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nothing is ever too early for ST.
Do you think Wemby's 3pt shot selection is commensurate with the league average 3pt shot selection?
Because you have be an above average shooter if you're going to compensate for increased shot difficulty.
THAT'S
HOW
AVERAGES
WORK
nothing is ever too early for ST.
Fair enough, it's a bit of both, but cp3 can't do it as regularly as we'd expect
Same situation, Wemby sets the pick, rolls, is wide open under the basket, Paul passes to corner who just has to quick pass to Wemby but 100% of the time shoots the ball even with a hand in his face. At best waits too long and Wemby is trapped.
That's the type of low bbiq or weak passing abilities that he has to deal with
Sean Elliott called those as well
FWIW I went and pulled the first 9 games for each of these players. Not commenting on it, just to add to the conversation.
Lebron Rookie Season - 39.5 mpg, 20.9 ppg, 5.5 rpg, 5.9 apg, 1.6 spg, 0.7 bpg, 3.5 topg, 1.9 fpg, 41.7/29.0/75.4 splits
Lebron First 9 Sop re - 42.0 mpg, 27.1 ppg, 8.2 rpg, 5.7 apg, 2.2 spg, 1.3 bpg, 3.3 topg, 1.0 fpg, 48.9/36.7/75.6 splits
KD Rookie Season - 34.6 mpg, 20.3 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 2.4 apg, 1.0 spg, 0.9 bpg, 2.9 topg, 1.5 fpg, 43.0/28.8/87.3 splits
KD First 9 Sop re - 35.0 mpg, 21.1 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 1.9 apg, 0.8 spg, 0.7 bpg, 3.3 topg, 1.6 fpg, 43.0/30.0/83.0 splits
Luka Rookie Season - 32.2 mpg, 21.2 ppg, 7.8 rpg, 6.0 apg, 1.1 spg, 0.3 bpg, 3.4 topg, 1.9 fpg, 42.7/32.7/71.3 splits
Luka First 9 Sop re - 34.9 mpg, 27.7 ppg, 10.8 rpg, 9.1 apg, 1.2 spg, 0.1 bpg, 4.9 topg, 2.6 fpg, 48.0/32.1/83.6 splits
Ant Rookie Season - 32.1 mpg, 19.3 ppg, 4.7 rpg, 2.9 apg, 1.1 spg, 0.5 bpg, 2.2 topg, 1.8 fpg, 41.7/32.9/77.6 splits
Ant First 9 Sop re - 36.1 mpg, 23.4 ppg, 6.3 rpg, 3.3 apg, 1.6 spg, 0.6 bpg, 3.0 topg, 2.3 fpg, 40.8/31.4/77.4 splits
Wemby Rookie Season - 29.7 mpg, 21.4 ppg, 10.6 rpg, 3.9 apg, 1.2 spg, 3.6 bpg, 3.7 topg, 2.2 fpg, 46.5/32.5/79.6 splits
Wemby First 9 Sop re - 30.8 mpg, 17.7 ppg, 9.6 rpg, 2.7 apg, 1.6 spg, 3.7 bpg, 3.4 topg, 1.9 fpg, 41.3/22.6/91.2 splits
So looks like LeBron and Luka has significant jumps in efficiency, whereas KD was kinda of the same and Ant just saw an increase in USG and playing time to improve his early season stats.
But... a reminder... these stats are besides the point. I only provided them to counter Chinook's dumb suggestion that this was normal for blue-chip 20-year old sop res, which is clearly not the case.
We can all see with our eyes that Wemby is moving in the wrong direction where he left off last season (which also happens to be born out in the numbers). Even if Wemby was making those 3s 50% better to put him at 33% versus 22%, would we be happy with how he is playing?
His shots don't even look bad most of the time, a lot of them are rimming out... they are just ill advised, and he can't even take advantage of being guarded by Fred Van Vleet in the post.
And yes... I fully recognize and appreciate that Wemby is still amazing on the defensive end. His stocks number doesn't even do it justice, the way he completely alters opponents shots and decision making is GOAT level.
It's worth asking how the effort expended on that end impact him on the other end.
