[Finger] I say this without an ounce of exaggeration or hyperbole: I talk to people about the Spurs every day. And of all those people, there is one who is, by far, the most forward-thinking and relentlessly patient when it comes to the plan.

[scott]

I’d argue that in 2001, after they got s ed by the Lakers, they tore that team down to the studs, and built a new team around a star, that became the 2003,2005,2007 champs. By the 2005 playoffs, there wasn’t one player not named Duncan from the 2001 playoff team. Malik got shipped out at the deadline.

Who from the 2001 Front Office is still around? It's not clear what role RC has in roster moves, if any, these days. That only leaves Pop. It's also not clear what role Pop has on draft day - are these Pop's picks or Wright's? I would venture to guess (though I'm not sure) that the scouting team is completely different. For that reason, I wouldn't use the 2001 FO as evidence that this FO has experience building from the ground up (ignoring the fact that the 2001 FO had the virtue of having two fully developed MVPs and all-time greats already on the team, granted Robinson was about to start tailing off pretty rapidly, but in 2001 he was coming off an All-Star performance, finished top 10 in MVP voting, was All-NBA 3rd Team).

[Tyronn Lue]

What do you mean?

Meaning you cannot fill your roster with developing players and expect everyone to come along at the same speed, with the same upside. There are players even starting for the Spurs who have no obvious upside. There's nothing remarkable about anyone on the Spurs not named Victor Wembanyama. Sure there are some pedestrian level shooters and Vassell is above small market average for a role player (he's not a star), but from Collins to Julian, these guys are all bench players on any other team and Julian probably doesn't even make another team who isn't tanking.

You don't need 5 superstars, but you need some more senior players on the team. Right now you have a prodigy learning chess in group lock step with special ed kids.

It almost feels like Pop is hesitant to even consider Victor a franchise guy, like he wants to give everyone the same consideration. Not all players will be of the Tim Duncan or David Robinson patience and obedience level.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Who from the 2001 Front Office is still around? It's not clear what role RC has in roster moves, if any, these days. That only leaves Pop. It's also not clear what role Pop has on draft day - are these Pop's picks or Wright's? I would venture to guess (though I'm not sure) that the scouting team is completely different. For that reason, I wouldn't use the 2001 FO as evidence that this FO has experience building from the ground up (ignoring the fact that the 2001 FO had the virtue of having two fully developed MVPs and all-time greats already on the team, granted Robinson was about to start tailing off pretty rapidly, but in 2001 he was coming off an All-Star performance, finished top 10 in MVP voting, was All-NBA 3rd Team).

Buford is the CEO and you wonder if he is involved. smh. Given that there are at most a couple dozen player transactions in a year I bet he is involved in all of them.

Now is he as informed as he was when he was traveling around and scouting or watching film for hours upon hours as opposed to now that he has taken the lead executive role? No, but both Pop and RC are involved.

[Pauleta14]

Building fast and building sustainable is near impossible to pull off. Can you think of a team that accomplished both?

I didn’t say fast. I said faster

bare in mind we’re starting from way further than most with our current roster that has absurd wholes. We need veterans, shooters, playmakers (at least a proper PG) and bigs !!!

most others/previous rebuild had started their process at a higher floor than the current Spurs

+ none of them had a Wemby who had straight away huge impact on BOTH ends of the floor.

Those comparisons don’t make much sense. Like Pop using OKC’s when they got their best player via lucky trade.

again I’m not advocating for a radical strategy, just a faster one than is sold by PATFO and some of their fans (on the board and local medias)

Special player, special strategy

[scott]

Buford is the CEO and you wonder if he is involved. smh. Given that there are at most a couple dozen player transactions in a year I bet he is involved in all of them.

Now is he as informed as he was when he was traveling around and scouting or watching film for hours upon hours as opposed to now that he has taken the lead executive role? No, but both Pop and RC are involved.

Buford is CEO of Spurs Sports & Entertainment, not just the Spurs Basketball Club. It is perfectly valid to wonder how involved he is in roster moves. How involved do you think he was, for example, when the Spurs picked up Cedi Osman? My guess was it was something along the lines of "Hey RC, we are making a 3 team trade, we're going to pick up a bunch of SRPs and some small contract guys, Lamar Stevens and Cedi Osman" and RC said "okay!"

