They'll win more than 30 barring a Wemby injury tbh
Even if CP0 only plays half the year, all of these starting lineup combos are significant upgrades over the Point Sochan/Keldon/Champ/Collins experiment for 20 games last year:
-CP3 + Barnes/Castle
-Tre/Castle + Barnes/Castle
Yes, however players don’t improve by themselves alone. If Pop isn’t committed to teaching and developing these guys, lineups won’t matter as much. Any bad habits developed last season, Pop and his staff need to correct them this season. Barnes is a good acquisition. Definitely not sold on Paul at this stage of his career. He can’t beat his man, no explosiveness. Gonna need to run a lot of motion for him to get Victor open looks.
Last edited by djohn2oo8; 07-09-2024 at 09:34 AM.
imo the playing for Pop angle also matters, though not as much.
Not a given, but based on the actual one year contract, it seems like it may have been discussed. That one year deal gives him absolute trade veto power. It also seems like if he were going to stay, they would have structured it as a 1+1 with a sweetener for next year if he stayed all year, or even an option to return.
I really think a lot of it is addition by subtraction. Just going to blurt out a bunch of things hurting us last year:
- We spent a chunk of the season having Sochan play PG which was obviously a terrible fit
- Branham and Wesley were combining to average 35 mpg and were statistically two of the worst players in the league
- Champagnie is a solid guy for spot minutes, but was being asked to start and play 20+ mpg
- For the first half of the year, the team clearly had no idea how to play alongside Wemby (+ he was at his rawest)
- Kinda goes with the point above, but for the first part of the season they were playing Wemby at PF a bunch (not ideal)
So when we’re talking about CP3/Barnes/Castle, it’s really important to consider the context. CP3 and Castle don’t need to be all-stars to be a major upgrade over Branham and Wesley. Barnes doesn’t need to be amazing to be an upgrade over being forced to play Champagnie 20+ mpg.
I truly think that even if Wemby/Vassell/Sochan/Branham don’t improve at all + CP3/Barnes are around the level they were at last year + Castle is a non-factor as a rookie then the Spurs will still be knocking on the door of 30 wins. That’s close to the worst case scenario ignoring injuries IMO.
Start to throw in a couple of those guys improving, or Wemby taking a massive leap, or CP3/Barnes having a revival in a new situation…35-40 wins absolutely becomes possible. As you get into that 38-40 win territory it becomes less likely because that that point you need lots of those things I just mentioned to happen. But if only one or 2 of those things becomes true they’re still a 32-35 win team IMO.
Yeah they’re gonna close that loophole, a top55 projected has more chance to hit than that guy had to stick.
great touch!!
There have been arguments here about whether we were tanking last year, but if you were on the YES side of that, just taking the proverbial foot off the brake ought to be good enough for 30 wins. We should also pick up some cheap wins from the armada of tanking teams.
They always do that after the Spurs leverage something. The trade/cut/return thing went on for YEARS, but when we did it with Brent Barry, they closed the loop the next year.
I think Paul wants to be a coach, I think he views Pop as one of the best ever & this as a coaching internship under a great. Also think Pop has lost almost all his fire, but Paul has it & will get onto guys the way Pop did in the 00’s.
If this is true & Paul is done ring chasing as a player, he may have just made the best possible move to set himself up to ring as a coach. Learn from the best, go play with the best youngster/foundational piece in league, move to bench as assistant & position yourself to take over when Pop retires in 3 yrs as Wemby approaches his prime.
I meant he's second place on the team, not league wide that was my bad.
Your second point is completely untrue, he raised his fielding goal percentage in the paint (62.4% last season compared to the ghastly 51.2% his rookie season) and became adapt at the 'drop-off' pass inside. Blake was only blocked 15 times in 61 games last season. Which ranked 10th on the team, while Sochan was blocked the most.
He still has a long ways to go as an offensive player (self-creation and perimeter scoring need to take big leaps for him to stick around long-term), but his playmaking and defense improved last season.
Some of y'all just get a kick out of dogging out anyone not named [insert best player here], which is fine but a weird way to root for a team.
Last edited by J_Paco; 07-09-2024 at 12:38 PM.
Or he can pull a Kevin Willis and play until he's way past it.
I know it sounds unrealistic, but I can see CP3 staying here for longer.
24-25: Starter.
25-26: Castle's backup.
26-27: Third stringer and player/coach, hoping Wemby carries him to a ring.
Looking around, obviously things change during the season, but not many actual contenders will need a backup point guard, even if his name is Chris Paul.
If we assume that 8 teams are legit contenders (Denver, OKC, Minny, Mavs, Celtics, Sixers, Bucks, NYK), I'd say that only Denver needs a legit backup point guard, others have different needs when it comes to ring chasing veterans.
