More I think about it, I see PG as the biggest concern for the team going forward. The team's three needs are: shooting, supporting bigs, point guard.
I want another big, but this can be a stop-gap; we can get these guys in future drafts. We need shooting, but have some already on the team.
The big issue is point guard.
1. Maybe the player(s) are already on the team. I'm a big fan of Tre Jones, but don't think his size and shooting suggest a long-term championship starter. Although Sochan is a good ballhandler, I don't see him as a solution there, either. We can go a year or so without the position totally defined, but not forever.
2. Acquire a free agent veteran. This also does not seem like a long-term solution, but could help for a few years depending on who the player is. Who this player might be is less certain. There doesn't seem to be anyone on the market and the FA crop is bare.
3. Draft a point guard. I know there are adherents to paying a king's ransom for Scoot or even Amen Thompson. I don't think either is a solution at all. One is a shooty combo guard, the other isn't just a long way from NBA stature, he's not even a point guard. They're both going to be expensive.
To me, the draft is where we will have to find a point guard. I can see a lineup where Vassell might guard up a position, where Sochan is primary ballhandler, but think he could get in trouble. Both get in trouble, actually. I'm not keen on running with Jones forever, although we absolutely have to lock him up.
So... what do we do? To me, and this has bopped around other threads, we need to go hard at one of the point guards in this draft. While they're not perfect, they all have good defensive potential. To me, we need ways of slowing down opposing guards.
1. Good point guards may be available in later drafts, but having defensive ones - with actual offensive skills - seems pretty rare.
2. The point takes time to learn. It might be better to get one on board immediately with Wembanyama. We can still try for another one later if needed.
To me, there are four FRP-level point guards in this draft I've concentrated on. I'm going to include a fifth, as he's come up elsewhere, and a sixth.
Anthony Black. A tall freshman with good body strength, perhaps underwhelming athleticism. Questionable, but not totally horrible jumpshot that is slow and flatfooted. A disruptive defender and heady passer. A touch turnover prone. Gets to the line a lot.
Cason Wallace. Advanced stats are almost all best in this crop, and he has the 'Kentucky guard' pedigree. A good shooter with decent volume at range and heady defender with a strong body. But he has similarities to TyTy Washington, who wasn't great last year.
Kobe Bufkin. Skinny, but tough. Hit a really high rate attacking the rim, popped in a dislocated finger and ripped off eight points once. A jack-of-all-trades type, though. Good defender, but maybe not a stopper, and maybe not explicitly a point guard.
Jalen Hood-Schifino. Was not expected to be draft ready after his freshman year, but may now go in the top 20. Erratic production and his advanced stats really aren't good. Some games, very dominant, others, not as much. Good size and tools, good vision.
Nick Smith, Jr. A rough year for a highly regarded player coming into the year. Derailed by injury, never quite got back into things. A warrior, though, determined to play rather than sit out. Skinny, could be a great slasher and scorer, not sure he's a point guard.
Marcus Sasser. An outlier, as he's almost 23. Is only Scoot size at 6'2", but his advanced stats are terrific, he shot over eight threes a game for Houston, twice as many as anyone else on this list. Unlike any of the others, he should be available in the late first, early second round.
https://www.tankathon.com/players/co...-cason-wallace
The question, of course, is what it would take to get some of these players. I sort of ranked them according to where I think they might get picked. Actually, I think Bufkin might go after JHS. Those three players -- JHS, NSJ, and Bufkin -- I'm totally unsure about.
Cason and Black might go 8 and 9 to Washington and Utah and would take aggression to move to get. The others are more up in the air.
Black and Cason particularly Black are the only guys who I see as long term solutions. Not to say any of the others couldn’t develop but just going off of what we see today. Black is a perfect fit. I don’t even know what it’s called but his area of “elitism” is controlling the flow of the game without even having the ball in his hands. Great off ball player. Hustler. Looks like he’s got the kind of personality that would gel with our culture and current group.