Do yall remember LeBron leaving Cleveland the first time? Well this team and the way the FO is running it is looking very similar to the situation of what drove LeBron to leave .... just saying.
Yes , Wemby does need to shoulder some blame and be accountable but he is just not being coached at all, heck this whole team isn't. So the question was is that is this FO failing him and I believe that is a yes.
FO is actually doing the opposite of CLE. What situation are you talking about?
I agree I think without Victor this is arguably the worst roster in the nba.
I give Sochan almost no credit for his numbers he is being spoon fed those stats by Victor.
Not only is Tre small, unathletic, and can't / won't shoot, but the number one thing he does do, have a good assist to turnover ratio, is something no one really cares about anymore, because his brother year and year out has one of the best assist to turnover ratio's in the league, and he is currently playing on a 1 year 3 million dollar deal because nobody cares about guards who don't do anything but make safe plays because they are scared of turning the ball over.
I have been disappointed with Barnes. He has not been nearly aggressive enough looking for his own shot. However, the Kings were so desperate to get rid of him they gave us a future first round pick, so when a team is that desperate to move on from a player, the player might not be that good anymore.
Remember, the Kings are a team trying to make the playoffs. After they lost to the pelicans in the play in they stepped back and looked at their team and said "You know how we are going to get better as a team and make the playoffs, by getting Harrison Barnes out of here for somebody better".
Barns done Cedi Osmaned us
Victors long term game plan isn't to chuck 3's. Its kinda like the Sochan experiment all over again where we try this crazy thing to develop in the beginning of the season and get more structured as the season progresses.
My opinion is having more on ball talent around him this early in his development would further alienate him from the offense. When off ball stars like Lauri became available somewhat we did make an offer enough to be in the running.
There have been some interesting takes by the podcast class in the last 24 hours that perhaps Wemby’s struggles are tied to the “CP3 effect,” which is basically the fact that when Paul joins a new team the team’s pace slows considerably. Tracks this season for Spurs.
That may have been fine when Paul was in his prime, the theory goes, but now that he’s can’t reliably beat his matchup it allows teams to switch everything and/or stay at home on Vic.
Something to watch for.
Don't expect Pop to be the one to hold Wemby accountable.
In fact, if you want the coaches to urge Wemby to play the traditional post, closer to the basket, you won't like Pop's statement after last week's Utah game:
"He's more of a perimeter player than he is a post player, and we want him to be able to do everything. Isolate, shoot, do the whole deal. We just can't do it all at once. It just depends on the situation and what's going on." - Coach Popovich
If Wemby's a perimeter player much of the time, it's going to hard for him to anchor a championship-level team.
If he's not consistently down low, it will be harder for him to be the focus of the offense, to make his teammates better, to use his unicorn abilities, his length, at point blank range.
If he's just another three point shooter, he's doing the defense a favor, they can relax and wait for rebounds -- Wemby won't be there to rebound and put back. No one can block his shot so the defender can preserve his energy and dare him, like a gentleman's agreement.
An inside-out offense is a more consistent offense. Wemby on the perimeter will require the Spurs to acquire more offensive stars to create their own shots. It will be more ad hoc with players unsure what to do or, even worse, standing around. It will largely neutralize Wemby's value (except as a defensive force).
The ball dies when Wemby dominates it outside. The offense stops and loses structure. Nothing consistent or duplicable happens to riff off of as the game moves forward. It's like the first unstructured posession over and over, groundhog day meets anarchy.
When Pop said last year that he wanted to watch Wemby and "see what they had" rather than force a structure on him, that seemed like a great idea at the time. I didn't realize that it might be the whole plan this year and perhaps, even worse, going forward.
Maybe Wemby will never be able to get down low and be the center of the offense, but at least they should try before the status quo becomes the default norm.
https://www.spurstalk.com/forums/sho...1#post11142915
Is Wemby going to be just a slightly better version of Ralf Sampson?
. Cleveland brought in players like TOSB Shaq. That’s why LeBron left.
I remember Cleveland trying to con Boozer into signing a below market deal and losing him because of it. Also think Vassell looks to be a much better prospect than Dajuan Wagner and Castle already looks better than Luke Jackson ever did.
