Wasn't long ago a lot here were criticising me for even to dare criticise DV. The guy with the biggest contract on the team is a huge disappointment. Mr Quadruple Zero as I like to call him. Never seen a highly paid so called centrepiece pull off 0 rebound 0 assists 0 steals and 0 block statlines so often.
He's a dumb basketball player, only cares about scoring which he's average at that also, makes nobody around him better and provides zero value to the team. It's no coincidence the worst stretch ever in Spurs history comes where he's the highest paid centrepiece of the team.
Hopefully there's a dumb as GM out there who will see his 17 point or whatever he gets, overvalues him and offers something for him. And yes the Spurs and Pop failed him. He came into the league with Defensive upside but he doesn't care to play defense, they haven't helped improve his play making, his intellect has stayed the same or regressed even. Failure everywhere.
To think about it, It's embarrassing the highest paid guy on the team gets outplayed by the last 3 top rookie picks we made. Sochan, Victor and Castle. With next year's draft class looking good he'll move down the valuable list again. Each year he's moving down the pecking order in place of rookies, good for the team, not good for him.
We'll be drafting differently when we (hopefully) have a set roster that just needs a few role players.
PATFO obviously went with high upside players in recent drafts, won't be the case in a few years. We'll be looking for steady role players who can contribute right away.
John B might be the last DV supporter left. Where you at bro.
Parker and Manu also could sense when they didn't have it going, and would defer to Tim or the others.
When Vassell's shot isn't falling...he just keeps firing away. I understand you don't want a shooter to start being passive, but he doesn't have the other skills (passing, cutting, setting screens) to make him a positive on the floor when he is tossing up bricks.
The thing is that we don't have many others who should be taking shots.
Barnes is really passive in most games, doesn't assert himself and just gets frozen out. Nothing to do with Vassell, he played the same while Devin was injured.
Champagnie is getting the short end of the stick because of veterans, he's been our most reliable perimeter shooter.
We don't want Keldon taking even more shots and there's noone left.
CP3 takes them when he feels like it, doesn't have the legs for increased volume, others are bad shooters.
I'd say that if PATFO aren't serious about getting into the play-in this season (as in we must get a backup big at the very least) then Castle and Jeremy should be forced to take more 3s, would be good for their development. Sometimes brute force approach is the best.
Julian should get 15 3's a game.
I'd argue that Julian is our third most functional offensive player after CP3 and Wemby.
He's obviously limited, but in his role he's invaluable and every team wants a player like him.
Textbook shooter movements, knows when to cut and not just stand in the corner, has solid size and is not a negative defensively, fights for rebounds instead of leaking out, never complains, just a perfect complementary piece.
He simply must play at least 25 minutes every game because whoever else is out there is a defensive downgrade in his position.
He obviously shouldn't be tasked with some things like he was in Phily, but as a role player he fits in every lineup and gameplan.
I'd go as far as projecting him as a long term starter because odds of finding a 20ppg wing are very low.
He's just 23 and lost years of development because he got drafted late and was on a Doc Rivers team after. Younger than Knecht for example.
Up to 37% from 3pt on more than 7 attempts.
It's not uncommon that NBA caliber brothers play hard because they had each other to compete against day in and day out. Look at the Lopez brothers, Steph and Seth, Melo/Lonzo ball (I forget the youngest one's name) Greek freak and his brother, the Morris brothers, etc.
Julian might be a staple on the Spurs for quite some time. I hope he continues to improve. The entire team needs to work on limiting turnovers and handling clutch time possessions.
LOL, nah at this time I want Julian to start and Devin to play the Manu-role. Julian has shown he is committed defensively and fast becoming a reliable 3&D plus more with his rebounding and height. I’m a team-fan not a player-fan.
Wait, what is up with Devin's stats on the Darko site? Why does it show him with 100 more games than he's played?
That's the way DARKO DPM works. It's a Bayesian projection system, so it makes projections that are updated in response to new inputs. The model doesn't know when Devin will be out, but it knows that based on all the past information what it would project his next game to be. Each of those dots is a projection of the next game.you know what's funny about that? Vassell has played a total of 255 NBA games, yet your graphic has a graph for 350
The area above 0 is basically 150 games which are his first 3 seasons, as he missed the majority at the end of the tank for Wemby season. So the lines below 0 are only from last season (which was a tanking season with us still running drop coverage, playing Zach Collins and nobody being in the gaps) and 16 games of this season. You should reevaluate that one100 games in this graphic say Vassell is a bad defender because he was OUT
That sounds like a weird way to look at things, and it's not perfect (it's not intended to be, it's just one metric... but it conforms to all of the other metrics and the "eye test"). What you don't see on the chart is a wide variation of the projections (like you do on some of the other DARKO charts I've posted) because it's not like Devin will have a bad defensive game and then follow it up with some good ones. Devin's projections are fairly consistent because his performance generally conforms to what the model projects. The "What is DARKO" tab here is worth reading for those interested: https://apanalytics.shinyapps.io/DARKO/
But if you don't like that... then here's a metric calculated differently that tells us the same thing. If someone wants to buy me a DunksandThrees.com subscription, we could chart out multi-year D-EPM and it would tell us the same thing as well.
