Let’s say PG, SG, and C positions are set. If you could wish for any SF or PF to be disgruntled and ask for a trade, who would be worth giving everything up for?

[cutewizard]

Naz Reid plus Yabusele

Can we have both?

[spurraider21]

Would be cool if Evan and Keldon demanded trades tbh

[Dejounte]

But those issues aren't helped if they also start a wing who can't shoot.



I don't get this part. What are you referring to? Or what are you thinking I referred to?



I think you can get away with subpar spacing in the regular season, but not in the playoffs.
Look at last year's West. OKC, Nuggets, Timberwolves got eliminated because their role players couldn't hit the shots they usually do. Can happen even if those players are good shooters, but we wouldn't be helping ourselves by adding another poor shooter.

We can't have three players who prefer to drive or play inside around Wemby. Look at what happened this year whenever we couldn't hit our shots. It was easy for the opponents to crowd Wemby and significantly lower his shot quality.
Most teams have their longest wing on him, with their center taking advantage in a matchup with a non-shooter. Take that away by adding another shooter and the game gets way easier for Wemby.
I don't even think lack of PFs is what killed us this season, but lack of positional size and boxing out.
Adding a 10rpg PF would help, but wouldn't solve all the ball watching and matchups that can't work.

That's why I got my avatar. CP3 was fine as a point guard and is fine now when Fox got shut down, but two of them were too big of a burden together. Barnes has good size for a SF, but we take that away by playing him at PF.
Same goes for Devin being pushed to SF.
Spurs were always a team that started 5 players with the best fit as a unit, not 5 best players on the roster. If someone has a problem with that, they should be free to go.

With something like Fox/Castle/Barnes/J. Collins/Wemby we'd have positional size and matchups/rebounding wouldn't be as much of an issue.
Then we can hopefully add an elite 3-D role player instead of Barnes next year if it doesn't happen this summer.

After all these trades, Gordon and Randle are the only really physical forwards with size in the Western playoff picture.
We'll see what happens when Chet is fully healthy and how OKC sets it up.



Fox will probably be back to his ~33% average, hopefully Castle can also get close to it.



I can't say I've seen enough of him, looking at the stats in 9 games he played 25 or more 7 was the highest number of rebounds he got. 5 or less in 8 other games. Doesn't look ideal in that regard.

most of my posts are made on the go and prone to have run on sentences because i make them on my phone

re: the part you dont get

im saying that if the spurs are planning to remediate the spacing issues by making sure their 4 is a volume shooter instead of addressing that by having fox and castle improve (or worse, replaced) then we have bigger problems. My point is that it’s putting a bandaid over a bigger problem. If they insist on solving the shooting issue by finding a pf who shoots it a lot, then you have to compensate the need for rebounding and physicality through the pg, sg positions… which is unrealistic given the fact that those types of players’ availability is disproportionate to what you’ll find available for guys at the pf spot. So that’s why it’s way more reasonable to upgrade shooting concerns in every other position BUT the pf spot because we need to find a guy there who WILL rebound and WILL play physical because at other positions it will be scarce.

[CGD]

Jabari Smith Jr.
Herb Jones

[Dejounte]

Jabari Smith Jr.
Herb Jones

As a pf for the spurs, herb is too much of a lightweight at 206ish lbs. who will you have defending the big guys down low when they make wemby switch on a shooter?

as a sf? Might work if we pair him with a thick forward who can shoot and defend bigs inside, like Naz Reid. But I feel like that would cause the offense to have much less movement and you can’t run as many plays because counting on a big guy to be one of your primary shooters isn’t as effective as a much more mobile sf being your primary shooter.

[Dejounte]

IMO, a perfect offseason would be something like:
1) draft Kon with Spurs pick, Sorber with ATL pick
2) trade Vassell (and Sochan, if you have to) for KD

Fox/ Paul or Wes
Castle/ Kon or Champagnie
KD/ Kon or Champagnie
Sorber/ anyone
Wemby/ anyone

we ring if this happens tbh

[LeBowen]

im saying that if the spurs are planning to remediate the spacing issues by making sure their 4 is a volume shooter instead of addressing that by having fox and castle improve (or worse, replaced) then we have bigger problems. My point is that it’s putting a bandaid over a bigger problem. If they insist on solving the shooting issue by finding a pf who shoots it a lot, then you have to compensate the need for rebounding and physicality through the pg, sg positions… which is unrealistic given the fact that those types of players’ availability is disproportionate to what you’ll find available for guys at the pf spot. So that’s why it’s way more reasonable to upgrade shooting concerns in every other position BUT the pf spot because we need to find a guy there who WILL rebound and WILL play physical because at other positions it will be scarce.

