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Celtics are the only one imo. Tatum/Brown/Holiday/Porzingis
What team has four stars right now? With Wemby, Fox, and potentially Castle you have three.
Celtics are the only one imo. Tatum/Brown/Holiday/Porzingis
Spurs have a developing big three. That's always been the formula that or a supernova big two like Shaq/Kobe KD/Russ. No more star hunting. Its time for two way elite role player hunting like Naz Reid or Herb Jones.
The Spurs need to make a move on Herb Jones before next season begins, he is a star in his own right.
Yeah guys like Naz Reid, Herb Jones, and Draymond are role player stars. Sochan could be one if he can make 3's at volume at 33%. He should work with Castle's shot doc over the summer.
Yep... as some others have mentioned, the star hunting era has ended. We acquired one (Fox) and had a potential one emerge ahead of schedule (Castle). Time to pivot and devout all our attention to building around that core. I've been Trey Murphy's biggest cheerleader on this forum, and he would still fit because he has a great contract, but he's not really attainable and I'd eventually worry there isn't enough ball to go around. Markkanen is the kind of player who's offensive game fits very well, but we need more defense out of that player and it would be foolish to be paying a max to your 4th option.
We need to pivot to the Camaras, Herb Joneses, Santi Aldamas, Jake LaRavias, Naz Reids, Tobias Harrises of the world. In a lot of ways, this is actually a lot more fun from an SpursTalkdotcom Forums scouting POV (at least it is for me) because there are more uncut gems to be discovered (either in the existing pro ranks or in college) than just naming off obvious stars who you probably can't get or don't want to pay the price for.
I don't think Camara is gettable at this juncture. He's got that Keon Ellis/Julian Champagnie level contract that makes him worth a lot more to a team than his on-the-court play dictates. Two more years left at $2.2 and $2.4MM. Absolute STEAL. I'd like to see the Spurs put some energy into the kind of deals we signed Champ and Bassey to. Long term, cheap deals, that aren't guaranteed. You buy yourself so much flexibility if you hit on these things. MEM has 5 rotation guys on deals like this right now (Williams, Huff, GG, Pippen, Wells), and as a result they're going to be able to have 3 max contracts on their books and still be able to resign Santi to a nice deal and not really break a sweat. These kinds of deals are absolutely key to maintaining a talent loaded roster.
While we have an open roster spot, I'd like for Brian and the team to find someone like that to take a swing on. I also think we should offer C-Bass the deal he had before we waived him to make the Barnes trade. Get him locked up for the net 4 years at $2MM/yr non-guaranteed. It actually shocks me that players sign these deals, because they are so team friendly and don't really do anything for the player versus just signing a 1-year deal... but so long as dudes will sign them, we should offer them.
If a team offered me 8M guaranteed instead of 2M I'd take that deal even if it means I might leave some money on the table over the next three years or so. 8M is life changing if you're not a dumbass.
I follow baseball in addition to basketball and in the baseball world players sign early extensions all the time and on average early extensions favor the players not the teams. On average players should lock in financial security over the biggest payday possible.
Amigo, you misread. I'm talking about the NON-GUARANTEED deals.
Champ's deal is a great example. It was a flat 4/12 with on the first year guaranteed and then basically it's a club option every summer after that. If you're the player - why do you sign this? You basically cut off any upside if you outperform the contract unless you trust the team to decline the option and resign you for higher (which... why would the club do that?). The only rational would be the team said "we're willing to give you a $2MM one year deal, or this 4/$12 deal that is non-guaranteed" - so basically the team is "buying" the club options with extra salary each year. My guess is that is probably the explanation.
But my guess is that if Champ were a FA this summer, he might be able to get more than $3MM. Not a ton more, but more than that.
A long term deal with club options still feels more secure than a stand alone one year deal. I still get why players sign these deals on a psychological and emotional level. Young players without a first round rookie contract who have never gotten a big pay day are unsurprisingly exploitable.
He’s shooting 34% right now. He just needs to up his volume and confidence.
Cheering for Sochan over the summer to fix his shot. Star role player if he can do it. If not I kind want some other team to pay him big money. One way role players like Dev/KJ and Sochan for now aren't worth 20M per season. Two way role players are worth it tho.
If he goes 1/2 from 3 this next game, do you think we can say he's turned a corner?
Would you trade Devin and a couple 2nds for Atlyton + Camara? That's about the only kind of deal that I could see netting him.
I think I'm more in the Cam Johnson boat right now though. He's kinda Lauri-lite without the price tag.
Looking at Sochan's 34% this season and thinking he's close as a shooter is dumb dumb level analysis, kind of like thinking Devin Vassell has turned a corner based on a 4 game sample.
His 34% is not scalable on volume because it's all coming on wide open, catch and shoot shots. If he could actually hit 34% on higher volume, he wouldn't be left wide open all of the time. As it stands, he's on pace to shoot 117 3PA over 82 games. Even if he hit 45% of those 3s instead of 34%, we're talking about an impact of a whopping 0.48 pts/gm... other teams frankly do not care and would happily leave a guy wide open if the punishment were only half a point a game. They make that up by gains wrought by using 5 guys to guard 4 the rest of the time.
I know you are super impressed that Jeremy has hit 4 of his last 6 threes... but teams don't care, and Jeremy's volume is actually regressing on improved shooting, not increasing. Homie has taken a total of 7 3PA in his last 10 games! He could hit 100% of them, and opposing teams still wouldn't care.
