Spurs: We Gotta Talk About That Young MFer Wemby

[chubbs]

The head coach has to take a lot of blame. First ~35 games of the season he was starting Sochan at PG and then Branham at PG and the team was historically bad with those two at point (5-30). I remember seeing a stat that Wemby had more assists to Sochan than Sochan had to Wemby despite Sochan being PG. Was frustrating seeing him only make passes to Victor when he floated out to the three point line, Sochan was practically incapable of passing the ball forward to Wemby. Spurs have this huge aversion to PGs less than 6'4" which is why they tried to force Sochan and Branham into the role and why they made the most re ed pick of the decade in Josh Primo at 12.

i think its a bit unfair to rag as hard on pop as some spurfans have been doing. theres no question the team is significantly flawed and needs better pieces. i dont blame him for trying different things out, especially on a season that wasnt going anywhere anyways.

but regardless of whether the biggest issue is coaching, or the talent level of the team, i dont see any legit excuse for not winning at least 1 more game than last year. and some of that should also fall on wemby.

of course its very early in his career, and i believe he will improve on this aspect of his game... but right now his mindset and approach reminds me an awful lot of westbrook.

[baseline bum]

i think its a bit unfair to rag as hard on pop as some spurfans have been doing. theres no question the team is significantly flawed and needs better pieces. i dont blame him for trying different things out, especially on a season that wasnt going anywhere anyways.

but regardless of whether the biggest issue is coaching, or the talent level of the team, i dont see any legit excuse for not winning at least 1 more game than last year. and some of that should also fall on wemby.

of course its very early in his career, and i believe he will improve on this aspect of his game... but right now his mindset and approach reminds me an awful lot of westbrook.

I give Pop a lot of credit for managing Victor's minutes to keep him from ever hitting too hard of a rookie wall and I thought ~30 mpg was appropriate for a guy in his 19-20 age year. No way he was going to be ready to play 35 mpg like Jokic or 37 mpg like Doncic does now. But the PG experiments with Sochan and Branham were ridiculous. Neither of them had any hope of being a PG and should have had a way shorter leash. When the one actual PG on the roster, Tre Jones, got moved into the starting lineup they improved from a 12 win pace to a 30 win pace. Still a ty team but a night and day difference. Especially when Sochan was PG Wembanyama would only get touches at the three point line which would let other teams guard him with SF and SG that he didn't have the ballhandling skills to be able to take off the dribble. Sochan and Branham would commit stupid turnovers in the backcourt a couple times a game too, unforgivable for a PG. I really think the two main reasons for the terrible W/L record this year were the Sochan/Branham experiment and the West getting a lot better this year. Having watched ~70 Spurs games this year the team would usually fall apart when Wemby went to the bench, especially defensively. The on/off impact was night and day most games even when his shot wasn't falling.

[DAF86]

i think its a bit unfair to rag as hard on pop as some spurfans have been doing. theres no question the team is significantly flawed and needs better pieces. i dont blame him for trying different things out, especially on a season that wasnt going anywhere anyways.

but regardless of whether the biggest issue is coaching, or the talent level of the team, i dont see any legit excuse for not winning at least 1 more game than last year. and some of that should also fall on wemby.

of course its very early in his career, and i believe he will improve on this aspect of his game... but right now his mindset and approach reminds me an awful lot of westbrook.

Dude, stop with the stupid ass agenda. Every metric out there says Wemby makes the Spurs significantly better when he's on the court, specially after the all-star break, despite Pop and the Spurs clearly going tank mode by shutting down anyone that wasn't 110%. Also, it is false that this is the same roster than last year. Last season the Spurs had veterans like Poeltl and Richardson for more than half the games. The Spurs would have won a lot more games this season with those two alongside Wemby.

I really don't get this "let's on a rookie for a losing record" shtick, what's even the point of it? Get on even harder in the future when the Spurs inevitably start winning more games behind Wemby's production?