I don't think PG/SG/SF need to be the players you're describing.
Castle will surely be an imposing physical presence compared to other guards, he's averaging 4.6 rebounds in this strech with starter minutes, will surely go up to at least 6 in a year or two while actually defending people and knowing how to box out.

Let's say we play the Rockets. I don't think having Adebayo at PF would be able to fully mitigate for Rockets having Brooks/Amen crashing the glass.

I don't think it's realistic to expect 28 year old Fox to suddenly make a big 3pt improvement. If he does, great, but it's not likely.
Castle can get to let's say ~36%, but it's going to take at least 3 years, won't happen overnight.

I disagree that having an elite shooter at PF would be a bandaid, I think it would enable Castle/Fox drives and prevent opposing teams from matching up PFs on Wemby.
I guess we'll have to wait and see Wright's strategy.

[TD 21]

The actualized version of Sorber is pretty much the ideal complement to a non traditional C like Wembanyama because he'd be able to play next to him some in certain matchups and handle the solo C minutes.

In some form or fashion and barring a Durant trade, I believe they'll more so target a versatile C than a PF this off season. My sense is they're mostly content with Sochan/Barnes (stealth extension candidate) for now.

[SpursBills]

I actually had Sorber as a late lottery guy as he fits the functional athleticism-feel intersection that I'm looking for in a big (see below), but the huge wild card is his foot injury - need more information about what it is because that could have a significant impact on his athleticism/career. Non 5th metatarsal fracture that gets pinned, fine don't care. Navicular fracture that requires fixation that could develop avascular necrosis or some other major fracture? Could be a pretty huge deal.

In the past I talked about the synergy of functional athleticism + feel leading to maximizing physical tools and over performing .

There are indicator stats for this.
Functional athleticism - OREB%, STL%, BLK%
Feel: AST%, AST:TO, STL%

Bart query: Underclassmen, 6'6+, 2.5 STL%, 2.5 BLK%, 20 AST%, 5 OREB% since 2008:
Cooper Flagg
Ben Simmons
Collin Murray-Boyles
Ethan Happ
Kyle Anderson
Draymond Green

Ethan Happ is the only bust and he had limited athleticism and shot 46% from FT as a senior. Kyle Anderson might be the least explosive player to ever play in the NBA and his instincts and wingspan allowed him to carve out a career where he's top 5 in his draft class in VORP and top 10 in total win shares.

If I drop the AST% filter to 15, I add Zion, Josh Jackson (headcase), Herb Jones, Otto Porter, and Sorber (very underrated pre-injury, now questionable due to foot injury)

It's not a perfect filter/query, but it is one that has a high hit rate for versatile high-feel defenders and well-rounded players

[mo7888]

But those issues aren't helped if they also start a wing who can't shoot.



I don't get this part. What are you referring to? Or what are you thinking I referred to?



I think you can get away with subpar spacing in the regular season, but not in the playoffs.
Look at last year's West. OKC, Nuggets, Timberwolves got eliminated because their role players couldn't hit the shots they usually do. Can happen even if those players are good shooters, but we wouldn't be helping ourselves by adding another poor shooter.

We can't have three players who prefer to drive or play inside around Wemby. Look at what happened this year whenever we couldn't hit our shots. It was easy for the opponents to crowd Wemby and significantly lower his shot quality.
Most teams have their longest wing on him, with their center taking advantage in a matchup with a non-shooter. Take that away by adding another shooter and the game gets way easier for Wemby.
I don't even think lack of PFs is what killed us this season, but lack of positional size and boxing out.
Adding a 10rpg PF would help, but wouldn't solve all the ball watching and matchups that can't work.

That's why I got my avatar. CP3 was fine as a point guard and is fine now when Fox got shut down, but two of them were too big of a burden together. Barnes has good size for a SF, but we take that away by playing him at PF.
Same goes for Devin being pushed to SF.
Spurs were always a team that started 5 players with the best fit as a unit, not 5 best players on the roster. If someone has a problem with that, they should be free to go.

With something like Fox/Castle/Barnes/J. Collins/Wemby we'd have positional size and matchups/rebounding wouldn't be as much of an issue.
Then we can hopefully add an elite 3-D role player instead of Barnes next year if it doesn't happen this summer.

After all these trades, Gordon and Randle are the only really physical forwards with size in the Western playoff picture.
We'll see what happens when Chet is fully healthy and how OKC sets it up.



Fox will probably be back to his ~33% average, hopefully Castle can also get close to it.



I can't say I've seen enough of him, looking at the stats in 9 games he played 25 or more 7 was the highest number of rebounds he got. 5 or less in 8 other games. Doesn't look ideal in that regard.

