NBA Figures As Potential Home For Young

[spurraider21]

I thought we were holding the cap space for Corey Maggette and Jermaine O'Neal tbh

brad miller, tyreke evans

[objective]

Some of the lack of enthusiasm for Young or anyone in a trade is I think people overestimate the value of the Hawks picks to any team that isn't Atlanta.

They're more valuable to Atlanta because of the freedom it offers them, they can go scorched earth or try to win with Dejounte

But it they keep Young, they're probably locked into a play-in at the worst for the next couple of years, and Young and company in a single game eliminating is very very tough as they've proven.

Basically the teams beneath them are rebuilding or stuck in mediocrity, leaving ATL as the 10th seed by default. They're a big risk for making the playoffs because Detroit, Charlotte, Washington, Toronto ... They're going to be worse most likely and Brooklyn can't really get better until 2025 free agency. And if Chicago loses DeRozan and Vucevic continues to decline, they might be worse also.

[CorrectCrusader]

Wemby ranks #14 in the NBA (min 15 games played) in PIE, only 0.2 behind Kawhi Leonard and Jason Tatum. (Source: https://www.nba.com/stats/players/ad...ir=-1&sort=PIE)

This is just my opinion, but I'm gonna venture to say that the take that "The Spurs are bad because Wemby isn't good enough" is just flat out whack until such time you can identify some other measurable viable that shows otherwise.

But wemby isn't even top 50 in farts per minute, all his other stats are meaningless!

[CorrectCrusader]

Or, with two years left, they might Dame him by sending him somewhere else.

lol so the spurs would just get their lotto picks instead? Did you think this through at all

[Bruno]

To me, it's a little premature to seriously consider Young as a possible trade target.

First, Hawks won't trade him unless he asks to be traded. Staying mediocre with Young is still way better for them than rebuilding through the draft. New lottery draft odds makes it harder than before to do that full rebuild. Spurs just got very lucky to get Wembanyama.

Second, I want to have a clearer picture on the 2024 NBA draft. How good will be the best PGs available? What pick(s) will Spurs have?


Now, if in three months, you're in the case of Atlanta failing to make the playoffs with an unhappy Young and the draft not looking good at the PG spot, I would be all for a Trae trade. He is a polarizing player on and off the court but I'm quite a fan of him and I think he would work great with Victor.

[tbdog]

I thought we were holding the cap space for Corey Maggette and Jermaine O'Neal tbh

That's going back.

[scott]

That's going back.

Though there was a LONG break in the middle of my posting career, I've been here awhile

[D-Robinson 50 fan]

I hope we don’t trade for Young. Atlanta is smart to be shopping him because he is going to be trying to get a huge extension soon. I’m not saying Young is a bad player, but I do think he is a highly flawed player that will be difficult to build a championship contender around.


people think our defense is bad now….. it will be worse with him on the roster, unless we can get a ton of really good defenders to mitigate his shortcomings. Our defense is bad now and we have two guys playing the point that actually give good effort on that end and aren’t totally bad at playing defense. How do folks think it will look with a guy who is worse than both of the guys we have on the roster now and with less talent because we have to highly overpay to keep Young and trade away picks to get him? The Hawks literally tried to build a roster with 2 way type wings to assist covering his short comings and they haven’t been able to consistently do it.

The other thing that makes me laugh at some of the comments about getting him is the idea our shooting will just automatically improve if we add Young. Dude isn’t the most efficient shooter and he needs to have the ball in his hands to be effective. Will the coaching staff suc b to Young’s style and just turn Victor into a more talented Capela or will they convince Young to take a bit of a back seat offensively and let Victor as well as the other players cook more? I’m not saying totally take the ball out of Young’s hands because in my opinion his best attribute is his passing, but he definitely likes to dribble the life out of the ball similar to Harden.

i definitely understand the fans urgency with wanting to win and thinking it’s a no brainer to go out and get an All star Caliber player if we can. I want us to win soon also, but I also don’t want the team to overreact and overpay for a player who would definitely help, but might not be as much help and some might think.