[DAF86]

I give Pop a lot of credit for managing Victor's minutes to keep him from ever hitting too hard of a rookie wall and I thought ~30 mpg was appropriate for a guy in his 19-20 age year. No way he was going to be ready to play 35 mpg like Jokic or 37 mpg like Doncic does now. But the PG experiments with Sochan and Branham were ridiculous. Neither of them had any hope of being a PG and should have had a way shorter leash. When the one actual PG on the roster, Tre Jones, got moved into the starting lineup they improved from a 12 win pace to a 30 win pace. Still a ty team but a night and day difference. Especially when Sochan was PG Wembanyama would only get touches at the three point line which would let other teams guard him with SF and SG that he didn't have the ballhandling skills to be able to take off the dribble. Sochan and Branham would commit stupid turnovers in the backcourt a couple times a game too, unforgivable for a PG. I really think the two main reasons for the terrible W/L record this year were the Sochan/Branham experiment and the West getting a lot better this year. Having watched ~70 Spurs games this year the team would usually fall apart when Wemby went to the bench, especially defensively. The on/off impact was night and day most games even when his shot wasn't falling.

Four things played a part in the Spurs winning less than they could have:

1) The PG experiments.
2) Wemby playing out of position to start the season.
3) Wemby playing only 29 minutes per game. Add 5 more minutes and many close loses become wins.
4) Blatant tanking after the slow start, which was caused by the three points above.

The Spurs should win about 10/15 more games next season just by cleaning those unforced errors alone.

[baseline bum]

Four things played a part in the Spurs winning less than they could have:

1) The PG experiments.
2) Wemby playing out of position to start the season.
3) Wemby playing only 29 minutes per game. Add 5 more minutes and many close loses become wins.
4) Blatant tanking after the slow start, which was caused by the three points above.

The Spurs should win about 10/15 more games next season just by cleaning those unforced errors alone.

I don't think 30 mpg is an error for a 19 year-old rookie. I am encouraged he showed he could play heavy minutes by late in the season though, which he couldn't do midseason or especially early season. I don't think the PG experiments were tanking, they were Pop stubbornly holding onto the idea of needing a big PG despite all the success they had with 185 lb Tony Parker. Scares the out of me that they're going to pass on good PG prospects like Dillingham and Sheppard to draft Topic for that reason. But I don't think they were tanking until the last ten games when they told Sochan to get surgery and ended Vassell's and Johnson's years. LOL Wemby ing that up by leading the Spurs to a 5-3 record in the 8 games he played in that stretch.

[DAF86]

I don't think 30 mpg is an error for a 19 year-old rookie. I am encouraged he showed he could play heavy minutes by late in the season though, which he couldn't do midseason or especially early season. I don't think the PG experiments were tanking, they were Pop stubbornly holding onto the idea of needing a big PG despite all the success they had with 185 lb Tony Parker. Scares the out of me that they're going to pass on good PG prospects like Dillingham and Sheppard to draft Topic for that reason. But I don't think they were tanking until the last ten games when they told Sochan to get surgery and ended Vassell's and Johnson's years. LOL Wemby ing that up by leading the Spurs to a 5-3 record in the 8 games he played in that stretch.

Once Pop got them into a whole with all the dumb decisions he took to start the season, I agree it wasn't a mistake to not overplay Wemby. I also agree Pop wasn't tanking to start the season, but after they got themselves into such a huge whole, he wasn't in any hurry to win either. That's why he had Wemby playing 24 minutes per game for over a month. Play Victor regular minutes and the Spurs would have won more games during that stretch. The point is the Spurs could have won a lot more games this season by just using a more rational rotation. That's all on Pop.

At the end of the day it is fine. It is better to have a higher draft pick than to win 30 games.

[LkrFan]

Never forget:
[/tweet]1782224488899244493[/tweet]
Chet (rookie) has more 3s than Wemby (rookie)

[LkrFan]

Never forget:
[/tweet]1782224488899244493[/tweet]
Chet (rookie) has more 3s than Wemby (rookie)

[LkrFan]

Never forget:
[/tweet]1782224488899244493[/tweet]
Chet (rookie) has more 3s and playoff wins (1) than Wemby (rookie)

[LkrFan]

Never forget:
[/tweet]1782224488899244493[/tweet]
Chet (rookie) has more 3s and playoff wins (1) than Wemby (rookie)

[Neo.]

Four things played a part in the Spurs winning less than they could have:

1) The PG experiments.
2) Wemby playing out of position to start the season.
3) Wemby playing only 29 minutes per game. Add 5 more minutes and many close loses become wins.
4) Blatant tanking after the slow start, which was caused by the three points above.

The Spurs should win about 10/15 more games next season just by cleaning those unforced errors alone.

they should have won 10-15 more just by adding the greatest prospect ever and contender for GOAT