I think he's misused and under utilized there. My only concern is his motor. We don't have enough data to really judge that and he did well on talent alone in college so there wasn't any way to really analyze his motor like you'd like there either. I wouldn't pay a ton for him because of that, but I think he's an excellent fit next to Wemby if he has a motor to go with that build/skillset.

[CGD]

As a pf for the spurs, herb is too much of a lightweight at 206ish lbs. who will you have defending the big guys down low when they make wemby switch on a shooter?

as a sf? Might work if we pair him with a thick forward who can shoot and defend bigs inside, like Naz Reid. But I feel like that would cause the offense to have much less movement and you can’t run as many plays because counting on a big guy to be one of your primary shooters isn’t as effective as a much more mobile sf being your primary shooter.

Herb as the 3 and Smith as the 4 is what I was going for. Smith is 6’10” and plays PF. Good defender, serious outside threat, and doesn’t need the ball on offense to be useful.

[poopbox]

Jabari Smith Jr.
Herb Jones

[CGD]

Pretty much.

I also think Stephon Castle will ultimately guard SFs for the Spurs as he bulks up, so maybe we don’t need a Herb type at the 3. But someone in the mold of Jabari would be ideal at the PF, which is why I can’t strike Ace Bailey off my draft wishlist just yet.

[Dejounte]

Pretty much.

I also think Stephon Castle will ultimately guard SFs for the Spurs as he bulks up, so maybe we don’t need a Herb type at the 3. But someone in the mold of Jabari would be ideal at the PF, which is why I can’t strike Ace Bailey off my draft wishlist just yet.

Not sure Jabari does well enough against thicker bigs, tbh

[Dejounte]

But also the Rockets will never give him away to the Spurs. Maybe ten years from now when he’s hopped around teams

[rankingtear]

Herb as the 3 and Smith as the 4 is what I was going for. Smith is 6’10” and plays PF. Good defender, serious outside threat, and doesn’t need the ball on offense to be useful.

Offense would be too stagnant, Herb is a corner shooter and Jabari can't dribble.

[exstatic]

Pretty much.

I also think Stephon Castle will ultimately guard SFs for the Spurs as he bulks up, so maybe we don’t need a Herb type at the 3. But someone in the mold of Jabari would be ideal at the PF, which is why I can’t strike Ace Bailey off my draft wishlist just yet.

Go run a comp on TaT. Even in college, Jabari s on Ace. They’re really not comparable prospects, other than they’re both listed at 6’10”.

[R. DeMurre]

Copper Flagg's Tankathon page of stat strengths/stat weaknesses is really something to behold-- all positives and no negatives. The only other page in recent memory I recall being so extreme was Jalen Hood-Shifino's, which was all negative with no positives.


https://www.tankathon.com/players/cooper-flagg

[CGD]

But also the Rockets will never give him away to the Spurs. Maybe ten years from now when he’s hopped around teams

Totally, i was just responding to the prompt of the thread.
99.5% of the stuff we muse about here will never happen.

[poopbox]

Not sure Jabari does well enough against thicker bigs, tbh

Rockets are top 8 in lots of defensive categories. Jabari does just fine on defense against anyone he guards.

And we'd be comparing him directly to Jeremy Sochan. He has WAY better defensive metrics across the board than Sochan.

[Dejounte]

Rockets are top 8 in lots of defensive categories. Jabari does just fine on defense against anyone he guards.

And we'd be comparing him directly to Jeremy Sochan. He has WAY better defensive metrics across the board than Sochan.

The Rockets’ defensive scheme will be nowhere near similar to what the Spurs will ever run because of Wemby’s strengths and weaknesses. The Spurs will always be plagued by Wemby’s physical limitations against brute players (big and small), so they will need a player or players to counterbalance that. Does Jabari defend bigs well and is he a decent rebounder are valid questions based on what the Spurs need. We can’t keep losing the rebound battle. This isn’t only about being better than Sochan. That’s not enough for the Spurs to truly succeed. It’s also about finding the best fit.

I’ll say it again. The Spurs need a strong PF that has tree trunks for legs, ideally weighs more than 240 lb, has enough length to cover true centers, knows how to box out and do the dirty work on the boards, not afraid of bumping players in the paint, and has enough agility to sometimes switch out to perimeter players.

[LeBowen]

The Spurs will always be plagued by Wemby’s physical limitations against brute players (big and small)

Now this is just nonsense.
The only bigs who got the better of Wemby were Jokic and AD, but Wemby also got his and had good statlines. And it's not like you can find someone better to defend those two.
He easily dominated the likes of Sabonis and Sengun who rely on physical play.
Zubac had that one game with 8 offensive rebounds, but I honestly can't be bothered checking if Wemby was on the floor for most of those. And he outplayed him in two other matchups.