That's a fairly insignificant trade, as far as the CEO of large enterprise that involves more than just the on-the-court activities of a basketball team, goes. But it's a fairly significant trade in the rebuilding of the club, considering Cedi is a pretty important part of the rotation. What's Pop's role in moves like these? Whatever RC's role these days, it is undoubtedly less significant than it was in 2001. Would RC and Pop be involved in something like a Trae trade? Yeah probably, but largely only to the degree of signing off - they wouldn't have been involved in putting together the scouting to justify the move, or have been involved in the diligence on competing moves that could be made etc. Even if we count 2001 as a major rebuild for the Spurs (which I wouldn't), none of the people who did the leg work back then are doing the leg work now.

Glad to see you back here, arguing for the sake of arguing, though.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Buford is CEO of Spurs Sports & Entertainment, not just the Spurs Basketball Club. It is perfectly valid to wonder how involved he is in roster moves. How involved do you think he was, for example, when the Spurs picked up Cedi Osman? My guess was it was something along the lines of "Hey RC, we are making a 3 team trade, we're going to pick up a bunch of SRPs and some small contract guys, Lamar Stevens and Cedi Osman" and RC said "okay!"

That's a fairly insignificant trade, as far as the CEO of large enterprise that involves more than just the on-the-court activities of a basketball team, goes. But it's a fairly significant trade in the rebuilding of the club, considering Cedi is a pretty important part of the rotation. What's Pop's role in moves like these? Whatever RC's role these days, it is undoubtedly less significant than it was in 2001. Would RC and Pop be involved in something like a Trae trade? Yeah probably, but largely only to the degree of signing off - they wouldn't have been involved in putting together the scouting to justify the move, or have been involved in the diligence on competing moves that could be made etc. Even if we count 2001 as a major rebuild for the Spurs (which I wouldn't), none of the people who did the leg work back then are doing the leg work now.

Glad to see you back here, arguing for the sake of arguing, though.

Good to see you suck at defending your stance. You basically create a fantasy narrative and make suppositions off of it. It's prima facie stupid.

The CEO is the former GM and has a close professional relationship history with the current GM who is his scion.

[T Park]

Yeah but apparently the Spurs were "blindsided" by how much they suck this year when it comes to the supporting cast. So what plan are they talking about exactly? We badly need a vet star to pair with Wemby. This idea that we can build through the draft just isn't a realistic option when we are not a good drafting team. 19 year olds are not going to help Wemby.

cool

name names

[TD 21]

Who from the 2001 Front Office is still around? It's not clear what role RC has in roster moves, if any, these days. That only leaves Pop. It's also not clear what role Pop has on draft day - are these Pop's picks or Wright's? I would venture to guess (though I'm not sure) that the scouting team is completely different. For that reason, I wouldn't use the 2001 FO as evidence that this FO has experience building from the ground up (ignoring the fact that the 2001 FO had the virtue of having two fully developed MVPs and all-time greats already on the team, granted Robinson was about to start tailing off pretty rapidly, but in 2001 he was coming off an All-Star performance, finished top 10 in MVP voting, was All-NBA 3rd Team).

Who cares if it's unclear or Pop has the higher ranking role (POBO > GM), when you can play blame the (half) black man, you have to do it.

The idea that some relative nobody is unilaterally making significant decisions in an organization where the POBO and whatever involvement Buford has these days have built up more equity in than maybe anyone since Auerbach has anywhere, is absurd.

My guess is Wright and his staff work within' the rigid guidelines Pop and Buford have long abided by.

[KobesAchilles]

cool

name names

Name names of what? Of the report that came out about the Spursbeing blindsided? That was reported awhile ago. Name names of the missed/bad draft picks? There's alot. I mean what are you even talking about?

[Cry Havoc]

That's pretty hyperbolic. I'm not sure even the most chicken little of Spurs fans thinks Wemby is going to demand a trade after one year. There is, however, legitimate concern about the idea of this FO getting the best out of the Wemby era when they have (1) never built a contender from the ground up, (2) a pretty subpar recent draft record, and (3) extremely questionable in-game rotations, decisions and game management.

Hyperbolic?

