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The Spurs are sitting pretty, we must just stay patient. Two or three moves and we will contend again.
Matt Bonner, Patty Mills, Gary Neal, Dejuan Blair and Jeff Ayres would be a better team than these starters. Let's not pretend they are anything other than bodies on the floor to fulfill the requirement of fielding a team. I am pulling for them, and if the Spurs didn't have a unicorn out of sheer luck, I'd hope to keep a few.
The Spurs are sitting pretty, we must just stay patient. Two or three moves and we will contend again.
Ok but what moves and when? you don't make the market or decide when you feel you're ready that the players you need are just there for you to grab...This isn't NBA2K. The league doesn't exist just for you, there's a lot of concurrence and others teams are working hard too. Never believe you're smarter than the mass or everything will just naturally go your way just out of patience... Being opportunistic or audacious can pay too sometimes, and better.
What we got with the Big 3 was extremely rare and can't be duplicated. We shouldn't consider we're gonna just find our new TP and Manu just like that if we wait enough and rule the NBA for the next decade...
Last edited by JPB; 03-08-2024 at 04:24 AM.
Manu came on board 6 years after Tim was drafted, Tony 4 years.
I understand what you are saying but Spurs knew what they had with David, there was no question about style of play or positioning. In Victor case we even have threads on this board saying he should play on the perimeter and becoming a taller version of Kevin Durant or even why not a taller Magic...
Besides David was already a grown ass man with not so many questions around his health, longivity etc... like in Victor case.
Victor can show his frustration regarding losing but at the same time, his integration and evolution as a player have been off the chart. I watched a lot of Victor before he joined the Spurs there is no way I could have predicted what Victor achieved in the months of January and February... only thing I was not too far off is points and rebounds but his passing is something else, I was way off on the block and steal department also, finally we all expected a defensive force but being with no question at a minimum the second best defender of the league ?no way.
We can give FO tons of crap but letting him do what he wants in the beginning and helping him improve so much is worthy of praise. He maybe could have achieved that with a more robust and sound roster maybe not. At the end 10 or 15 more wins don't matter and you lose a chance to high pick draft. This draft sucks for sure, one more reason to draft as high as possible.
No question about Patty, Bonner shooting is missing but neal, blair and Jeff
Do y'all think that Wemby's timeline is a factor in the Spurs rebuild?
Of course it's well known that PATFO don't skip steps.
It's also well known that players in the 7'2" and above range have shorter careers, historically.
These two factors seem at odds with each other.
Durant would be absolutely ideal for this team but I don’t think it’s a realistic get right now. Maybe next summer but I doubt they mess with their big three after just one mostly unhealthy season. But you know who might be a realistic get? Durant lite over at NO, Brandon Ingram. I think he would be a perfect fit with Wemby and I think there’s a good chance NO gets eliminated in the first round. If they do, I expect they will trade one of the big two Ingram or Zion because they need to reset their cap issues a bit. There’s been rumblings of that happening for over a year but if they disappoint in the playoffs this year I expect it to become a reality this offseason.
Doesn't Ingram only have one year left on his contract? We would have to trade for him and then immediately give him a new contract. I think in this case he would have to demand out or indicate that he won't re-sign with the Pels for them to trade him. It would be nice though to be able to sign him outright once he hits free agency, but I don't know the Pels future plans well enough to guess if they believe he is the cornerstone. I think getting rid of CJ would be better for them than Ingram
I sort of agree but I think that CJ would be a tough trade, in fact he might be a negative contract. He’s getting up there in age and his performance is so so but he costs a lot. I think they might want to get rid of Zion more than Ingram too but again he’s a bit of a tough trade with his injury history. So I’m not sure but I expect they will be talking to teams this offseason so they will listen to offers.z
Not even first season over and this is the I have to see on my time line…
https://news4sanantonio.com/amp/news...series-rangers
Prime Blair was a rebound/foul machine!
No question about Patty, Bonner shooting is missing but neal, blair and Jeff
Honestly I cannot see them being much worse than this team, but the team wasn't that bad last night (or SAC played down to them).
Last edited by TD 21; 03-08-2024 at 06:25 PM.
Thanks for posting these. The article has some great points.
Victor turned a corner in late December; on December 27 the Spurs had played 29 games. Tre Jones was put into the starting lineup on January 4, the Spurs' 34th game. A lot of people here seem to look at just the Spurs' record and conclude that this team is no better than last year's, but that ignores just how bad the team was before Tre Jones was a starter.He's starting to draw regular double-teams in the post. He is approaching one point per possession directly out of isolation plays -- the break-even point where they become an acceptable part of an offense -- since Dec. 27. Before that, he averaged 0.64 points -- one of the worst marks in the league, per Second Spectrum.
Those first two rows are night and day. The Spurs with Tre Jones as a starter are much better than last year's team, and much much better than this year's team with Tre coming off the bench.