That is tempting. Only one more year of Ayton's deal, so maybe you can reroute him as an expiring for someone useful if other teams want to get off long term money? Would love to have Camara for the last two years of his deal. I think that's fair, but I'd definitely want to reroute Ayton or even just buy him out. I'd be really afraid of his influence on the team as a backup C. On the court, I think he'd be a fine backup C... but I get bad lazy vibes from him carrying over from past stories. IDK if those are still accurate or not.
Interesting idea there!
I'm not even a big Cam Johnson fan, but I think he'd fit well as a 4th option offensively. His defense isn't great (32nd percentile CraftedDPM), and that gives me some pause, but his rebounding is solid enough and his ancillary defensive metrics (raDTOV, Rim Defense, Rim Frequency, defensive versatility, even his BLK% isn't bad) give me hope that he could improve that with some focus. I like the Lauri-lite descriptor offensively. Important to remember we're only looking for that 4th option guy who does things similar to what we see Barnes doing. Cam is a solid movement shooter.
On Auton, if couldn't reroute him, I'd try and keep him. I know he's got a rep for being lazy, but with it being a contract year I might gamble on him wanting to perform to a level that gets him another payday somewhere.
On Cam, I think he makes Sochan more playable. If Castle's shooting continues to improve I think this lineup looks fairly interesting:
Fox, (De Larrea or Jase Richardson)
Castle, Julian
Sochan, McNeely
Cam, Barnes, Camara
Wemby, Ayton
nets - NO
why give up such a talent?
add John Collins to the list. He's actually one of those high level role players who once was a 2nd option for a team that made the conference finals.
Also Highsmith has elite defensive metrics.
Jollins for Vassell (plus maybe a little extra draft compensation coming our way) would be a pretty nice swap. We shave off 3 years of Devin's deal, get someone who can slot into that 4th option, and is significantly better defensively (though Jollins D numbers are worse than I thought they'd be).
CraftedNBA has a really nice tool to sort 3&D players that shows you their SQ Index and DPM on the summary table. Good way to quickly identify trade prospects. https://craftednba.com/player-traits/three-n-dee
I've been a big Cam Johnson fan all year now that we have a team that is ready for his skillset to maximize what we got. I also like John Collins as a tertiary 3rd/4th option who can moonlight as a solid #3 guy on Castle's predictable 2nd year dud type of nights.
What do yall think about PJ Washington? he's gonna be on an expiring next year. I love his physicality on defense and on the glass. Respectable 3pt shooter (little streaky) but would be a great PF next to Wemby
I like PJ. I wish he had some more height, but it hasn't hindered him. Really solid defender, really solid on the glass like you said. It all comes down to the 3 ball, but even if he dips to a 34 to 35% shooter, I think it's okay. Obviously it's ideal to have someone hitting 42% like Barnes, but its a sacrifice you can make when you're getting the uplift in D and REB, IMO. If you pair someone (even just Barnes) who is a more consistent and higher end threat, I think it works really well. You're basically getting what Sochan brings to the table (maybe without the ceiling on perimeter 1:1 defense) with some shooting.
And since I brought up Sochan, who is shooting 34% this year, there is a massive gulf of a different between Sochan's 34% and someone like PJ Washington shooting 34% and I think that is important for people to realize. Sochan shoots 34% because teams do not respect his shot AT ALL. They literally do not care if he makes 100%, because he's only shooting 1.4 3PA/gm. There is no reason for opposing teams to be concerned (and if Sochan shot more, his % would go down). I know that you already know this, but I wanted to write it down for everyone to see. People get caught up the %s but fail to realize that you can't just look at the %s. Sochan at 34% is far less threatening than Fox at 32% or even Castle at 29% at this point.
This is why I actually use 3P made/100 possessions now to measure shooting quality - low percentage shooters still have gravity when they jack up high volume 3s and need to be guarded (Trae Young, early career Luka are good examples of this)I like PJ. I wish he had some more height, but it hasn't hindered him. Really solid defender, really solid on the glass like you said. It all comes down to the 3 ball, but even if he dips to a 34 to 35% shooter, I think it's okay. Obviously it's ideal to have someone hitting 42% like Barnes, but its a sacrifice you can make when you're getting the uplift in D and REB, IMO. If you pair someone (even just Barnes) who is a more consistent and higher end threat, I think it works really well. You're basically getting what Sochan brings to the table (maybe without the ceiling on perimeter 1:1 defense) with some shooting.
And since I brought up Sochan, who is shooting 34% this year, there is a massive gulf of a different between Sochan's 34% and someone like PJ Washington shooting 34% and I think that is important for people to realize. Sochan shoots 34% because teams do not respect his shot AT ALL. They literally do not care if he makes 100%, because he's only shooting 1.4 3PA/gm. There is no reason for opposing teams to be concerned (and if Sochan shot more, his % would go down). I know that you already know this, but I wanted to write it down for everyone to see
For the record, PJ Washington is at 2.4 this season, down from a high of 3. Castle is at 2.1. Sochan is at 0.9, down from a high of 1.5 last season. I'd say in order to be a threat as a shooter, you have to get that number above 2 and ideally above 2.5.
Nice, I'm going to start using that as well. Makes perfect sense. Fox is at 2.6 this season (down from 3.9 last year), which passes the eye test for me on how he's still a threat teams need to account for despite his poor % this season.
Might want to ignore that stat. Vassell is at 3.6.
Vassell is at 3.6 and Sochan is at 0.9. Meanwhile, Vassell's shooting 35% from 3 while Sochan's shooting 34%. You can think what you want, but I'm going to say that 3P/100 is probably a more accurate marker of how often a guy is left open on the perimeter than 3 point percentage alone.
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