For me, too soon to say. Depends whom they draft and how that player develops during the year. Lots of factors. Do we trade anyone for more picks, for example, and does that lower our winning potential.
Agreed, with the caveat being that come the ASG Break, if we have the 5th worst record, go ahead and pull a Portland and start jockeying for draft position (this is essentially what this board wanted to do last season instead of pushing for the play-in with DJM). You probably don't have to do much, since our team obviously not be very good if we have the 5th worst record.
Last edited by scott; 04-20-2023 at 09:45 PM.
Yeah but there's no Wemby next year so you lose another year to add some mid to late lottery pick to the chest. Portland and Dallas stopped playing BB those last 10 games also for little chance at Wemby. Does it put you in better position than if you don't wait another year of semi tanking? I don't believe so. You won't put Sochan and Collins in a cage again those last ten RS games to pull a Portland. These guys are hungry. So are Devin, Branham and co... And does Pop want to go that road again?
This guy is gonna get that Ousman Deing hype the two weeks before the draft and get picked late lottery. Watch
The year is already lost at that point, and we'll have proven that we still suck. I'm not really concerned about Zack Collins' psyche in this hypothetical. Portland has been doing this same routine for years, not just because of Wemby. Better picks are better picks, regardless of whether Wemby is the top prize. Late season draft positioning has existed in years other than 1997, 2003 and 2023.
I get a gut feeling spurs aren’t that into Scoot. Less about Scoot himself and more about where they think the league is going, which is in favor of rangy or athletic wings that can also facilitate the offense. Like I don’t think they’re just messing around with Sochan running point. Wouldn’t be surprised if they take a Thompson brother at #2 for example (or whoever the best wing is).
I think he goes top 8. His ceiling is sky high. 18. 6'8" 7'3" Huge hops. That wingspan. Playing alongside Wembanyama and starting to elevate his game. I'd draft him over Scoot and Miller for different reasons but take him nonetheless.
Why the gloom and doom if we don't get Wembanyama?
I just have a problem seeing the Spurs with a ball-dominant, very high usage guard. A lot standing around and watching one player do things. Personally I'm getting more into what the Knicks are putting together. Not them exactly, but having multiple threats at the guard position - Grimes, Quickly, Hart, Brunson. It's a mess to cover and they might be onto something. I haven't checked the numbers, but none of them seem to be high usage.
It's not all doom and gloom at all, it's a hypothetical.
Again, I stated that we don't go into next year tanking (regardless of who our pick is), but *if* we find ourselves at the bottom of the standings and out of the play-in chase at the ASG Break, then it's time to Portland it up and start thinking about draft position. This is a pretty straightforward and pragmatic approach. Whether or not there is a perceived generational player at #1 doesn't really change the pragmatism in this.
This speaks to drafting Miller. In the tourney when things weren’t going well. Miller came out and got teammates involved. He’s not self centric. He actually looked good when he took to setting guys up and playing off movement.
I have no idea how what I was advocating lead to thinking of Miller. He cannot do most of what those guards can do. He has to learn how to dribble, first of all. And create shots for himself. Also, he had one of the worst tournaments any high profile player has had in a long, long time. Not just his last game. All three of them were absurdly bad.
So a lot of the discussion on the draft related threads talk about character/personality/at ude. How about Wemby? Character wise, would he be a good fit on the Spurs? I only ever saw one interview of him and he strikes me as someone who’s got a good head on his shoulder at a young age. Reminds me of a once young PG the Spurs drafted way back when. And speaking of character or maturity (for the lack of a better word), who do you think are the prospects who have that
in spades but also has the skills and abilities we’d want in our highest pick since Timmy?
Indeed Portland has done this for year, but for what results? Not sure they're in better place now and how many years away from potentially contending. they've been irrelevant ever since LMA left and they blew it up by trading Batum too. I don't want spurs to be the next Portland and navigate in perpetual rebuilding.
Since 2010 Portland has had 4 top 10 picks: Lillard (no. 6 in 2012), CJ McCollum (no. 10 in 2013), Zach Collins (no. 10 in 2017) and Shaedon Sharpe (no. 7 in 2022). Not that many, not that high, and scary to think what the last 10 years would have been without those picks.
Those first two were incredible picks. Particularly impressed with Lillard. Collins was a good pick, not at the same level, but it didn't work out for them. He's flashing his potential with the Spurs. They blew the Sharpe pick. He may be good as a scorer, but his knowledge of the game forces him to strictly play in the corners and get lobs on breaks and broken plays. He's also a very poor defender. I suppose there's a long timeline where he catches up with the rest of his draft class.
Sharpe had a defensive rating of 121
Sochan had a defensive rating of 120
So they were close.
Neither were good this year
Last edited by rascal; 04-21-2023 at 10:59 AM.
Spurs as a team didn't play defense. That was their tank. Sharpe just doesn't know how.
Pragmatism is one thing but at some point it you do'nt build a winning culture and give everyone something to eat and be exciting about, you build a losing culture that might be hard to change. It affects the internal and external perception of your franchise and their players. No matter what, that's a loser move, you're giving up (like Dallas did). Most players are compe ors and that's their career, and I'm not sure some spurs players who already had to accept everyone wanted them to lose to this year will accept to fold again and miss a chance at playing at the highest level of their sport in the PO, or at least try, just so their team get another pick and push further away an hypothetical time of revelancy that they might not even see because they'll be traded with said pick...
Can't remember what spur twitted at the start of the season that they would surprise some people this year (after all the Wemby buzz and fans wanting the tank) but that's where these guys are... You can't use them and ask to "waste" 3 or 4 years of their career so a franchise they might not belonf to anymore start to contend. that's why unless you really hit the jackpot several times in the draft, building a contender that way is really hard, specially in SA (where it's hard to get and/or keep) stars.
I don't disagree with the concepts here, but this is likely to be a prolonged rebuild, not a one-year deal and then we turn it around (though certainly we can all root for Wemby to come in and lead us to the same kind of turnaround we saw in 89 and 97). So if the team still stinks next year, it is in the franchise's best interest to play for draft position if all hope is already vanquished. It is the same argument people had in DJM's last season: are those extra meaningless wins at the end of the season worth a worse pick? At least in the case of DJM's final season, we were a play-in team (and you can argue that yes, that is worth it).
All I'm saying is that if we find ourselves out of the play-in after the ASG Break, then it is time to start thinking about draft positioning. Pretty straight forward. But if you want to chase meaningless wins because it might help Blake Wesley's confidence or some , then go right ahead.
I don't buy into Sharpe being a franchise player, he's too one dimensional for that, but with that said, his scoring potential is very high and he's going to be an important piece for them moving forward. He's not a bust, in terms of where he was drafted. Still would take Sochan for the Spurs, though, like I said many times, one dimensional, scoring guards are much easier to come by than long and versatile 2 way wings that can do a bit of everything and exhibit great basketball IQ.
Running to the rim and dunking it or shooting a deep three is something he's very good at. I don't think he's a disaster by any means. But scoring in more than those basic forms requires a lot of understanding. This counts as even basic pic-n-roll facilitation. He just has a long way to go. He wasted an entire year tooling around the Kentucky gym looking really cool and generating John Calipari quotes. The problem with players who aren't prepared is that getting court time and the reps needed is hard to achieve in the NBA. A team basically has to give up on winning many of thoes possessions.
Right now he's like a 3-and-D guy with high upside and little defense.
Future Spur Amen Thompson has officially declared for the draft.
Can i get a amen!?
"Thank you for your thoughts, Amen. Now, turning to your brother. Ausar, what the is an Ausar?"
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