Cleveland spent assets early to bring in better leadership around LeBron, got to be better in year 3, then had no avenues to improve significantly, threw against the wall at the end, and he left. The Spurs are going to be in a slightly different asset position in 2030 /31 than the Cavs were in 2010.
I don't think anyone is arguing that the roster is great around Wemby, the debate is whether they should have spent a lot of assets to improve immediately. I think a slightly better group in terms of shooting would have helped development a bit, but at this point it's probably adding dynamic 2 way wings around an eventual Castle, Vassell / Sochan / Wemby core. Is it worth adding Cam Johnson / Dalton Knecht in place of Keldon / Champagnie for a cost of 3 picks (taking Knecht at 8 + 2 picks and Keldon for Cam?)?
I don't think it is.
Other than GS, every champion of the last 10 years has had a jumbo wing Alpha. It’s the thing now, like post bigs were 20 years ago. Wemby is a super sized Jumbo wing. He’s not a post player, and never will be. He lacks the bulk, and his center of gravity is too high. On that inbounds play against Grant,he was literally squatting to be able to hold his ground. That’s not a viable play. He can score in the paint by cutting and flashing to the rim, and rolling more often after the pick.
We can fix it by getting Flagg
At least Wemby and the Spurs coaching staff agree that we will go the anti ben simmons route.
If Wemby follow Ben Simmons, then he is potential become Shawn Bradley
No way current spurs' situation resembles Lebron's first stint in Cleveland - that team was done as soon as Luke Jackson got drafted and Boozer walked. Spurs also have way more high value picks in coming years to restock with and their existing young talent base of Vassell, Sochan, and Castle outstrips anything the Cavs had at any point during Lebron's first stint, with 2 potential lottery picks in a stacked draft coming up.
We're not that far off from an OKC trajectory - 2 20 win seasons after getting a year 2 SGA followed by a 40 win season and then 57 wins after that season. So far, without Vassell and with Sochan this is probably a 35 win team with lots of potential for growth with Castle's anticipated improvement in the coming years.
Wemby's doing just fine defensively. Offensively, there's a couple issues at play:
One is that honestly, Wemby's just not as polished offensively as a lot of the other elite prospect candidates. You look at guys like Lebron, KD, and Luka, and realize that these guys were way more polished offensively even coming into the league. Tighter handles and/or better shots or in Lebron's case, was both stronger and faster than everyone else. Wemby's GOAT prospect candidacy comes from his combination of potential GOAT defensive impact and elite offense. If you were judging him just on offense alone, he's probably not quite on the same level as some of those other guys coming into the league even though he waffle crushes them defensively, so it might take him more time to figure things out.
Two is fatigue, partially from adjusting game plans and partially from olympic game play.
Three is playstyle - for some reason even though he has the build and mobility more closely resembling late-career KD (efficiently getting to his spots, 1-2 dribbles and rise into an unblockable catch and shoot), he really wants to play like early-career KD (trying to break guys down off the dribble). It may be that as time goes on he figures out why KD adjusted his style of play and will do so in turn.
Fourth is a shift in the offense - Wemby was at his best last season toward the end when the Spurs basically ran a Wemby-centric motion offense. Chris Paul changes that a little bit so he's probably not getting the same opportunities as he did last season.
As to what to do for this season, maybe if Milwaukee implodes and Giannis demands a trade, the Spurs try and revisit the Middleton idea as a guy who can add both shooting, creation, and veteran leadership for the new couple seasons. Maybe for Keldon/Collins and 2 decent 1st rounders (Bulls, 2027 Hawks?)
Castle, Vassell, Middleton, Sochan/2025 draft pick (McNeeley, Kneuppel, etc), Wembanyama is a lineup that gives you potentially decent spacing and doesn't give up a whole lot on the defensive end.
Scott's argument is not complex. It's just wrong. It's built on the bad assumption that there's some place Wemby NEEDS to be. He's refused to recalibrate his projection of Wemby and is struggling to explain why Wemby isn't being who he (Scott) wants him to be. No one should care how Wemby compares to an arbitrary collection of players. Wemby has to learn to play with others, and there are growing pains because that's not Wemby's natural inclination on the court. Yes, I personally believe that restricting Wemby's offensive touches would put him on a better track. I think we've seen games where Victor seems to take that step back so Paul can guide him -- the way a young big should. But recently, he's reverted more to the attempts at self-creation that are low-percentage, especially without Sochan next to him to do some of the center stuff Victor struggles with.
