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I know.
He shot 29.2% from 3. Try harder for stuff to refute me on. I doubt the latter, but either way that was 4 seasons ago.
He shot 37.4% from 3. Try harder for stuff to hate on. He was also #4 in opp/FG% at the rim in his second season.
I know.
He shot 29.2% from 3. Try harder for stuff to refute me on. I doubt the latter, but either way that was 4 seasons ago.
I have to be honest I was Shocked that he played with the big boy club as he was picked as a "Potential" type of guy and those type generally need to be in G League working on things at one year and usually two years
​I don't see a lot of changes this year other then we probably letting Birch, Dieng, and Langford go this upcoming season. After this season the Spurs will probably move on from McDermott and they will have to make a decision on Collins on keeping him or letting him walk.
As far as new contract looking at Tre to a team friendly deal as he knows he is the future backup he provides some stability. I really like Mamu because he is not that the most athletic player but he plays the beautiful game and I can see him really working with Sochan and Wemby. They are going to be so many cut back dunks and just nice passing to slashing players for easy point with these guys.
In many ways, how fast the Spurs move on upgrading this roster somewhat depends on how Wemby looks in NBA games. If it looks like he’s going to have a 15/8/2 rookie season while only playing in 50 games, it make sense to go slow and continue to see how the rest of these young guys develop with more picks in coming. But if he looks more like he’s going to be 23/11/3 while playing in 70 games, all-star appearance, ROY, All NBA 3rd Team… then we’ve got to accelerate things and start moving those assets quickly. We should know all of this by the trade deadline.
I don't think Wemby putting up 23ppg would be all that surprising next season. 23ppg isn't that big a deal like it was when it was Tim doing it twenty years ago when you could play defense. There were 32 players who put up 23 ppg or more this season vs nine who did it back in 02-03 for example.
Vic might get 3-4 buckets a game just on dump-offs and dunker-spot stuff. He might get 2-3 on putbacks a game. I might be underestimating.
If not for the tank, he definitely would have just been on the bench for road trips. But he proved he can get past NBA players and get his swatted away just like he does everywhere else. This is the year to prove he isn't just a deer.
Given the roster, I could see his assist numbers blow up.
Last rookie to put up 23+ PPG was Allen Iverson in 1996-97. Blake Griffen came close in 2010-11 with 22.5.
While 23ppg isn’t as a big deal as it used to be, rookie aren’t as prepared for the NBA as they used to be either (since everyone is 19 years old now).
Love your optimism, but we have to put things in some perspective.
There were 23 players ahead of KJ in the PPG category league leaders this season. Only one of those players outside of Keldon - Jalen Green - has yet to be All-star in their career. All the rest have.
Counting stats certainly don't tell the entire story but it can put things in perspective at times. As Clark Kellogg would say, "...At the end of the day, this game is still about putting the ball in the basket".
# Player TEAM GP MIN PTS 1 Joel Embiid PHI 66 34.6 33.1 2 Luka Doncic DAL 66 36.2 32.4 3 Damian Lillard POR 58 36.3 32.2 4 Shai Gilgeous-Alexander OKC 68 35.5 31.4 5 Giannis Antetokounmpo MIL 63 32.1 31.1 6 Jayson Tatum BOS 74 36.9 30.1 7 Donovan Mitc CLE 68 35.8 28.3 8 Kyrie Irving DAL 60 37.4 27.1 9 Jaylen Brown BOS 67 35.9 26.6 10 Trae Young ATL 73 34.8 26.2 11 Ja Morant MEM 61 31.9 26.2 12 Lauri Markkanen UTA 66 34.4 25.6 13 Julius Randle NYK 77 35.5 25.1 14 De'Aaron Fox SAC 73 33.4 25.0 15 Zach LaVine CHI 77 35.9 24.8 16 Anthony Edwards MIN 79 36.0 24.6 17 DeMar DeRozan CHI 74 36.2 24.5 18 Nikola Jokic DEN 69 33.7 24.5 19 Pascal Siakam TOR 71 37.4 24.2 20 Jalen Brunson NYK 68 35.0 24.0 21 Kristaps Porzingis WAS 65 32.6 23.2 22 Jimmy Butler MIA 64 33.4 22.9 23 Jalen Green HOU 76 34.2 22.1 24 Keldon Johnson SAS 63 32.7 22.0
Last edited by PhantomDashCam; 06-18-2023 at 07:04 PM.
Was just about to post this lol
thats the problem of taking a "potential" or "project" type in the first round. they get the guaranteed contract.
Wesley was and is still a good swing at that pick. Look at that round. The Spurs only missed a couple players at most.
Wesley jumped into a pretty bad ND team and had to do nearly everything as a freshman. This included bad selection and just trying to get points.
So he came into the league as having bad habits but some promise. I'm not too swayed by advanced metrics. Few players who have as bad numbers are still worked on by their teams. He's still a lot of raw material and most teams don't do that.
I'm sticking with the core we built and so is Wright.
People say the core sucks but then cite a tank season as why and I think that could be a fallacy.
Jones (if re-signed) improved at the end of both of the last 2 seasons. Yes I like trying to bring Jones back, people are underestimating what he brings to the team.