I wonder what SpursTalk would have been saying after we signed Dominique Wilkins.
They'd be brutal. He's 64 yrs old. Don't think he's gonna get us many wins, but would be good for the tank.
I honestly don't ever remember how I felt about it at the time. While we did end up "tanking" that year, that wasn't the plan going into the season, as we didn't know those injuries would happen. Kind of goes to show how stupid our FO was back then. We were coming off a 2nd round playoff loss, only two years removed from the best record in franchise history and a WCF appearance, and our "big move" was signing 37-year old Dominique Wilkins. Honestly it was amazing 'Nique still averaged 18.2 ppg that year.
Wtf are you talking about? Wilkins was signed as an injury replaCement for wells everything that went wrong that year. It was less about winning then putting buts into seats. Everyone knew he was washed, do you think he was available for free bc of mass amnesia? .
Is that what happened? I honestly don't remember - appreciate you correcting the record.
Looks like he was signed on Oct 4, 1996. The first game of the year was on Nov 1. I remember David entering with the season with a back injury that caused him to miss the first 20 or so games, and then he game back for a handful of games and broke his foot. What was the story behind Nique being signed?
He did finish 7th in 6MOY voting that year!
He's second on the team only because they calculate it on the team page. He's not on the league leaders list because the sample size is unreliable. In other words, you can't judge anything off the stat.
He got better as the season wore on but he has not returned to the level he was at prior to his knee injury, which is highly disappointing for those of us who are rooting for his game to catch up to his physical gifts. Thus far, they have not. He needs to come to camp vastly improved as a three point threat, and he needs to have learned a floater and how to draw fouls. His passing, even if it's as good as you think it is, ain't enough to keep him out of China.
I did find this article from the NYT when we signed him. Mentions that we signed him to backup Elliott, but no mention of injuries. https://www.nytimes.com/1996/10/04/s...the-spurs.html
It was a league min deal, of course.
Good point & (depending how fast his schtick gets old) that may not be bad. CP3 has declined most everywhere, but he is still & will remain a great passer largely based on vision/understanding. He was 12th in NBA Ass/game, 28th overall sharing with Curry. His teammates will have to make the right moves cuz Paul can’t simply create those angles anymore, but he can put the ball in the right spot.
Re:PG, that’s definitely a who knows, but I think 37 Conley is the only true NBA PG rostered right now. They lost KA who did a lot of that, & maybe Dilly proves an NBA PG, but a champ contender relying on an old Conley & maybe a PG/untested 20y/o Dilly is scary. 2nd apron, so it has to be a min guy or a salary dump (and can’t aggregate outgoing players). I don’t want to help them, but Tre would b a great fit there. Dependable backstop, his D can be covered, expiring K. Prob is they’re $17M over the 2nd apron, so basically have to move McDaniels, KAT, or Gobert which prob drops them from contention. Very tough spot for them, unless I’m missing someone Conley can’t go down or decline, Dilly basically has to work out as a Rook PG, a 28y/o who played in Serbia last yr shocks or Ants playing a lot of PG.
Good point.
The Nuggets are supposedly the only team (inexplicably) interested in Westbrook, so he'll probably eventually be traded to them. If Lowry re-signs with the 76ers (Suns also in the mix), that takes them out.
The Thunder could make sense, but probably only for non Gilgeous-Alexander minutes and he's not interested in a bit part.
For someone who's done a lot of bouncing around in recent years, fleeing to an L.A. team, who aren't guaranteed to be markedly better than the Spurs at this point, doesn't make much sense.
He appeared in 61 games and tallied nearly 900 minutes (876), and he was still second on the team when adjust on a per 36 minutes (6.8) and 100 possessions (9.0), so his numbers still hold up.
I agree that he needs to improve with his perimeter jumper and self-creation, so not sure why you brought that up. And that he'll need to show a lot more on offense (as scorer) to have a long-term role.
Well, he can't ing pass. Being second on a team that is famous for freezing Victor out isn't proof that he's useful.
tbh
shoulda given CP0 another 6k imo
Lord, can't argue against the facts and statistics that validate my opinion so go with the 'Victor didn't get the ball/was frozen out" cliche.
I can't find the official numbers, but I'm pretty certain that Wesley played a majority of his minutes with Collins at center. We agree on his deficiencies, but I think he made solid improvements in playmaking and his overall decision making, but want to harp on this false perception that he's not a good playmaker.
Anyway, have a good Summer and hopefully either Malaki or Blake improve enough to be the long-term "ish" SG.
Last edited by J_Paco; 07-10-2024 at 03:18 AM.
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