Grades: Spurs @ Suns - Nov. 2, 2023

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Sochan is improving. Have fun with the hand wringing though.

[rascal]

Wemby is carrying the team. He's coming up big in the 4th in all their wins. The Spurs would be 0-5 without Wemby.

[heyheymymy]

1. Diaw
2 Parker
3. King Joff




4. Wemby

Nando De Culo was basically the mayor of San Antonio for a while there

[RC_Drunkford]

If Wemby blows up this soon, the Spurs can start packaging these extra picks and accelerate the timeline before they have to actually make those picks.

I think it's pretty clear that we need upgrades at starting PG and starting C. Spurs should try to keep all of Wemby, Sochan, Vassell, Keldon (yea I said it), Branham and get an upgrade at these 2 positions. Then get some veteran stars on the decline who want to ring chase to build a dominant bench unit. They should try to trade their own picks, so if one of these unprotected ATL picks hits, we can add lottery talent to a championship roster and boom: Another dynasty

[Vince Carter's ankle]

Cedi and Doug had some critical shots yesterday, especially Doug helping to hold back the onslaught of the Suns run, so I was surprised to see them so long in the +/-. However, then I looked at some two-man lineup stats and saw this (these are our worst two-man lineups putting in more than 5 minutes yesterday:

Lineup	Min	Off Rtg	Def Rtg	Net Rtg
Doug-Cedi	7	61.5	180.0	-118.5
Doug-Keldon	5	58.3	153.8	-95.5
Cedi-Jeremy	12	96.0	170.8	-74.8
Doug-Bran	5	72.7	145.5	-72.7
Doug-Jeremy	9	88.9	160.0	-71.1
Cedi-Collins	13	114.3	174.1	-59.8

Two man lineup stats have a lot of other exogenous variables to consider (like, the other 3 guys on the court), but you can see that Doug and Cedi are certainly correlated with some rough defensive play when they are on the court.

it's impossible to evaluate player's 1 on 1 defense by relying on tables
to do this, you need to watch the actual games and understand what is happening on the court
not given to everyone

[John B]

Also winning b2b with the same team is not and easy task in NBA

With KD staring down and Booker erupting at 4th, Victor took the challenge and overcame. That was some crazy .

And I like that Sochan somewhat neutralized Booker when he was abusing Tre. Sochan went to his face and put a clamp on that. That was some . Many here were dissing on Sochan acting weird lately. The guy was just focused trying to play better.

[Dejounte]

I mean, they see Jeremy is a big part of their team, and I do too, so playing him on the bench seems less useful to me. I'm not convinced he can't be the point guard of the future. And even if he isn't the point guard of the future next year, I still think the experience will be very good for him.

To me it's basically a choice of:

We play Jones big minutes at point guard and then have to use our assets to get a different point guard in the off season.

Or, we give Jeremy a chance and see if it works out. And if it does, then we don't have to use a lot of our draft capital on drafting a point guard and we can use it for something else.

To me, that's why the timeline is so important and why there's no reason to rush right now, or fix people in tight roles when it's not clear what their role is yet. I mean, it's not like Jeremy is a stereotypical power forward anyway.

Jeremy at PG in his first year playing it looks better than Dejounte at PG in both his first and second year. I’ve watched both and Jeremy has shown real point guard instincts especially these last two games. He’s learning and displaying it, even if others refuse to see it.

[Marcus Bryant]

5 games in and am trying to temper expectations

[baseline bum]

5 games in and am trying to temper expectations

Yeah man same here. But how do you not go nuts when Wemby is carrying the team like 26 year-old Tim Duncan in fourth quarters? I keep trying to tell myself it's just five games and just early season and he's 19 years old but the excitement in the city is almost like 1999 right now.

[slick'81]

Rip drew ewwwbanks

[Atl Spur]

Great to see everyone happy and cautiously optimistic We a foundational piece once again!!!

