Spurs depth chart

[DAF86]

Fox / Harper / McLaughling
Castle / Champagnie / Waters
Vassell / Keldon / Jones-García / Ingram
Barnes / Sochan / Bryant / Minix
Wemby / Kornet / Olynyk

One more roster spot available, right?

[Gagnrath]

Why isn't anyone considering starting Harper as the SG. If he comes into camp fit and healthy, you all don't think he'll be clearly the better player than Castle. Running nba offenses is the real issue for rookie pgs. But starting next to Fox, then slowly get more and more pg duties on Fox's breaks and injuries?

I really see both Harper and Castle playing with each other and fox. You can also slot castle and to a lesser extent harper as a "3" or in the spurs system Wing. I'm curious as to how much Castles 3 ball has improved if he and/or harper can hit 30% + from 3 you can put them on the floor together or with fox. I see the idea being a beautiful game variation. Probe with any of our guards and if the defense closes hard hit the open man for 3 if that doesn't seem to be paying off Wemby to the lob spot and see who all follows him. Young team lots of active players it's going to be pretty fast-paced.

[jhfenton]

Not limiting players to a single position, I see it like this:

Fox / Harper / McLaughlin
Vassell / Castle / Harper / Waters / Jones-García / Ingram
Castle / Champagnie / Keldon / Bryant / Minix
Barnes / Sochan / Olynyk / Bryant
Wemby / Kornet / Olynyk

Thoughts:

1. Castle is more of a 3 than Vassell.
2. I bolded 12 players I'd consider potential rotation players, with just Waters, McLaughlin, and the two-way players as depth options. Having 12 legit NBA rotation players is quite the evolution from recent years.
3. Putting some players in multiple positions, it's hard to justify a rotation spot for Keldon. Especially after Bryant gets a bit of seasoning. It's easy to see him as the odd man out as an undersized 3 with poor defense.

[ginobilized]

Not limiting players to a single position, I see it like this:

Fox / Harper / McLaughlin
Vassell / Castle / Harper / Waters / Jones-García / Ingram
Castle / Champagnie / Keldon / Bryant / Minix
Barnes / Sochan / Olynyk / Bryant
Wemby / Kornet / Olynyk

Thoughts:

1. Castle is more of a 3 than Vassell.
2. I bolded 12 players I'd consider potential rotation players, with just Waters, McLaughlin, and the two-way players as depth options. Having 12 legit NBA rotation players is quite the evolution from recent years.
3. Putting some players in multiple positions, it's hard to justify a rotation spot for Keldon. Especially after Bryant gets a bit of seasoning. It's easy to see him as the odd man out as an undersized 3 with poor defense.

I see this similarly, but, think that Minix matches up with 4's more than 3's in his limited action. Waters might be more of a 3 in the Spurs system, too.
Any way you slice it, this team would murder last year's squad in a scrimmage.

[R. DeMurre]

Not limiting players to a single position, I see it like this:

Fox / Harper / McLaughlin
Vassell / Castle / Harper / Waters / Jones-García / Ingram
Castle / Champagnie / Keldon / Bryant / Minix
Barnes / Sochan / Olynyk / Bryant
Wemby / Kornet / Olynyk

Thoughts:

1. Castle is more of a 3 than Vassell.
2. I bolded 12 players I'd consider potential rotation players, with just Waters, McLaughlin, and the two-way players as depth options. Having 12 legit NBA rotation players is quite the evolution from recent years.
3. Putting some players in multiple positions, it's hard to justify a rotation spot for Keldon. Especially after Bryant gets a bit of seasoning. It's easy to see him as the odd man out as an undersized 3 with poor defense.

At this point, it's hard for me to view KJ as anything but a salary matching number in trade scenarios. From the time when he was the team's leading scorer and Draymond Green declared him a future all star to now there's been a pretty large decline in his value unfortunately.

[The Truth #6]

A casualty of the tanking years, perhaps. But he's super loyal. If they trade him, I'm guessing it won't be to a crappy situation.

[LeBowen]

Way too early rotation prediction based on guaranteed minutes.
I'll take C position out of the equation because it's obvious Spurs are going to play 4+1 and we won't see Olynyk+Wemby together unless it's a specific matchup and we're getting bullied.
Once again, this is my opinion on minimum minutes each player can get, that's why there's wiggle room.

Big:
Wemby 33 / Kornet 10
I can see Olynyk getting minutes against some bench lineups if we need the spacing or if Kornet is underperforming for some reason. But it should be 33+15 in most games.
5 minutes that could be redistributed. I obviously expect Wemby to play 35+ in some close games.

Primary ballhandler:
Fox 33 / Harper 15
0 minutes available.
I don't expect McLaughlin to feature if both Fox and Harper are playing.
Not much to say, one should be on the floor at all times. I can't see Harper getting DNPs.

Secondary ballhandler:
Castle 25 / Harper 10
13 minutes available.
Obviously it would be ideal if they both consistently deliver, which isn't a given with young players. But they'll both surely get at least 25mpg.
I don't think the odds of both Harper and Castle playing bad are high, meaning at least one will get 30+ minutes in each game and those few leftover minutes could go to Vassell, Waters or DJG.

Off the ball wings:
Vassell 25 / Keldon 10 / Champagnie 5
Barnes 20 / Jeremy 10
Vassell and Barnes should be guarantees and could get up to 30mpg if they play well on that given night. I really don't see the purpose of Keldon, but he'll get his charity minutes, with Champagnie getting the short end of the stick, as per usual. Jeremy is an issue in most of lineups. We don't want him burdening Wemby with his negative spacing, but then again having both him and Kornet on the floor would mean we need three good shooters meaning that Castle and possibly Harper can't be on the floor. We're still hoping we can get some value from Jeremy, but at this point gifting both him and Keldon away for nothing would be addition by subtraction. Bryant will spend the first few months in Austin mostly because of those two.
26 minutes available.

