My guess is
Jones-Wesley- FA
Vassell-Branham- Graham
Johnson-Mc Dermott- Cissoko or Champagnie
Wemby-Sochan-Mamu
Collins-FA- Bassey
2 way : Champagnie or Cissoko, Rice and Barlow.
The wild card is Diop as i think the Spurs wants to bring him back but he could get an offer by another team. Dieng, Langford and Birch are gone imo.
It’s also legitimately possible that Tre lost his starting position officially last season. His 3 pt shooting hardly improved and it’s likely he was told that since Branham could shoot, that he would be taking that spot instead. So everyone penciling Tre as the starting PG this upcoming season might be completely dismissive of the fact that Branham had that role to end the season, and not because of injury but because it was intentional.
in champganie's 3 years in college, he shot 31%, 38%, and 33% from 3 in his 88 games.
last season in 26 g-league games, he shot 33% from 3
then in 15 games with the spurs, he was hitting 40% of them
im not convinced he's necessarily some sharpshooter yet. yes he's definitely capable of knocking them down, and performed well in his time here last year, but temper expectations some imo
Oh, for sure Jones would be picked over Branham. I wonder if people are going to realize there are two sides of the court? This team is going to value defense of Jones, who can also facilitate, over a non-defender like Malaki.
Again and again this forum overrates shooting. It's like shooting or bust. No other aspects of basketball matter.
according to bball reference, branham played 55% of his minutes at PG last year, yet he averaged 2.9 assists and 1.8 turnovers per 36 minutes. as much as i think Tre is a liability in a few ways, he definitely operates the offense better than branham showed last year
The year the Spurs won the championship TP3 averaged 5 assists to 2 turnovers. I don’t think the Spurs brand of basketball is really traditional in that sense of having a point guard be super efficient with passing the basketball. I think the attack is going to come from a mul ude of ways, which modern basketball is nowadays.
People also talk as if Tre is some stout defender. He isn’t. Him being able to guard only 1’s works against him, and he doesn’t even do that super well.
Jones is the best point defender we have.
Starting Branham would be an utter disaster. This team has a chance to be significant defensively. Having a terrible defender ensures teams will blow up in the first quarter, always hard to try to extinguish. It'll get Collins and Wembanyama in foul trouble and set the tone for game after game to be a loss. You just can't do it.
Unless Malaki becomes a decent defender, I don't see him ever starting regularly unless a lot of players go down.
thats also a team that averaged 96ppg and had a top 5 all time player in his prime being able to just go to work without having the offense necessarily set him up
maybe we’re about to have another one of those players tbh
Do all time greats truly need role players to set up the offense for them? I’m not recalling any right now…
Karl Malone texted. I’m not calling Stockton a role player, but Malone was a recipient of those nifty passes that made it a lot easier to score. Wemby will benefit from a true PG specially in the transitioning period. I think Tre provides that better than Branhan. True Branhan took the starting PG job from Tre by the end of the season. But with Wemby coming, it changes and Tre is needed more both for his PG skill and better defense. We don’t want Wemby in foul trouble helping because the defense collapsed at point of attack if it can be prevented.
I think they know what they have in Jones, so let’s find out what we have in Branham and Wesley and see what works with Victor. Be patient. If it doesn’t work out, and the team starts 9-23, then at least you know what you have and what you need to do, and besides, it’s just basketball. It’s not life.
You're REALLY misreading my post if you came to that conclusion.
You said this:
You're asking for a scenario where Mamu is not going to be in next year's rotation.How in the world is Mamu not going to be in the rotation?
Then I said this:
That's multiple scenarios where Mamu would be out of the rotation. There are two guys he's absolutely not beating out (Wemba and Sochan), and he's extremely unlikely to beat out Collins as well. So there is one spot he can get, and there are myriad ways for him to not get it. The only way I can understand your interpretation of my post to be agreeing with you is if you consider "rotation" to just mean being on the roster. I don't think that's an invalid definition, but most folks I think consider rotation to be the guys who play every night. I think with that definition, Mamu is more likely to be out than in. I do think he's likely to be on the team unless he just doesn't want to be. But I would expect him to be there as deep-bench guy who doesn't play much.So if we're assuming Sochan is one of the backup bigs, then it's pretty easy to see how Mamu could be out of the rotation. We heard from Wright that Collins is going to be back, so we know three of the four big-man rotation slots are taken up by him, Sochan and Wemba. We have heard that the Spurs are looking for another center. If that's the case, we should assume they are going to be rotation caliber. While that may not be true, the team is lacking in centers right now, with Mamu, Bassey and Barlow all being on the smaller side. If they don't bring in anyone else, then it's Mamu versus Bassey. I'm not all that high on Bassey, but Mamu struggled at the five. I wouldn't pencil him into that spot at all. If Sochan can play the five, he's probably starting with Wemba, which pushes Collins to the bench. In that scenario, Mamu is competing with McDermott and the backup wings for minutes. He might win, or he might not. The Spurs may well acquire a perimeter player that would push McD to the PF role and thus Mamu out of the rotation.