[Chinook]

And definitely there needs to be recognition that much of Sochan's opposing FG% is coming against Luka, Jalen Green, Nephew and KD. Certainly that is worth mentioning.

Unfortunately I can't find opponent FG% stats for Bruce Bowen to compare against. At some point it would make sense that your "stopper" gives up a higher than average Opp FG% since they are going against the opponent's best players.

Bowen's playoff stats weren't good. He basically didn't stop anybody. His masterpiece was probably James in 07, but he was basically playing the same role Keldon did against KD, with Tim playing the Wemby role. There are stats that bear Bowen out as a plus defender. However, many more prominent metrics have him as less impactful defender. That's a far cry from Green and Kawhi who could absolutely decimate opposing perimeter scorers. The Medium Three Spurs could absolutely crater opposing offenses, and even just having WingStop, LMA and Gasol was devastating. Spurs fans that came into their own during the Bowen era probably value what Sochan is doing more than those of us who really started paying attention to the game during the end of the Duncan era. We know perimeter defenders can actually have a statistical impact on even the best opposing scorers, but we probably don't appreciate enough what defenders can do to the other guys that doesn't show up in the stat sheet.

[Obstructed_View]

Bowen's playoff stats weren't good. He basically didn't stop anybody. His masterpiece was probably James in 07, but he was basically playing the same role Keldon did against KD, with Tim playing the Wemby role. There are stats that bear Bowen out as a plus defender. However, many more prominent metrics have him as less impactful defender. That's a far cry from Green and Kawhi who could absolutely decimate opposing perimeter scorers. The Medium Three Spurs could absolutely crater opposing offenses, and even just having WingStop, LMA and Gasol was devastating. Spurs fans that came into their own during the Bowen era probably value what Sochan is doing more than those of us who really started paying attention to the game during the end of the Duncan era. We know perimeter defenders can actually have a statistical impact on even the best opposing scorers, but we probably don't appreciate enough what defenders can do to the other guys that doesn't show up in the stat sheet.

Teams just happened to not be able to score points when they played the Spurs. Bowen was lucky.

[KobesAchilles]

Jeremy at PG in his first year playing it looks better than Dejounte at PG in both his first and second year. I’ve watched both and Jeremy has shown real point guard instincts especially these last two games. He’s learning and displaying it, even if others refuse to see it.

I like the double down
Why admit that you’re wrong the first time when you can double down and be wrong the second time too. Nice troll job.

Even if he is “showing real point guard instincts,” and “better than DJ in his first and second year.” Who gives a . DJ was garbage and took 5 years to finally be decent. Like top 15 decent. I’m supposed to wait 5 years for Jeremy to take that leap? What a load of garbage. It’s ok guys. We can contend in 2028. That’s our timeline. Sure we have a guy who is already top 10 in the league. We gotta wait 5 years for Sochan. Never change Spurstalk

[RC_Drunkford]

I don't know what people expected. This team was never as bad as the media tried to make it. And adding Wemby and Osman while individually improving over the summer only made them better. They clearly a play-in team with the chance to make the 6th seed. Just imagine how they gon look in march

[Dejounte]

I like the double down
Why admit that you’re wrong the first time when you can double down and be wrong the second time too. Nice troll job.

Even if he is “showing real point guard instincts,” and “better than DJ in his first and second year.” Who gives a . DJ was garbage and took 5 years to finally be decent. Like top 15 decent. I’m supposed to wait 5 years for Jeremy to take that leap? What a load of garbage. It’s ok guys. We can contend in 2028. That’s our timeline. Sure we have a guy who is already top 10 in the league. We gotta wait 5 years for Sochan. Never change Spurstalk

I haven’t been “wrong”, it’s only proven wrong for people who have a 3-game attention span. The fact that he is ahead of the curve is the exact point I’m trying to make that somehow you’ve ignored and went off babbling again because you have the patience of a 4 year old.

[Vince Carter's ankle]

I like the double down
Why admit that you’re wrong the first time when you can double down and be wrong the second time too. Nice troll job.