Overall, I think minutes are going to be distributed based on which rotation member is playing better, I can't see any of the third stringers other than Olynyk getting relevant playtime if everyone's healthy.
Mitch's biggest test will be if he has the authority to DNP Keldon and Jeremy when they inevitably start stinking the place up.
Hopefully Devin has a solid season so we can ship him out for solid value.

[dn0774]

A casualty of the tanking years, perhaps. But he's super loyal. If they trade him, I'm guessing it won't be to a crappy situation.

I'd argue the Spurs repaid that loyalty with $80 million. As a thought exercise, which winning situation is a fit? He is certainly not a Derrick White type who can be amazing on-ball or off-ball on offense and is also an awesome defender. I'm just genuinely curious what his trade market would look like.

Playing Keldon in a meaningful role just feels like giving up a lot on the defensive side for a mostly meh offensive player, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. He is a lot of fun to watch when he gets on a heater, though.

[BSfromTX]

I don't see Castle at the 3 unless Harper and Fox are on the floor too.

[The Truth #6]

I'd argue the Spurs repaid that loyalty with $80 million. As a thought exercise, which winning situation is a fit? He is certainly not a Derrick White type who can be amazing on-ball or off-ball on offense and is also an awesome defender. I'm just genuinely curious what his trade market would look like.

Playing Keldon in a meaningful role just feels like giving up a lot on the defensive side for a mostly meh offensive player, the juice isn't worth the squeeze. He is a lot of fun to watch when he gets on a heater, though.

All true. And with 3 lead guard types who all excel at getting to the rim, he better be shooting well this year.

[jhfenton]

I don't see Castle at the 3 unless Harper and Fox are on the floor too.

Castle has better size than Vassell. All else being equal Castle would be the more likely of the two to guard the opposing 3. In reality, he'd probably guard the better of the opposing team's 2 and 3 (or even the opposing PG), but I think it makes more sense to list Castle as the 3 when he's playing with Fox and Vassell.

[TD 21]

Fifth starter comes down to Castle and Sochan and could easily change throughout the season, so even though I'm not sold it'll be the former, for the purposes of brevity/clarity and because it's consensus, I'll go with him anyway . . .

Starters: Barnes, Vassell, Wembanyama, Castle, Fox

Bench: Harper, Sochan, Johnson, Champagnie, Kornet, Olynyk

Deep bench/G-League: McLaughlin, Waters III (PG), Bryant, Jones-Garcia (TW), Minix (TW), Ingram (TW)

Final standard contract presumably goes to a big.

Castle has better size than Vassell. All else being equal Castle would be the more likely of the two to guard the opposing 3. In reality, he'd probably guard the better of the opposing team's 2 and 3 (or even the opposing PG), but I think it makes more sense to list Castle as the 3 when he's playing with Fox and Vassell.

Castle: 6'5.5'' barefoot, 6'9'' wingspan, 215
Vassell: 6'5.5'' barefoot, 6'10'' wingspan, 205

If Castle starts over Sochan, he'll obviously defend the lead creator 1-3, but I'd consider Vassell the nominal SF because he's more wing and Castle is more combo guard.

[cutewizard]

[ginobilized]

The Ken Burns effect in that video was making me feel seasick. Good to know that Tim Martin and Wemby have a strong connection for the past 5 years. This coaching staff will look like the real deal. Last season was so weird with such a small staff.

Mitch Johnson, Sweeney, Williamson, Nielsen, Martin, King, Lewis and I'm probably leaving someone out. Not too shabby.

[thOOdee]

unpopular opinion, but it's sink or swim time for Sochan. Think he needs to be inserted into the starting lineup. Barnes is the better fit, but is more fluid for 1st and second unit, and really isn't in the longterm plans anyway. Probably highly likely shooting will take a hit, but rather spurs take this short term hit but have an answer as to whether the spurs should pay or prepare the escape hatch.

[LeBowen]

unpopular opinion, but it's sink or swim time for Sochan. Think he needs to be inserted into the starting lineup. Barnes is the better fit, but is more fluid for 1st and second unit, and really isn't in the longterm plans anyway. Probably highly likely shooting will take a hit, but rather spurs take this short term hit but have an answer as to whether the spurs should pay or prepare the escape hatch.

We can't take any more hits, not even short term.
We traded for Fox, gave him the max and it's Wemby's third season.
No more charity case lineups, it's all about winning from now on.
It's like Sochan is a rookie or sophmore, he's had 3 full years to make his case as a core piece and he failed.
If he makes a leap this season - great, if not we need to move on.

Also, why would we take a hit with Sochan when we can take it with Bryant who already has a functional jumpshot and looked great defensively in the Summer League?

[cutewizard]

[baseline bum]

If they were gonna trade for Trey Murphy they would have done it at the draft. Vassell, Harper, and a pick would have probably gotten it done.

[baseline bum]

If they were gonna trade for Trey Murphy they would have done it at the draft. Vassell, Harper, and a pick would have probably gotten it done.

[ismael-robert]

Yikes he's not worth 3 pieces...id only give one of those 3

[cutewizard]

[spurraider21]

If they were gonna trade for Trey Murphy they would have done it at the draft. Vassell, Harper, and a pick would have probably gotten it done.

harper? jfc

[dbestpro]

So, is the weekspot PF or will Sochan surprise us all?

[emmo]

Dead forum. Sad after all of these years to let it come to this. Guess it’s baselinebums.com from here on out.

[venitian navigator]

Frankly im disappoited that After all these years body Is writing here anymore...however back to topic Bismarck Is not a bad choice 4 complete the roster...