Wemby's length is overwhelming enough to be the equalizer against players with more physical presence and they can't keep up with him on the other end.
Mind you we're talking about a second year player, you're really trying to push the narrative of his limitations against by far the best player in the league? The player who had to adjust his game because of Wemby's presence and won the matchup that way and not just by dominating physically? Jokic's biggest advantage was conditioning when he took over in the 4th and OT.

You can talk about strength limitations, but saying Spurs will always be plagued is just one of your edgy takes just because you like to be a contrarian.

We're losing rebounding battles because Wemby had to do it by himself most of the time and not because of his physical limitations. Unless you expect him to get 15rpg.

[Dejounte]

Now this is just nonsense.
The only bigs who got the better of Wemby were Jokic and AD, but Wemby also got his and had good statlines. And it's not like you can find someone better to defend those two.
He easily dominated the likes of Sabonis and Sengun who rely on physical play.
Zubac had that one game with 8 offensive rebounds, but I honestly can't be bothered checking if Wemby was on the floor for most of those. And he outplayed him in two other matchups.

Wemby's length is overwhelming enough to be the equalizer against players with more physical presence and they can't keep up with him on the other end.
Mind you we're talking about a second year player, you're really trying to push the narrative of his limitations against by far the best player in the league? The player who had to adjust his game because of Wemby's presence and won the matchup that way and not just by dominating physically? Jokic's biggest advantage was conditioning when he took over in the 4th and OT.

You can talk about strength limitations, but saying Spurs will always be plagued is just one of your edgy takes just because you like to be a contrarian.

We're losing rebounding battles because Wemby had to do it by himself most of the time and not because of his physical limitations. Unless you expect him to get 15rpg.

Yeah, it seems like you missed my point entirely but then made my point for me entirely with your last paragraph.

You read my post with the interpretation of me criticizing how well Wemby does in his 1 on 1 matchups. I don’t care about the one on one match up and who Wemby scored more or rebounded more against.

We are losing the rebound battles because Wemby has to do it by himself… ING YES!

Who the do you think will help him? Another twig like Jabari? Or another 3 pt shooting PF who stays away from the rim? Come on.

it feels like you’re close to getting it. Just got to connect these two dots, man.

[LeBowen]

Yeah, it seems like you missed my point entirely but then made my point for me entirely with your last paragraph.

You read my post with the interpretation of me criticizing how well Wemby does in his 1 on 1 matchups. I don’t care about the one on one match up and who Wemby scored more or rebounded more against.

I didn't miss your point, you missed your own point. You can't say that Spurs will be plagued by Wemby's physical limitations, no matter how you try to spin it.
Unless you expect Wemby to rebound 1v3 or whatever every game.

We are losing the rebound battles because Wemby has to do it by himself… ING YES!

Everyone has been saying that all year long.

Who the do you think will help him? Another twig like Jabari? Come on.

Funnily enough, Rockets are #1 in RPG this season.
Sengun, Jabari and Amen combine for 24.3.
Warriors are second, noone averages more than 6.2.

It can be done in different ways.
Castle will surely be one of the better rebounding guards in the league, if we get a SF who's also a great rebounder, we won't need a bruiser at PF spot, just someone who doesn't get bullied.

[Dejounte]

I didn't miss your point, you missed your own point. You can't say that Spurs will be plagued by Wemby's physical limitations, no matter how you try to spin it.
Unless you expect Wemby to rebound 1v3 or whatever every game.



Everyone has been saying that all year long.



Funnily enough, Rockets are #1 in RPG this season.
Sengun, Jabari and Amen combine for 24.3.
Warriors are second, noone averages more than 6.2.

It can be done in different ways.
Castle will surely be one of the better rebounding guards in the league, if we get a SF who's also a great rebounder, we won't need a bruiser at PF spot, just someone who doesn't get bullied.

You’re so focused on trying to be correct that you don’t see the layers of my argument. You think me saying Wemby is an imperfect human being with physical limitations is laying judgment on him as a whole. It’s not. It’s reality. Wemby, as we’ve seen all year, prefers to play on the wing on offense. That’s a fact. He also gets switched out on a perimeter player throughout a basketball game, whether by design, choice, or opposing team’s strategy. That’s also a fact. Both of these are due to his physical limitations. Oops, are those triggering words again? Let me say it in another way, then. Both of those are due to his size being taken advantage of whether by himself or the opposing team.

The Rockets, are again, a different team than the Spurs and play a completely different style that the Spurs are unable to play because they have WEMBY. This is another fact that can’t be glossed over. It’s not apples to apples and comparing them both is a disingenuous argument at best.