Devin's not been a good defender for several years now. Coming back from injury this year doesn't really hold up as an excuse. Now, if you want to explain this by saying he was put in a bad system, or being on a tanking team instilled bad habits in him that are very hard to break, etc... I don't disagree with any of those. Tanking has consequences, which is why it's kind of absurd that so many think we can just tank our way to a winning roster and then flip a switch to being a championship team.
Here's a serious question for folks... assuming both players have reached their final form, would they rather have Devin Vassell on the team today, or Collin Sexton? I'll let folks respond before I provide some data.
It would be interesting to build out... but I'm not the guy to do it. I've passed the building and creation stage of my career and am now more of a "use and interpret" kind of guy
See the post right below yours (#61)
On the team or in the starting lineup?
I'd rather have Sexton and I'd use him as a 6th man.
Devin doesn't look like a player who would benefit from that role.
I'll give you another hypothetical scenario.
Would you rather have Devin or McDaniels? Same draft, they got pretty much the same extension, it's just that Devin's is front loaded.
Just on the team, in whatever role someone would want to assign.
Devin or McDaniels is a fun question, but very different players. I chose Sexton because he's exactly the common archetype you described in the post I quoted: scoring guard who can't do anything else. Sexton is a scoring guard who does nothing else. In fact, Sexton is absolutely one of the worst defenders in the NBA. We're talking sub-dogwater, Malaki Branham levels of defense. However, he is a more consistent, better offensive player at this point.
Two charts, the first compares their LEBRON ranks by season, and the second overlays them by experience so you can see the development paths. You'll note that the pool of players thins out in the second chart that has experience on the X-axis, which is because it is comparing them against all players with that level of experience (of which there are less and less every year).
Devin is a better overall player because Sexton's defense is so absolutely horrid - but if you put them in a role where you don't care about their defense, just the scoring (like a 6th man role), then Sexton might be a better choice. Personally, because our team still needs core players, I want a guy who is at least semi-decent defensively. I can find that 6th man, microwave scorer later (which, by the way, we definitely need)
thanks, that is exactly what I'm saying. He has only played 16 games in 2025 (where we finally have good defensive schemes), so I'll need a larger sample size. I agree though that it's concerning.
Right on, and I think that's fair, but I'm not expecting much change. I think whatever habits Devin has developed are going to be extremely hard to break. It now seems that he's even being somewhat hunted on the defensive end, it could get ugly. For the sake of the team (even if only for Devin's trade value), I hope your optimism comes true and he turns it around.
I mean he used to be a pretty good help defender, but for whatever reason now he has problems staying in front of guys like he's Malaki Branham. I can't put my finger on it what's the cause of it.
The upcoming game should be prime for a breakout from Devin given that this thread has reached three pages. Kudos to everyone who participated. If this reaches six, he might have a career game. Unlikely, but let’s see.
^ if this reaches fifty we will finally have ourselves a 3rd option
My biggest issue with Vassell is his lack of game sense/flow - (admittedly an ephemeral and almost unquantifiable metric). This wasn't a problem early in his career in a more ancillary role.
There is a reason why that "snorkel motion, hand gesture" has taken off with the team - The idea of taking a tough shot and making it in the face of solid defense...the LMA and DDR shot diet.
Vassell loves to take them in some of the most inopportune moments too, game to game.
He literally just had 6 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, and a 1 block on 1 TO. He also shot 40% on 3s though his % overall obviously was trash. Could he have scored better? Certainly, but dunno what game you watched to spark this type of critique, js. Tanking teams or no, he just proved he's capable of making an imprint if he's healthy and gets some consistent time in his role.
Again, I'm no Vassell homer, I've made that abundantly clear last season numerous times and even this season -- but getting rid of him at the first possible opportunity for a guy like Fox? Not a fan of that, either.
I would've bit the bullet for Markannen., tbh. But not Fox.
For better or worse, I don't see the Spurs making any big moves this season unless there is just an offer they can't resist. And in today's NBA landscape, those don't come around much and can often backfire.
The most likely scenario: they play it out with this group, wrestle with the rotations and see if they have enough for a play-in spot. Making the playoffs would be huge for Wemby's morale...and the West seems kinda wide-open right now.
Another wild card here is Pop being out. With his future uncertain, I'm sure the FO is going to be hard-pressed to make a "win-now" move.
The roster is so bad that tossing vassel isn't an easy decision. Clearly the spurs have failed him both with his development and health, in the end for me he doesn't need to be a star just solid starter but I lean on the negative with his health, it seems like he gets dinged up a lot for a guy with his play style..
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