SEASON SCORED ALLOWED DIFF/GAME EXP WIN % EXP RECORD (82 GAMES) ACTUAL RECORD 2023-2024 (first 33 games) 3661 4053 -11.9 19% 6-27 (16-66) 5-28 2023-2024 (last 30 games) 3422 3531 -3.6 39% 12-18 (32-50) 8-22 2023-2024 (all) 7083 7584 -8.0 28% 18-45 (23-59) 13-50 2022-2023 9269 10092 -10.0 23% 19-63 (19-63) 22-60
Point differential and expected record are far better predictors of the future than actual record. Last year's team overachieved when it came to actual record, while the better version of this year's team (last 30 games) has significantly underachieved. That comes from losing lots of close games.
And before all the "our team sucks cause they can't win close games" chatter starts, performance in close games is very volatile from year to year and is an even worse predictor of the future than overall wins and losses.
It’s funny, on Lowes recent podcast he was doing some damage control for Windhorst’s take. It was clear someone got to ESPN on this sprawling narrative, which I’m sure now has people making up fake trades and other such nonsense.
Great slices and looks at the data - thanks for posting!
I liked this section from the Lowe article, especially the last bolded piece:
The Spurs have the cap flexibility and draft assets -- a bounty of extra first-round picks and swaps, including the possibility of a second top-10 pick this season from the Toronto Raptors -- to do just about anything around Wembanyama. They can be aggressive and calculated at once -- upgrading step by step without torching the future.
The Spurs can be quite aggressive this offseason while not going "all-in" (as some posters make it seem). We have enough assets to make a big move without leveraging our future, and this is what this FO deserves a lot of credit for (perhaps more than anything else as of late). Let's see how they execute the amazing position they've put us in.
Your last sentance is the important part. The Spurs have a lot of draft assets. You can build through those over time, but IMO that's not an optimal course with Wemby. They should be smart and seek to improve via trade with some of those assets while not emptying the cupboard. Cashing in draft assets doesn't mean you can't make moves later on either. Whatever they would bring back in a trade should have value later on as well. I just don't get the view that the Spurs should not do this and seek to use every one of those picks.
Not to mention that using all of the picks is simply not feasible unless you're willing to cut the cord on players who aren't working after one or two seasons (which isn't really the Spurs MO, nor is it what folks on this board like to do either)
I have been saying this over and over. The Spurs are “in” most of their games. They’re 7-22 in close games, which is the mark of a young team that doesn’t know how to execute in the clutch. That’s not the same as a team getting their ass kicked by 20 every night.
They don’t need to sacrifice their future by giving away all the valuable assets they’ve acquired. They’re very likely getting 2 more top 10 picks this year. After the year Wemby had, his gravity will make it easier to find some reasonably priced vets who can bring maturity to the court, and teach the younger players how to win those close games.
By this time next year, the conversation will be very different.
No it won’t. When we’re a play in team, they’ll that we’re not a playoff team. When we’re a playoff team, they’ll that we’re not a top seed. When we’re a top seed they’ll that we’re not a champion. When we’re a champion, they’ll that we’re not back to back. When we’re back to back, they’ll that we’re not a three peat.
Seeing a pattern?
�� Yea, I see your point about the conversations on this forum. I was really implying that these “national” conversations about “Wemby will leave the Spurs” will die down as the team makes the minor adjustments needed to start winning these close games and gets closer to contending for a le.
The latest agenda driven Spurs hit piece: Brian Windhorst & The Hoop Collective on Apple Podcasts
Idk, I found this a pretty good episode that’s fairly spot on with what we’ve been discussing on this board.
I listened to it this morning and it was crap. Windhorst trying to quiet down the noise that ESPN is pushing a narrative about Wemby while simultaneously pushing that narrative; and Andrew Lopez was lame as well. Windhorst kept repeating that he'd be shocked if the spurs made any trades because SA has never been active with trading draft picks in the past. I just wondered how Bontemps and Lopez up didn't point out that the Spurs have never had such assets at their disposal before and, because of their great success over a 20 year span, also never had to make blockbuster trades. Windhorst just kept repeating that the Spurs are just going to go about building the team based on the OKC model but that this would take too long, and Wemby's comment about "running up the stairs" had GMs and NBA execs gasping and proclaiming that not even LeBron made such bold proclamations when he was a rookie. All Lopez said was that Wemby is far ahead of schedule and this is causing a problem for how the spurs will address building their team. The one thing I got out of it is that Lopez, for being designated the ESPN official Wemby reporter, doesn't have any insight. Mike Finger probably has more internal knowledge. They were a little more accurate when discussing who, besides Vassell, is a viable candidate to being a long-term teammate of Wemby's.
Last edited by rjv; 03-18-2024 at 07:04 PM.
Maybe you haven't heard much of these clowns act, but Bontempts in particular went full Bontempts here, with his usual anti Wembanyama/Pop agenda.
Windhorst is one of the better national media big wigs as far as abstaining from that type of unprofessional behavior, but can never help himself when it comes to Pop.
We get it. They don't like him or the fact that they got another GOAT level prospect (didn't have any problem with the S bag screw job though), but it'd be nice to hear one segment about this team that isn't a mix between that and now Wembanyama fear mongering.
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