This isn’t something that we need to rush either. We have a lot of draft capital and a good enough team to buy us time without forcing the issue. I’m less interested in going all in on a trade for a big name. We’d be smart to let this issue resolve itself organically or with prudent deals.
I think the goal is to have the best possible team for the 2025-26 season. That’s when Wembanyama would really start to come into his own.
So when evaluating point guards, I think you have to expand the pool to players who could be available not just this year, but also 2024 and 2025. Over that time horizon, the obvious play is to draft a point guard next year or the following year.
They’d really have to think one of the guys on your list is all that in order to justify making a move any more aggressive than one into the late first round.
Tre Jones is nothing to sneeze it. He has his limitations, but last year he led the team in win shares.
So who are those players? Part of the point I'm making is that draft point guards are often not good defenders. Or, if they are, they can't do anything else. We have 2-3 options who are actually good at both. I'll need to dig back to see if this has ever been the case.
Yeah, so gazing over the drafts back to 2018, the top guard prospects, or at least the ones who got pulled, are players like:
Jalen Suggs
Killian Hayes
Darius Garland
Jaden Ivey
Tyrese Haliburton
etc.
Those were picks scattered around. Haliburton was a miss by almost every team. Great player, obviously, but you can't expect those misses again. Also, not a good defender. Ivey was an expensive pick, not a good defender. Killian Hayes, good defender, good distributor, awful shooter.
It's rare enough to find prospects that are solid defenders and have good skills on the other side. It's incredibly rare to find, say, two or three of them.
You find an Acevedo type later on, but I don't know if that can be counted on.
If you ask me besides being a good shooter and defense we need somebody who is quick. We‘re trying to play a fast pace game and need speed at the point
That list of prospects tells me one thing... we can fairly easily gets one or more of these guys if we feel like he's the fit. While I like Scoot, I don't like the cost of moving there and you can find a guy, albeit not as talented, that could be a better fit long-term.
I came here to say the same thingeverybody keeps this "Kentucky" narrative because of a string of successful guards, but each player is different, and the most recent Kentucky guard was Ty Ty Washington who didn't show anything. He's actually pretty similar to Ty Ty in terms of height (6'2.5"), wingspan (6'8.5"), weight, closer to him than often mentioned Jrue Holiday (considerably stronger than Cason IMO), and he isn't a pure PG either. On the plus side he's got good instincts on defense and he can shoot the 3, but IMO he's overrated and I'm really not interested in getting into the lottery to pick him, I'd prefer Bufkin at the late lottery / mid-teens over him.
Pass on Hood Schifino and Nick Smith Jr. Sasser at #44 sounds good to me.
They have so many really young developmental guys on the roster, if they go for a pg in the draft, I'd prefer they save their draft capital and go with someone older who would be available late like Sasser. He's more of a finished product than the one and done guys who will need a lot more seasoning. There aren't going to be developmental minutes for them any longer on the big club. I wouldn't mind them taking a flyer on Markquis Nowell or Isiah Wong. Neither are projected in the top 60 right now, but both are >22 years old and both are gamers. Nowell was an absolute beast in the tourney. You can't teach clutch. He'd be a killer change of pace guy off the bench. He's tiny but maybe that isn't as big of an issue now with a 7'4" dude patrolling the paint behind him. Plus the photo op of him standing next to Wemby may be too good to pass up.
Kentucky guards: It's as likely that Calipari just gets many top players every year and some of them pan out. Here's TyTy compared to Cason. Take with a grain of salt, but he might have actually been the better prospect:I came here to say the same thing
Pass on Hood Schifino and Nick Smith Jr. Sasser at #44 sounds good to me.
https://www.tankathon.com/players/co...yty-washington
Sasser brings a ton to the table, but is he really a point guard? I guess not, which is why somebody with his eye-popping numbers projects so low.
What about Terquavion Smith. He averaged more assists/game (at NC State) than any of those guys except Cason Wallace and he leaves them in the dust in terms of quickness.
He can also shoot from way downtown as well as mid range (nice pull up). He's actually looked pretty electric at the Combine.
He's also projected to go where the Spurs may be able to pick him, whereas the listed guys are generally predicted to go higher.