I'm glad Mamu feels enough about the Spurs' culture to attend events. That speaks highly of the locker room during a trying season. I have no idea who was there and who was not, so I don't know if there is anything to take away from that.
Do you think wemby year 2 will be as good as prime duncan?
or that branham can run an offense even as well as rookie parker?
You need a functional offense which includes someone getting the team into correct positions. Doesn’t have to be a Chris Paul or magic per se. We saw how miserable wemby was in the playoffs because of poor guard play
Almost every team in history needed someone who can run the offense.
That's why I think we need a PG who's going to guarantee that the execution is right. You were talking about Branham at point, while I think that he has potential to do it, I don't think he's ready.
#1 priority this season should be getting Victor comfortable and everyone executing well around him. Tre can do it, but he's not good enough to start, even on a play-in team.
As for all-time greats, a lot of them needed role players to set up the offense, especially bigs.
While superstars can get theirs, without an actual point guard, the offense stagnates. Just look at the Bucks without Middleton or Jrue. Yeah, Giannis gets his, but it's ugly and painful to watch.
Whenever he had an elite playmaker around him, AD looked like an MVP-candidate. When he has to create for himself, he's questionable to say the least.
Embiid is a ball-stopper and a turnover machine when he gets the ball far away from the basket, the entire team stops.
Even KD ruins the flow of the entire team when he takes the ball and acts as a primary playmaker.
Point being that even if Wemby can get his, there's no way that he'll be able to get his and not hinder the flow of the game, at least not in his rookie season.
Personally, I'd look for a point guard who would guarantee that the team would execute properly.
A shooting big like Brook would be nice, but not a priority.
That's a 2.5 ratio for TP vs. 1.6 for Branham, around 50% better for TP... Branham is still young so he should improve that, specially with Wemby around, but his current ratio is not good.
Edit: I meant Branham, not Tre.
Last edited by JPB; 06-25-2023 at 04:01 PM.
Sometimes we over think A/TO ratios. You don't get assists if players don't hit shots. Jones hasn't exactly had a ton of targets. I'm more into number of turnovers pg at this point.
I could see that being tried at some point, just not initially.
It'd probably mostly be a 9 man rotation, with Graham on the fringe.
In order to get Branham and Wesley enough playing time to show whether the Spurs should fish or cut bait, there will be some wacky lineups and questionable DNP’s.
Yeah, I still see Pop being a mad scientist the only difference is that he is not going to sit out guys for weeks - but I can guarantee they will be games we loose just to see what works and what doesn't work - which I am cool with. Main thing for me this upcoming season is to get enough information as to where we stand with players potential vs what we actually see on court. I am hoping that Blake has worked on his ability to finish at the rim and hoping the game has slowed down enough that he can make smart plays as a PG - As far as Malaki hoping he worked on his lateral quickness and improves on the defensive side of the ball - And Sochan hoping his mid range and 3 ball get better......lots to look at this season should be very entertaining .......oh and of course how Wemby handles the NBA...
Shout out to OP, who pretty much nailed the opening day roster back in June! Only missing Cedi in place of Barlow on the 15. What’s wild is how active we were during the offseason yet the 15-man roster didn’t really change.
True, although the role some players may have should be a bit different than what overall envisioned... I'm thinking guys like Champagnie, Barlow, Wesley and Mamu who were given a solid burn last year for evaluation but shouln't see that much playing time this year...from the get go anyway. Particularly Sandro who looks like he's gonna start the season on the deep bench. Wesley could also struggle to even make the team. Few (no one?) even imagined Sochan would be the starting PG, even though you gotta give credit to Dejounte for wondering if Tre would actually start and someone we didn't think about could...
Couldn't leave a spot for Birch
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