KJ and Vassell are pretty potent players that were just missing a Wemby anchor they now have. Let's see what they do with a winning culture and some #1 overall caliber support.
Guys like Graham Doug, KBD and Mamu (last 2 if re-signed) could play strong roles.
Sochan and Branham hold a ton of promise. Not giving up on Wesley yet either.
I like this core group to start off and then tinker as necessary from there.
People forget the Blake Wesley injury. He missed HALF of the season. Was playing impressively before that.
KJ packed it in around Jan-Feb last season. Look at his efforts before that as a showcase and it becomes hard for any trade to bring at least that back. It's all lateral moves at an insane premium to pay imho. Obvs would look at a deal if another team is just giving away the gold but that's not realistic.
I see where you’re coming from, but also think it’s a little naive to act like a 20 win team is loaded with talent and we were only bad because we were tanking
Our main core guys (KJ/Vassell/Sochan) still have somewhat significant question marks. Branham showed promise but would it really surprise anyone THAT much if he ended up flaming out and not being a serious contributor? I don’t think he will, but just saying it’s not like he had a dominant rookie season and proved without a doubt he’s a big time player. Wesley is a huge question mark. Tre is a solid backup PG but if he’s your starting PG you better have some serious firepower elsewhere.
Not trying to be negative - I really do think our roster has a lot of potential. But the idea that we have all the guys we need and they just need to grow together is probably overly optimistic. That being said I ultimately agree with the idea of seeing how some of these guys play in an environment more conducive to success. Another year of development + fewer injuries + Victor being around could very well do wonders for several players.
I can see him doing that imo tbqhwy. The physicality isn't there in the NBA like it is in Europe, and as long as Vassell/KJ/etc hit their shots to keep defenders honest, it shouldn't be too much a stretch to see him hit that. Only thing stopping him from hitting that are playing restrictions or the inevitable foot injuries fwiw.
That's fair and I prob need to be more realistic. I'm not against making moves and trust the FO that if a deal goes down they know what they are doing.I see where you’re coming from, but also think it’s a little naive to act like a 20 win team is loaded with talent and we were only bad because we were tanking
Our main core guys (KJ/Vassell/Sochan) still have somewhat significant question marks. Branham showed promise but would it really surprise anyone THAT much if he ended up flaming out and not being a serious contributor? I don’t think he will, but just saying it’s not like he had a dominant rookie season and proved without a doubt he’s a big time player. Wesley is a huge question mark. Tre is a solid backup PG but if he’s your starting PG you better have some serious firepower elsewhere.
Not trying to be negative - I really do think our roster has a lot of potential. But the idea that we have all the guys we need and they just need to grow together is probably overly optimistic. That being said I ultimately agree with the idea of seeing how some of these guys play in an environment more conducive to success. Another year of development + fewer injuries + Victor being around could very well do wonders for several players.
It's a different franchise now too, I could totally see the Spurs being more bold and abandon historical conservative approaches. And SA really could use more support at PG and C imho.
One thing I keep citing is this box score from March, beating the full strength Denver Nuggets. 3 months before the Nuggets won the championship the tanking Spurs beat them 120-128.
I feel like the Nuggets were admittedly in the middle of a rough stretch at that point of the season but what am I missing? DEN full strength, everyone suits out/full mins played, playing for seeding, Jokic hits a triple double, they wanted to win that game and the tank Spurs handled them.
The tank season showed a lot of promise even as the team was deliberately losing games. Just gotta read between the lines a little. Wonder if that's what the FO is looking at too. Wright says it himself, "NO" Spurs are not looking at trading Dev or KJ. Straight from the source, if they thought they were underpowered, I feel like we would see a different outlook there although suppose it could be a ruse/smokescreen.
https://www.basketball-reference.com...303100SAS.html
But isn't "a 20 win team" a fallacy in terms of capabilities since the 20 wins came from in some cases deliberately losing games to ensure the #1 overall pick which the Spurs have since secured?
No one's complaining about getting the #1 pick. No one is complaining about getting Wemby.
How do you get Wemby? Gotta get the #1 pick. How do you get the #1 pick? Gotta lose games. How do you deliberately lose games? Gotta deliberately play like . So many games last season where Spurs were playing hot potato with the ball. Where is the line between sucks and scuttle?
Are we still genuinely citing games lost on purpose as a metric for quality assessments? Aren't we genuinely citing what's in some cases deliberate subterfuge? Won't that lead to unsound conclusions?
I agree with you! The biggest obstacle will be health and not just wemby but Vassell & Sochan. If the spurs maintain their health next year I think they could be pushing for the playoffs. A few tweaks between adding wemby, anyone else in the draft, internal growth, and maybe one contributor from free agency joining in we could be something.
Spurs had no margin for error alongside no real PG and still did well many games. With no margin for error, all the injuries really did them in. If SA best guys didn’t miss significant time, they finish with many more wins and that’s before Wemby and growth/leaps from the guys coming now that they will be in better roles slightly.
Spurs, outside of the defense that is somewhat hard to explain, were much better than the other tanking teams IMVHO
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