[Ice009]

Someone mentioned that Trae was a Spurs fan growing up. Is that true? Where is he from? Is he from Texas/near Texas? If he is/was a Spurs fans, that makes me more interested in getting him as he'd be someone that really wants to be on the Spurs.

[Mr. Body]

Someone mentioned that Trae was a Spurs fan growing up. Is that true? Where is he from? Is he from Texas/near Texas? If he is/was a Spurs fans, that makes me more interested in getting him as he'd be someone that really wants to be on the Spurs.

Born in Lubbock, dad played for Tech, grew up in Norman, OK.

[rankingtear]

Lean on your strengths. You are 2/3 on the way to a versatile offense/defense core and have 5 projected lottery picks in the next 2 years. Trae is the an hesis of how you should play to adapt to any kind of defense/offense in the playoffs. He runs a heavy pick and roll offense and you can't implement a switching defense with him. Him being a second option does not make sense. He holds the ball longer than any other player in the league outside of Luka. He is 20% on spot ups, 30% on handoffs and 7% on cuts things that would complement Victor when Victor is your primary option, this isn't Jamal Murray or Maxey. If you want him as your first option so that this team is more watchable sure get him, but thinking he would be a great second option is just wishful thinking based on nothing he has shown so far. Victor would play more and more like a wing as he develops, off ball ability and defensive versatility would be more complementary to him as he grows.

[exstatic]

Some of the lack of enthusiasm for Young or anyone in a trade is I think people overestimate the value of the Hawks picks to any team that isn't Atlanta.

They're more valuable to Atlanta because of the freedom it offers them, they can go scorched earth or try to win with Dejounte

But it they keep Young, they're probably locked into a play-in at the worst for the next couple of years, and Young and company in a single game eliminating is very very tough as they've proven.

Basically the teams beneath them are rebuilding or stuck in mediocrity, leaving ATL as the 10th seed by default. They're a big risk for making the playoffs because Detroit, Charlotte, Washington, Toronto ... They're going to be worse most likely and Brooklyn can't really get better until 2025 free agency. And if Chicago loses DeRozan and Vucevic continues to decline, they might be worse also.

Theyre not in the play in this year. They’re not even close. Why would you expect them to be better next year?

[objective]

Theyre not in the play in this year. They’re not even close. Why would you expect them to be better next year?

If the playoffs started today, they would be the 10th seed and in the play-in

And they're 3 wins up (2.5 games) on Brooklyn

[Jordan Jackson]

Wemby and Trae have the same trainer. The Spurs know all they need to know. They are going to go for it. Whether they succeed or not is another story. Lakers/Klutch might be a problem.

[Mr. Body]

Yes, that's right. Chicago and Atlanta are both comfortably in the play-in at the moment (Chicago more so), a reason I think both teams decided to stay put.

[scott]

Theyre not in the play in this year. They’re not even close. Why would you expect them to be better next year?

They are very much in the play-in this year. Currently sitting in 10th, with no real threat from below. Do you ever bother to research anything before you hit send?

[Allan Rowe vs Wade]

Trae and Vic could run a massively sick 2 man offense

[Mr. Body]

I mean, ATL is seven games under .500, another sign of why the play-in was a lousy idea.

[exstatic]

My bad. Hadn’t checked in a week or so.

[Seventyniner]

To me, it's a little premature to seriously consider Young as a possible trade target.

First, Hawks won't trade him unless he asks to be traded. Staying mediocre with Young is still way better for them than rebuilding through the draft. New lottery draft odds makes it harder than before to do that full rebuild. Spurs just got very lucky to get Wembanyama.

Second, I want to have a clearer picture on the 2024 NBA draft. How good will be the best PGs available? What pick(s) will Spurs have?