His overall FG% is 38%. That's just ing horrible, especially for someone with a USG% of 30. High usage low efficiency guys are a problematic archetype.
Probably gets into: What do we want/expect/need from a point guard?
- Do we need a guy who can bring the ball up the court, get the team organized and moving into sets?
- Do we need a guy who can do advanced creation like a Chris Paul?
- Do we need a guy who can take shots whenever possible to make defenses honest?
- Do we need a guy who can be a disruptive, plus defender?
- Do we need a guy who can be even more, a lock-down defender?
Sasser might be more of a 'get shots up' kind of point, someone who can move the ball up court, get the ball moving around. With the Spurs, they will run their motion offense and run picks and stuff. They may not need an exceptional playmaker or passer. A guy who will take threes whenever he's open and without remorse may work. But do we already have that in Devonte Graham (who is not the defender Sasser is)?
In TyTy's defense, he was put in a horrible position by being drafted by the Rockets. Look at Jabari for most of the year tbh.
Yeah, Houston is pretty much where high draft picks go to die, when they don't go to Detroit.
Dejounte Murray shot .416 (2 point) and .288 (3 point) at Washington and improved that considerably with the Spurs.
This guy reminds me of Dejounte in build, athleticism, and raw aggression. The Spurs likely need high upside guys now more than safe picks (especially if they stay where they are in the draft).
Wesley not even being mentioned speaks volumes.
If they're gonna develop someone I think it's him.
He would need to do a lot of developing between this year and next. He was terrible at finishing at the rim, questionable passes, weak, not a good defender. How much of that do you think he’ll improve on? I’d rather trade him, KJ, 33, and ATL pick and go and get Anthony Black.
TD 21 said it elsewhere — Wesley has a long way to go to reach the level of replacement player. His speed does him no good if he can’t finish at the rim, and over a full year he hasn’t developed in that area.
If you can't find your way into the most PG starved roster in the league, it may not just be an environment thing, you know? How bad do you have to be not to be an improvement?
True, but if Udoka can get them to buy in (and finds a lineup that works) they could improve next year defensively.
I expect the Spurs and Rockets to improve defensively, but that ain't saying much cause both were dog this season.
Back to the topic of this thread, bringing back Tre Jones has to be the #1 priority in free-agency.
I think the team has a lot of options and some time on their hands before they "need" to find a PG. Tre proved more than capable of playing the spot, although I agree he'd be better as a backup, plus we could see Blake Wesley make a jump in year two (it'll need to be massive).
And they could keep Graham around for extra year or two as a 'Patty Mills' - type spark plug while we find a more optimal, long-term solution.
The Spurs have time, draft capital, and cap space to find the solution.
(Sasser could be a good option amongst these prospects, but he wouldn't have the highest ceiling amongst them. Which might not matter if Wemby becomes a superstar - level player before his 3rd or 4 year.)
Good thread and I agree this is the "position" of concern for the roster at the moment. One thing I would add to the options offered in the initial post is the Spurs have shown an inclination (with mixed results) to bring in an international point guard as at least a stop gap or backup so don't overlook that. I like Tre Jones but because of his pedestrian 3 point shooting feel he is a solid backup. If he is offered a deal by another team that is too expensive for a backup, he is likely to be gone. If not, you keep him here. He likely stays the starter until a drafted PG gets up to speed and maybe the international guy is his backup.
Here are Kobe Bufkin's shooting stats the last 10 games of the season.
66-127
20-45
29-32
If I did my math right. Basically, almost a third of the season, a point when Michigan increasingly relied on him, a point where Michigan was playing must-win games. (Didn't win enough of them, but wouldn't say that was his fault.)
Now... he's a young sop re, so this wasn't an acceleration at the end of his first year. It might be noise. But:
.519 fg%
.444 3p%
.906 ft%
In some ways he's a mini-Haliburton (https://www.tankathon.com/players/co...ese-haliburton). Not nearly the player Haliburton was as a sop re -- and how did so many teams skip on him?? -- but similar kinds of production.
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