Hyperbolic is sounding the alarm bells halfway into Wemby's rookie season.

Hyperbolic is making these completely unfounded assertions that Wemby is going to demand a trade soon, and no one even has the balls to say when that will be, because despite their claims of how fed-up Wemby already is, they know they don't know about anything going on behind the scenes. Spurstalk actually used to be a place for insider information instead of this petting zoo for angry fans who see the worst in every situation -- like the threads from 2014 calling for Pop to be fired shortly before we won a le.

This is a FO that added Wemby to last year's team and somehow got worse. I feel like a lot of fans are trying to pretend they expected this season, like it was part of the plan, when literally no one was predicting this before the season nor implying it should be the "planned" approach. The only reasons to be confident that they're going to be better next year as a result of adding a couple more rookies are: (1) The bar is extremely low, and (2) Wemby will be one year older.

If by "somehow" you mean playing our best players completely out of position with Sochan at the 1 and Wemby at the 3? Sure. It's been a trainwreck of a season. But I would put a thousand bucks of my own money to say that if we were sitting 5-8 games under 500 the same voices would be screeching about the exact same things, blaming Pop for not getting the team to the playoffs, blaming everyone and everything in the organization just like they have been for the past 8+ years on this site, ever since the trolls ran most of the decent posters off.

[Cry Havoc]

This thread has backfired tremendously

You're right, it's just more reinforcement of the utter laughingstock that this entire forum has become. I'm not even 1% surprised. Spurstalk used to have the best Spurs fans in the country, now it's a haven for the worst, one that actually cites ESPN, the worst sports site in the ing world, as a reputable source because it confirms their own narrative.

[ambchang]

The entire point of the thread is, people would only pick the sources that back up their preconceived point, and dismiss every single other thing contrary to their own.

[Cry Havoc]

ESPN reporters absolutely have better access than Finger. It’s not even debatable. When has a local guy ever broken a story in the past decade plus? Ever since Ludden left. For some reason people here like to on Windhorst but it’s pretty clear he has access. Ramona Sheldon has written way more inside stuff about the Spurs than Finger. And Woj?

It’s fine if you want to believe Wemby is happy and don’t want to jump off a cliff but acting like local reporters know is laughable.

ESPN reporters are also known to be the absolute worst -stirrers in the entire industry. ESPN thrives on clicks and engagement. Nothing else. They slap Stephen A Smith across their entire product. Their entire business model is to instigate as much drama as possible, and you ing know it. It doesn't mean everything they post is schlock, but nothing they said should ever be taken on good faith. They're the sports equivalent of a rag at this point.

[Cry Havoc]

The entire point of the thread is, people would only pick the sources that back up their preconceived point, and dismiss every single other thing contrary to their own.

Absolutely. I don't trust a single thing that gets posted on ESPN that doesn't have a statistical/demonstrable basis in reality. None of it.

It doesn't mean that the quote I posted is true, either, and I don't think Wemby is going to wait until 2030 for the Spurs to get good, but ffs people have been on this since before the ASB. It's ludicrous. And ESPN will 100% force this story if it will drive clicks -- and the most hyped rookie the game has seen since LeBron is already a commercial force.

[timtonymanu]

The posters like Cry and T Park are funny. Always call this forum trash but still post on here anyway. Even posting with the hope that posters will side by them. You can post on Reddit if you want to be surrounded by slurpers. I’m sure there’s “better vibes” on there.

[FuzzyLumpkins]

You're right, it's just more reinforcement of the utter laughingstock that this entire forum has become. I'm not even 1% surprised. Spurstalk used to have the best Spurs fans in the country, now it's a haven for the worst, one that actually cites ESPN, the worst sports site in the ing world, as a reputable source because it confirms their own narrative.

Crying about the posting when they claim victory helps.

[timtonymanu]

Cry havoc needs to bring back that gy avatar he use to sport lol

[Cry Havoc]

The posters like Cry and T Park are funny. Always call this forum trash but still post on here anyway. Even posting with the hope that posters will side by them. You can post on Reddit if you want to be surrounded by slurpers. I’m sure there’s “better vibes” on there.

I mean, I left for 4 years. I came back because I figured with Wemby there wouldn't be an entire forum in histrionics about how we're guaranteed to fail etc etc.