Now, if in three months, you're in the case of Atlanta failing to make the playoffs with an unhappy Young and the draft not looking good at the PG spot, I would be all for a Trae trade. He is a polarizing player on and off the court but I'm quite a fan of him and I think he would work great with Victor.

Isn't draft night the earliest that the Hawks could even possibly trade Trae to the Spurs? If so, your questions will be answered by that point.

[Seventyniner]

Someone mentioned that Trae was a Spurs fan growing up. Is that true? Where is he from? Is he from Texas/near Texas? If he is/was a Spurs fans, that makes me more interested in getting him as he'd be someone that really wants to be on the Spurs.

It's possible he was a big admirer of the Beautiful Game Spurs. He was around 15 at that time.

He was 5-10 years old when the Spurs were a juggernaut with prime Tim.

[Dejounte]

Tbh people hated Parker’s guts and if he started on another team he would be viewed as a non-winner and selfish as people are saying Trae is right now

[Chinook]

This is just my opinion, but I'm gonna venture to say that the take that "The Spurs are bad because Wemby isn't good enough" is just flat out whack until such time you can identify some other measurable viable that shows otherwise.

First, I didn't say the Spurs were bad because Wemby isn't good enough. That's what you got based on the response. What I actually said was "They're only so bad because he's raw." Then I immediately expanded on that point by saying that once Wemby is closer to his peak, the team will have a better record despite its lack of talent. To support that I brought up the 2009 and 2010 Thunder team which saw an increase in wins from 23 to 50 based almost entirely on Durant becoming an MVP candidate.

So to say it plain, the Spurs have three things going against them right now that are contributing to their poor record. 1) Their roster isn't good. 2) They do not have a win-now posture. 3) They lack a star who's able to carry the team. If they had any of those three, their record would be better. So if they had a star who could carry them, they'd have a better record. They don't have that right now, which is why I can say, "They're only so bad because he's raw." The point is not to blame him for being a rookie. But it's to explain where he is right now and why that should factor into what moves the Spurs should make. Victor still has growing to do, and that growth doesn't depend on them making an immediate trade for a young max player. That's all I'm going to say about that, since I know you fully understand my opinion on what I'd like the Spurs to do is not that I want them to stand pat and just rely on their guys improving.

Wemby ranks #14 in the NBA (min 15 games played) in PIE, only 0.2 behind Kawhi Leonard and Jason Tatum. (Source: https://www.nba.com/stats/players/ad...ir=-1&sort=PIE)

So I won't bury the lede and say right away that I hadn't paid enough attention to how the stats have changed recently. I now see that Wemby has climbed in terms of team-relevant advanced stats on BBRef, and I'll take the L in that respect. It's not as easy at it used to be to find a suite of stats to compare in order to come to a fuller conclusion. Apparently a lot of the advanced stats we've been able to use over the past few years are dead now. Disney/ESPN killed RAPTOR and RPM. I can't say I've looked a ton into PIE before. From a bit of a search, it looks like it's the NBA's attempt to adjust Hollinger's PER in order to incorporate more defensive stats. It would make sense then that Wemby is higher there than he is in PER (22nd). They're both good numbers, obviously. But if PIE has a similar statistical basis as PER, then it's usage based, favoring players that end a lot of possessions. It tends to correlate with usage and not team production, though since teams with good players tend to win games and superstars tend to use a ton of possessions, it still correlates somewhat with good teams.

A stat that scales better with winning is win-shares, mainly because it's supposed to align with expected wins, which are supposed to average out to equal actual wins when looking at the whole league. It's true then that players on successful teams will have more "wins" to divide up than players on bad teams. Nevertheless, Victor ranks 189th in the league in that category, behind Jones and Vassell and ahead of Keldon by a hair. It changes somewhat when you look at it as a per-minute stat, but it's basically a 30-spot increase for all four Spurs. Win-shares is a stat with strengths and weaknesses like any other, but taking it at face value, it doesn't really show Wemby as a guy being held back by his team as much as it looks like Poeltl and later Collins provided a ton of the win-shares last year and the other players have improved but haven't been able to make up that gap. Again in the context of this one stat, you could argue that Poeltl's impact on the team is being undersold when compared to Wemby, though I do think Victor would have more win-shares if he were this version of himself the whole year.