An example of this is how many people bring up spacing as an issue without actually thinking about it. If a defense is considering sending a double team, there are two main factors to consider. The first is the one folks are talking about here, which is the risk. Like, what are they giving up when they choose to send help. Too many people assume the answer has to be some three-point shot and think the Spurs lack of elite shooting means that this factor is always low. That's not actually true, though, in large part because the Spurs don't have as many bad shooters as assumed but more because the Spurs can space the floor by sending rim pressure, which we saw mostly with Sochan but also see with Johnson. Teams as willing to leave a good shooter in Barnes open in order to not come off Sochan at the rim. That is huge for spacing, and a Victor who knew what to do against help would've hit Harrison for an open corner-three on that famous play.
That Wemby instead flubbed up a turnover leads me into the second factor that doesn't get talked about enough. Teams currently know doubling Wemby is a high-reward proposition because of how bad Vic's handles are and how reluctant he is to pass when he's not already comfortable with his scoring production. That Wemby is so easy to rattle and turn over by sending help is the real issue leading to him getting swarmed, not the spacing. In an ideal world, you limit those opportunities to situations where he actually has an advantage. You coach him to use give-and-gos to get him the ball going downhill toward the rum. You teach him basically to not put the ball on the floor and to keep it high when he catches it and to go for the finish as soon as he gets the ball rather than trying to iso. Then if he doesn't get the ball back, you tell him to cut through and come around to set a screen rather than sitting in the paint calling for the ball while a wing shoves him across the court.
But that's not how Wemby WANTS to play. It's not the Wemby is being "used wrong". It's that he doesn't want to be "used right". He wants to be a perimeter player ... and he's not good at it. There are specific situations where it can work. However, those are situations the Spurs can control, because other teams have learned how to exploit Wemby's biggest weakness by just guarding him with a wing. It should be a pretty rule to understand that if he's being guarded by a center to space out and drive and if he's being guarded by a wing to run screens and look for quick-hitters.
Scott made a list of a bunch of perimeter players who came into the league with at least the rough skill-set to play the way they felt comfortable. Wemby isn't even a passable perimeter creator now. Maybe he will be. His recent quotes suggests he does. If that's the case, he's going to have to develop rather than just acclimate. So given what roadmap he's taken and the league having a year to develop their counter-move, Wemby's right about where you'd expect him to be. He's not where I want him to be. But I don't have the same hope for apotheosis that Scott does. I don't care if Wemby becomes a GOAT candidate. I care that he becomes a guy who can lead to the Spurs getting more les. If you do believe in him becoming that unicorn, though, then you have to give him the time and struggle to bridge that gap. He is NOT as far along as some want him to be. That doesn't require any blame.
It's not Sochan's fault. It's not Castle's fault. Trying to blame guys like Keldon and Collins for it is unhinged. No star is being held back by bench players. This is arguably the most talented Spurs team since 2019-2020 (basically the tail end of LMA and Gay as good players. Even down multiple key rotation players, they have a chance to be a .500 team 10 games into the season. If they can beat Utah tomorrow, they face a really important benchmark for the team in Monday's game against SAC. They've only gotten past 10 games at or over .500 twice since Kawhi was traded. That was 18/19 and 20/21. Who the Spurs are going to be this year has not been defined yet. They win that game, they have a real chance at being a play-in contender. With how badly Wemby has struggled this year (his on-off is only plus-1, ahead of only Sochan among starters), it's hard not to see that as a huge credit to the team as a whole.
There's not a magic excuse for why Wemby's struggling that doesn't involve Victor accepting his limitations.
I think he has to play more like Curry and less like Lillard. Dame is often consider the best of the knock-off Stephs, but in reality they get shots from similar spots in very different ways. In that regard, I think Wemby can get a bunch of high-quality touches in the post, but he can't do that and iso his man at the same time.
Once again a fundamental failure of understanding by Chinook to form the basis of one of his long non sequiturs.