Even if he is “showing real point guard instincts,” and “better than DJ in his first and second year.” Who gives a . DJ was garbage and took 5 years to finally be decent. Like top 15 decent. I’m supposed to wait 5 years for Jeremy to take that leap? What a load of garbage. It’s ok guys. We can contend in 2028. That’s our timeline. Sure we have a guy who is already top 10 in the league. We gotta wait 5 years for Sochan. Never change Spurstalk

you can organize a rally near the stadium

[Chinook]

Teams just happened to not be able to score points when they played the Spurs. Bowen was lucky.

This is you being mad for no reason. A person asked if Bowen had a good DFG%, and I answer that he didn't, even relative to the guys he was playing. As I said, most stats that people go to don't have Bruce as impactful, but some (like RAPM) do have him up there. Green and Kawhi did actually drag their guy's efficiency down. There's a good chance that was because there were two of them. There was a constant barrage of one or the other, switching didn't help the other team (especially because Manu was a good defender and Parker was fine). They had someone to guard the "pressure release" so the main guy wasn't getting help that way. They had two very good defensive bigs to take care of drives. So there are reasons. But just like the 04 Spurs were the most superlative defensive team in Spurs' history with Bowen and Prime Tim, the 2016 Spurs with Old Tim and Wingstop was the second-most superlative defense. Out of the top-10 Spurs defenses, Bowen was on five of them. Tim was on nine of them, with only the 17 Spurs not having Duncan.

So yeah, Tim is a defensive GOAT candidate, and was the main driver of the Spurs having a dominant defense. Bowen among others was a key in that too, I'm sure. But it's stats like that that support the idea that he was a great defender rather than the point we were talking about, which is guys scoring on you. Holding your guy to 8/14 can be a good night, if that's mixed in with turnovers and passed up shots. We can't tell that by that number alone -- someone would have to chart the game and collect that data. But it can be a bad night if guys got those shots with ease, got fouled on other attempts, if a lot of those were threes or if there were possessions where guys Sochan was guarding found others for easy assists or beat him so badly that another player was forced to switch and got scored on instead.

[JPB]

Jeremy at PG in his first year playing it looks better than Dejounte at PG in both his first and second year. I’ve watched both and Jeremy has shown real point guard instincts especially these last two games. He’s learning and displaying it, even if others refuse to see it.

I like sochan and he may get better at it but will never be a starting PG in a contending team. He won't spend his career there; and I wouln't be surprised if Pop stops the experience during the season... The team is better with Tre at the point, that's eye popping, and Tre isn't himself a starting PG. You can see the way Sochan is playing the point that his instincts are those of an interior guy, he's not a slasher and can't really drive, and most of his points are backing up his opponent or cutting... The game is slower with him at PG because he's not reading fast enough or anticipating the play. He doesn't have the feel for that and you can"t teach it. The game is accelarating with Tre who is systematically looking for Victor.

End of story we need a hig caliber starting PG and Sochan probably won't be that man next season, so I'm not sure about the pertinence of developing him here if he's not even a middle term option. Could be that Pop wasn't trusting Tre but I believe jones showed enough improvement that he deserves a shot at starting. Just put Vic at the 5 and Sochan at the 4 depending on opponents or put Sochan at the 3 and make Keldon your 6th man. The way things are going, Vic is gonna take a lot of place on offense with Devin behind, so not sure there would be enough room for Keldon and he could be better off of the bench.

1. Tre, Devin, Keldon, Jeremy, Victor
2. Tre, Devin, Jeremy, Victor, Zach.

[tonight...you]

This is you being mad for no reason. A person asked if Bowen had a good DFG%, and I answer that he didn't, even relative to the guys he was playing. As I said, most stats that people go to don't have Bruce as impactful, but some (like RAPM) do have him up there. Green and Kawhi did actually drag their guy's efficiency down. There's a good chance that was because there were two of them. There was a constant barrage of one or the other, switching didn't help the other team (especially because Manu was a good defender and Parker was fine). They had someone to guard the "pressure release" so the main guy wasn't getting help that way. They had two very good defensive bigs to take care of drives. So there are reasons. But just like the 04 Spurs were the most superlative defensive team in Spurs' history with Bowen and Prime Tim, the 2016 Spurs with Old Tim and Wingstop was the second-most superlative defense. Out of the top-10 Spurs defenses, Bowen was on five of them. Tim was on nine of them, with only the 17 Spurs not having Duncan.