There are other stats, mainly BPM and VORP, and those place Wemby much more highly, though still in the 35-range rather than the teens. BPM is supposed to be a field-guide version of RAPM, though that doesn't mean it has the same strength. That's more where it seems like the NBA would rank him, and close to where I would probably put him purely subjectively. I would put Wemby in the 20-35 range, with his struggles to play a lot of minutes being a big part of that range being so wide. To put things another way, Wemby should be in the conversation for top-10 before the Spurs start thinking about contending with him as their best player. It's easy to assume he'll get that next year. But then you start listing players out, and it's not obvious that Wemby is going to be in the top-10. He could, but like Durant (and Lebron) before him, it might take another year or two.

[thiste]

« Why The San Antonio Spurs Must Trade For Trae Young This Off-Season »

With no legitimate contention path in sight for the foreseeable future, Trae Young trade rumors are loudly echoing across the NBA world. Enter the San Antonio Spurs, who desire a star to pair with Victor Wembanyama and have the picks to pull the trigger...

https://www.lineups.com/articles/tra...spurs-2-13-24/

A few interesting graphs & paragraphs in there.

[Chinook]

I think comparing expected wins is the right approach to evaluating things.

The inep ude of the roster provides the maximum potential of the team, whereas the coaching decisions guide the efficiency towards reaching that potential. Like I said, the team is bad because it's a bad team. But if we look at the expected win% last season (.197) compared to the expected win % since Wemby entered the SL (39%), that gives us clear quantifiable evidence that Wemby is a variable that is making the team worse. I calculated +16 on expected wins comparing all of last year to the last 22 games. You've gone a step further with some SOS adjustment, which revises this downward slightly to +13 wins, but the point remains the same. Nothing points to Wemby making this team worse.

I don't see why expected wins should be the metric of a player's impact when they're on the court for the actual wins. The Spurs last year overperformed their expectations. If we're supposed to be looking at a .39 win percentage team over the last 22 games, then them actually winning .27 should be a concern. Last year wasn't just a smooth statistical year either. Guys were hurt, trades happened. The team lost arguably its best player in a trade and lost another to injury most of the season. The Spurs' best lineup last year only got 25 minutes together, as opposed to their best lineup this year already getting 78 minutes. I completely agree with the logic of looking at the team after they fixed their rotation as being more informative, but I also don't think it's fair to compare that to the chaos of the previous year without the context. The posture was even less win-now. The lack of a star was even more apparent. So was the roster worse? As I said in my other post, Poeltl is an underrated part of the story. But why was that team able to scrap together wins beyond what their talent should've allowed but this team can't seem to hold onto a lead? Why was last year's team able to beat 11 teams above .500 while this year's team has only been able to beat four?

I do think you can make an argument that the team is facing a challenge of trying to integrate a raw star and that that is having effects on their ability to put together a lot of wins. That's not the only reason, and as objective keeps pointing out, it doesn't make sense to believe Wemby has much to do with how guys can't seem to shoot anymore. It looks like last year the Spurs were a better team in clutch situations, though they weren't good last year either. Were they better able to execute a game plan last year? Are teams taking them more seriously this year and not letting themselves be caught off guard as often? I think you can actually make that argument. But I also think there's a reason why folks thought the Spurs last year underperformed compared to what they would've done if they were healthy. The scrappiness we see in some of those failed fourth-quarter comebacks was stronger last year. That's not Victor's fault, but I do think integrating him given his rawness makes it harder to have the same level of sustained stochastic bursts.