Chinook babbles:
Scott's argument is not complex. It's just wrong. It's built on the bad assumption that there's some place Wemby NEEDS to be. He's refused to recalibrate his projection of Wemby and is struggling to explain why Wemby isn't being who he (Scott) wants him to be. No one should care how Wemby compares to an arbitrary collection of players.
Wemby isn't being compared to an players other than himself nor to do I want him to be anything other than a player who is improving. Wemby is not improving offensively, in fact he is rapidly regressing, to the point where he seems disengaged and uninterested in the offense.
Oddly, Chinook then goes on to basically agree with the premise:
Wemby has to learn to play with others, and there are growing pains because that's not Wemby's natural inclination on the court. Yes, I personally believe that restricting Wemby's offensive touches would put him on a better track. I think we've seen games where Victor seems to take that step back so Paul can guide him -- the way a young big should. But recently, he's reverted more to the attempts at self-creation that are low-percentage, especially without Sochan next to him to do some of the center stuff Victor struggles with.
So here we are, Chinook blatantly acknowledging the premise he claims is wrong. It's almost as though Chinook just has some weird fetish debating positions he just makes up. Not a new thing we've seen from Mr. Chinook.
Chinook then goes on to list a litany of problems with Wemby's play that should, could and would be corrected, addressed or mitigated if team made an effort to do so. But then he waves his hand and says that it's okay because "Wemby doesn't want to play that way" as though Wemby is a spoiled child at playtime who needs to be coddled and not a professional basketball player. I wonder how 1997 Pop would have reacted if Tim Duncan came in and said "but I want to be Jordan!" Would not have flown, but apparently Wemby can just choose to want to engage in a Durant cosplay and it's all okay because that's what Wemby wants.
Scott made a list of a bunch of perimeter players who came into the league with at least the rough skill-set to play the way they felt comfortable.
False. I made a list of 20-year old blue-chip prospects who improved in their sop re year to combat your braindead suggestion that Wemby's regression was "what he is supposed to do".
I don't care if Wemby becomes a GOAT candidate. I care that he becomes a guy who can lead to the Spurs getting more les.
Again, a strawman created out of whole cloth to debate a point no one is making. We all only care that he becomes a guy who can lead the Spurs to getting more les. That's the point. His regression into a low-efficiency chucker isn't what is going to lead the Spurs to more les.
It's not Sochan's fault. It's not Castle's fault. Trying to blame guys like Keldon and Collins for it is unhinged. No star is being held back by bench players. This is arguably the most talented Spurs team since 2019-2020 (basically the tail end of LMA and Gay as good players. Even down multiple key rotation players, they have a chance to be a .500 team 10 games into the season. If they can beat Utah tomorrow, they face a really important benchmark for the team in Monday's game against SAC. They've only gotten past 10 games at or over .500 twice since Kawhi was traded. That was 18/19 and 20/21. Who the Spurs are going to be this year has not been defined yet. They win that game, they have a real chance at being a play-in contender. With how badly Wemby has struggled this year (his on-off is only plus-1, ahead of only Sochan among starters), it's hard not to see that as a huge credit to the team as a whole.
Imagine writing all of this nonsense and then having the gall to make the statement that "if they win the 11th game of the season, the have a real chance to be a play-in contender". Just capping off one of the most disingenuous posts you've ever made with one of the dumbest statements you've ever made.
There's not a magic excuse for why Wemby's struggling that doesn't involve Victor accepting his limitations.
You might have missed all the talk of accountability in this thread, quite conveniently. This is all about Victor accepting his limitations. Right now this team doesn't have enough people who will drive the accountability required for Victor to accept those limitations. He's been given the green light to do whatever he wants, and that is a major cause of his regression on the offensive end. Our coaching staff has apparently granted this green light. CP3 might be the only guy on the team who drive accountability, but he's only one player. The entire point here is instead of this "let's just see what we have approach", we could have surrounded Wemby with a team of players who, for lack of a better way of saying, wouldn't put up with this .
For all the talk from Wemby's own mouth about "wanting to be coached hard" it seems like the franchise has taken the exact opposite approach... let's just let lil' Victor play the way he wants to play and see what happens!
Wemby’s minutes needs to increase
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