So yeah, Tim is a defensive GOAT candidate, and was the main driver of the Spurs having a dominant defense. Bowen among others was a key in that too, I'm sure. But it's stats like that that support the idea that he was a great defender rather than the point we were talking about, which is guys scoring on you. Holding your guy to 8/14 can be a good night, if that's mixed in with turnovers and passed up shots. We can't tell that by that number alone -- someone would have to chart the game and collect that data. But it can be a bad night if guys got those shots with ease, got fouled on other attempts, if a lot of those were threes or if there were possessions where guys Sochan was guarding found others for easy assists or beat him so badly that another player was forced to switch and got scored on instead.

Thank you.

[EricB]

I don't know what people expected. This team was never as bad as the media tried to make it. And adding Wemby and Osman while individually improving over the summer only made them better. They clearly a play-in team with the chance to make the 6th seed. Just imagine how they gon look in march

100% agree. this team when it wasn't even complete would routinely play teams tight until pop would pull the rip chord and quit the fourth quarter

[EricB]

oh so now Bowen wasn't a good individual defender? lol I've seen it all...

[tonight...you]

oh so now Bowen wasn't a good individual defender? lol I've seen it all...

He was just saying statistically the numbers weren't great like what's happening to Sochan while he's playing good D, but still getting shots on him.

[Dejounte]

I like sochan and he may get better at it but will never be a starting PG in a contending team. He won't spend his career there; and I wouln't be surprised if Pop stops the experience during the season... The team is better with Tre at the point, that's eye popping, and Tre isn't himself a starting PG. You can see the way Sochan is playing the point that his instincts are those of an interior guy, he's not a slasher and can't really drive, and most of his points are backing up his opponent or cutting... The game is slower with him at PG because he's not reading fast enough or anticipating the play. He doesn't have the feel for that and you can"t teach it. The game is accelarating with Tre who is systematically looking for Victor.

End of story we need a hig caliber starting PG and Sochan probably won't be that man next season, so I'm not sure about the pertinence of developing him here if he's not even a middle term option. Could be that Pop wasn't trusting Tre but I believe jones showed enough improvement that he deserves a shot at starting. Just put Vic at the 5 and Sochan at the 4 depending on opponents or put Sochan at the 3 and make Keldon your 6th man. The way things are going, Vic is gonna take a lot of place on offense with Devin behind, so not sure there would be enough room for Keldon and he could be better off of the bench.

1. Tre, Devin, Keldon, Jeremy, Victor
2. Tre, Devin, Jeremy, Victor, Zach.

I’m sorry, man. I can’t take anyone seriously when they speak in absolutes. “Will never be”… “end of story”… You sound like someone who thinks they’ve never been wrong in their life and that’s either because you’re young or stubborn or both. If people who are paid professionally gets these kinds of things wrong, what makes you think your opinion (yes, I said opinion) should be more convincing than theirs or anyone else’s on this board? Like, I have strong feelings about some things but I’ll never say I’m right with absolute certainty.

and I don’t want anyone to misinterpret my post— people are free to express their differing opinion but it’s just annoying as when people pretend something is set in stone.

[jehawk81]

Yeah man same here. But how do you not go nuts when Wemby is carrying the team like 26 year-old Tim Duncan in fourth quarters? I keep trying to tell myself it's just five games and just early season and he's 19 years old but the excitement in the city is almost like 1999 right now.

Man, I haven't been to San Antonio in a good minute. Is there really a buzz/excitement in the air there?