How wrong I was.

[Cry Havoc]

Cry havoc needs to bring back that gy avatar he use to sport lol

God you're a boring ing person.

[timtonymanu]

God you're a boring ing person.

And so are you lol. Typical whiny bag.

[slick'81]

Its on the spurs to make him happy. Wemby will do the rest

[Spurminator]

Hyperbolic?

Hyperbolic is sounding the alarm bells halfway into Wemby's rookie season.

Hyperbolic is making these completely unfounded assertions that Wemby is going to demand a trade soon, and no one even has the balls to say when that will be, because despite their claims of how fed-up Wemby already is, they know they don't know about anything going on behind the scenes. Spurstalk actually used to be a place for insider information instead of this petting zoo for angry fans who see the worst in every situation -- like the threads from 2014 calling for Pop to be fired shortly before we won a le.

Like I said, I don't know anyone who has asserted that Wemby is going to demand a trade "soon." But it's rare for HOF level players to stick it out with the team they're drafted by. We were spoiled by DRob, Duncan, Parker, and Manu, but it's a roll of the dice to assume that one of the top young players in the league is going to resign after his rookie contract and 4-5 "rebuild" seasons. So this thing needs to start showing some promise at some point.

Maybe the problem is we don't discuss specifics enough. When do you think this team should be a Playoff team? When do you think it should be a Conference le contender? Championship contender?

Myself, I think we should be in the Playoffs next year, and I hope the "plan" has us in serious contention by the end of Wemby's rookie contract.

If by "somehow" you mean playing our best players completely out of position with Sochan at the 1 and Wemby at the 3? Sure. It's been a trainwreck of a season.

Decisions made by those in charge of "the plan," so you can see why I don't have your (maybe) confidence that "the plan" is foolproof and destined to succeed.

But I would put a thousand bucks of my own money to say that if we were sitting 5-8 games under 500 the same voices would be screeching about the exact same things, blaming Pop for not getting the team to the playoffs, blaming everyone and everything in the organization just like they have been for the past 8+ years on this site, ever since the trolls ran most of the decent posters off.

Well, I wouldn't. 5-8 games below .500 seems like a reasonable goal for a 22 win team that added a 20-10-4 top pick in the offseason, if not even a bit of a stretch.

Anyway I haven't posted here that regularly in the past ten years outside of the Political Forum but from what I can see this place is a lot more tolerable than it was back then, when it was just a Manu vs. Parker trollfest. I see a lot of reasonable concerns being thrown out, and a lot of decent talk about free agent pursuits. I also see posters who are super sensitive (for some reason) to any criticism of their team or the possibility of changes to the current roster moving forward outside of just keeping all draft picks and building a Championship team from there.

[timtonymanu]

I mean, I left for 4 years. I came back because I figured with Wemby there wouldn't be an entire forum in histrionics about how we're guaranteed to fail etc etc.

How wrong I was.

Yeah you haven’t been in 4 years so as usual you call the forum trash when no one agrees with your dumb take.

this place is not PC enough.
mods please delete
all the good posters are gone.

[Cry Havoc]

Like I said, I don't know anyone who has asserted that Wemby is going to demand a trade "soon." But it's rare for HOF level players to stick it out with the team they're drafted by. We were spoiled by DRob, Duncan, Parker, and Manu, but it's a roll of the dice to assume that one of the top young players in the league is going to resign after his rookie contract and 4-5 "rebuild" seasons. So this thing needs to start showing some promise at some point.

Maybe the problem is we don't discuss specifics enough. When do you think this team should be a Playoff team? When do you think it should be a Conference le contender? Championship contender?

Myself, I think we should be in the Playoffs next year, and I hope the "plan" has us in serious contention by the end of Wemby's rookie contract.

I would say we have 3ish years from now before Wemby starts really turning the heat up. That's not a ton of time, but it's certainly more than the posters here + ESPN seem to be indicating. Next year we should be within a stone's throw of the play-in, the season after that I expect us to be contending for a top 4 seed as Wemby starts to enter his early prime years. Who knows after that but I think the 27 season will be the watershed moment for the Spurs to really start scaring teams, if not before.

Decisions made by those in charge of "the plan," so you can see why I don't have your (maybe) confidence that "the plan" is foolproof and destined to succeed.

I mean, it's a certainty that Pop&Co are going to make mistakes. And I'm not even sure if you can call it a mistake -- we gave every indication of tanking to start the season by letting Wemby fool around and turn the ball over relentlessly, and that seems to have already paid off in the player he's currently becoming. I certainly don't think the plan is foolproof and there are no guarantees of rings in the NBA no matter how good your players are, you're 1 injury away from watching the Conference Finals from a couch, but the idea that they're destined to fail because of this one season seems equally silly.

Well, I wouldn't. 5-8 games below .500 seems like a reasonable goal for a 22 win team that added a 20-10-4 top pick in the offseason, if not even a bit of a stretch.

Vegas had us at 28 wins when the season started, so they weren't expecting much from this squad. I'm not sure what 28 wins does for us. As it stands, we're set up to take another big swing in the draft and come out better for it next year. If we don't win 35-40 games next year, then sure, it'll be time to be a little concerned, but even then, as young as this team is they need time to mature and we need another star alongside Wemby, even if Vassell continues to improve. Getting a top flight player would revolutionize this team overnight, it's not going to come quickly or easily, esp given how spartan the FA market looks this offseason aside from a couple of notable standouts.

Anyway I haven't posted here that regularly in the past ten years outside of the Political Forum but from what I can see this place is a lot more tolerable than it was back then, when it was just a Manu vs. Parker trollfest. I see a lot of reasonable concerns being thrown out, and a lot of decent talk about free agent pursuits. I also see posters who are super sensitive (for some reason) to any criticism of their team or the possibility of changes to the current roster moving forward outside of just keeping all draft picks and building a Championship team from there.

Those were terrible days for sure, but the histrionics remain (along with some decent discussion). You'd think we'd at least be able to enjoy the rookie season of a once-ever player.

[scott]

Maybe the problem is we don't discuss specifics enough. When do you think this team should be a Playoff team? When do you think it should be a Conference le contender? Championship contender?

Myself, I think we should be in the Playoffs next year, and I hope the "plan" has us in serious contention by the end of Wemby's rookie contract.

I think these are great questions we should ask ourselves and set expectations. I agree with you generally, though play-in contention next year is my marker, with solid play-off berth, even contending for a Top 4 spot, the year after. Being considered a legit contender by the end of Wemby's rookie deal being the main goal.

I have noticed that even those who are a little more apologetic for this season, tend to be aligned with the vision for next year: play-in contention being an appropriate marker. Hopefully we won't find out what people are saying if we fall short of that goal.

Decisions made by those in charge of "the plan," so you can see why I don't have your (maybe) confidence that "the plan" is foolproof and destined to succeed.

This is my beef as well. I have no doubt there is a plan, I just haven't been given any recent evidence to trust in those who have devised and will execute it. The only thing I've seen out of this current FO is the ability to tear down the team, to which, I say they did a great job actually. They got us THE most prized #1 pick, maybe of all time, and loaded us up with draft assets. That's an A+ in my book. However, that is a different skillset that building the team back up and there is not really a lot of evidence pointing to that they can do it.

RC and Pop, for however much they are involved, never really had do it. Those closest either of them have come to that experience we as assistants under Larry Brown, but they were in coaching roles, not FO roles, at the time. When they both joined the FO here, the Spurs were already a winning franchise who got lucky and landed Duncan.

Brian Wright's career experience is with the Magic, the Pistons and the Spurs. He was here for our amazing 2016-17 season, and then has kinda watched it all fall apart. While the part of the rebuild that involves demolition has been impressive, the team building aspects really haven't been. I give Wright a bit of a pass though because it's not entirely clear how much autonomy and empowerment he has. Is the plan his, or is the plan Pop's? Has the plan even started yet?

RC and Pop are legend's, but neither they, nor Wright, have direct experience with the rebuilding job necessary here, and their track record at talent identification and management as of late hasn't been all that impressive. I keep asking, and there are few takers: what has this FO done of late to give confidence that they can turn this around? The only answers I've really gotten so far as one of 1) "I like what they've done with Wemby this season" or 2) "They have have earned the benefit of the doubt". Each individual can decide on their own whether those answers are sufficient. They aren't for me, but I'm just one person.