Be Patient, But For Who?

[Sugus]

We're both starting off at the same point: Wemby has holes in his game to correct. The only difference in your take is those holes will take years for Wemby to fix, whereas my take is that the process will go much faster. We have the single best forward-looking predictive model (DARKO) seemingly backing up my perspective, whereas yours seems to be based on the historical progression of players who are not Wemby. We'll see which one turns out more accurate.

I'm missing the part where DARKO DPM is a prediction model for a players' readiness to lead a le team? That's not my understanding of the stat, and the graph also doesn't seem to show that.

While I'm on the sooner-than-later camp, it's pretty obvious that Wemby is not ready at this point to lead a team deep into the playoffs, and it perfectly can take him 2-3-4 years to grow and mature into that. Is that a knock on his play or talent? Not at all. But some things, especially the "mind" aspects, simply cannot be rushed. Not only that, you just need to fail, and fail again, in order to learn how to succeed. It's a very valid point to make.

Does that mean the Spurs sit and twiddle their thumbs while Wemby learns in practice? Of course not - making the POs as soon as next season is exactly how you grow those abilities, and gather that experience.

But it also means that, even if you s out in FA and deplete your assets this off-season to build a "contender", Wemby simply isn't surviving multiple 7-game playoff series as the 1A focal point of contending defenses. He's just too young and inexperienced right now, his window is certainly not open yet.

How long this growth takes is anyone's guess, but 2 to 3 years is a perfectly reasonable expectation - he would be only twenty three years old by that point. Far from the worst that can happen.

[scott]

As you said, Chinook, there is no stat that measures "championship centerpiece" (however that is defined). All we have are proxies that can act as data points to guide our best guesses as to someone's ability and timeline to develop into a centerpiece, (or a useful role player, or starter, or whatever). The proxies that we use have been the same throughout the history of organized sports: some combination of statistics and the "eye test". The mixture of the two has changed over time with the advent of Sabermetrics, Moneyball and the host of other advanced analytics that are in play now. But that's all we have.

You have your opinion of Wemby's timeline, I have mine (which appears to be more heavily dependent on analytics). There is not a right or wrong answer until there is one, which will come at some point in the future and we'll really only know one half of the equation (it's very possible both paths are right or wrong. It's possible Wemby will become a championship centerpiece regardless. It's also possible he never becomes one).

I am disinclined to be overly patient for a few reasons:

• The aforementioned patience trap. It's easy to get baited into just being a little more patient, convincing yourself that your patience is a virtue, unaware of your own paralysis
• What I would perceive as a false premise that moves today inherently lock you into a future with no ability to course correct. That has been shown to not be the case in a mul ude of sports, repeatedly over time. This is the notion that if we (for example) traded for Trae Young, then we would be stuck with him and have given up our ability to do anything else. This ignores the fact that Trae Young may still (and in all likelihood) will continue to have value that can be salvaged later. A recently example would be how the 76ers essentially got back what they paid for James Harden. Yes, there are also examples where teams bungle this and end up worse off, but that isn't necessarily the case.
• The question of whether Wemby's own perception of his timeline matches up with a prolonged vision for him. This doesn't mean that Wemby will immediately demand a trade or anything like that... but in year 7 when it's time to start thinking about his big extension... I don't want him in a place where he is thinking about how half of his time here was wasted slowly climbing steps when he wants to run up them. Even if that was the right thing to do from an outside observers POV (which will be debatable, and the media likely won't be sharing that narrative), what will matter most is whether Wemby feels that was the right thing to do. To this point, I do get the sense that Wemby and the Spurs have found a place where they are working together appropriately in this regard and whatever we see the Spurs do, it will have significantly involved Victor and this point will be mooted to some extent.

[Alain]

First, this isn't about "hype". The hype wasn't wrong with any of those players. They're all great. What was wrong was the impulse to rush.

And what kind of forced that impulse to rush ?
Well, mostly .... hype.

[scott]

I'm missing the part where DARKO DPM is a prediction model for a players' readiness to lead a le team? That's not my understanding of the stat, and the graph also doesn't seem to show that.

Hi Sugus, I addressed this in the post directly after yours, so I won't address again but I didn't want you to think I was ignoring your post.

While I'm on the sooner-than-later camp, it's pretty obvious that Wemby is not ready at this point to lead a team deep into the playoffs, and it perfectly can take him 2-3-4 years to grow and mature into that. Is that a knock on his play or talent? Not at all. But some things, especially the "mind" aspects, simply cannot be rushed. Not only that, you just need to fail, and fail again, in order to learn how to succeed. It's a very valid point to make.

Does that mean the Spurs sit and twiddle their thumbs while Wemby learns in practice? Of course not - making the POs as soon as next season is exactly how you grow those abilities, and gather that experience.

But it also means that, even if you s out in FA and deplete your assets this off-season to build a "contender", Wemby simply isn't surviving multiple 7-game playoff series as the 1A focal point of contending defenses. He's just too young and inexperienced right now, his window is certainly not open yet.

How long this growth takes is anyone's guess, but 2 to 3 years is a perfectly reasonable expectation - he would be only twenty three years old by that point. Far from the worst that can happen.

I'm not really in disagreement with any of this. I think there is a strong possibility that Year 3 Wemby is ready to lead a le team. So much so that this is the outcome I'd be willing to bet on if I were the GM, and I'd build the team around this premise. If it ends up being Year 4 Wemby instead... that really doesn't change much. If it is Year 5 Wemby who is finally ready, then I've probably misgauged things a little bit but that is still okay because the team you built for Year 3 Wemby is probably largely still in tact and applicable to Year 5*. I disagree with the notion that it's better to be late than early (in terms of the team building), because if you are early - you can still adjust. But if you are late, you've missed an opportunity. If Year 3 Wemby is that Championship Centerpiece, but you've surrounded him with a non-championship caliber supporting cast, you've done him and the franchise a disservice. There is no recapturing that after the fact.

With that said, I do not advocate depleting all of our assets to build a contender this offseason. And at a price that would be acceptable to pay for Trae Young, I don't think that move even does that. The Spurs and Brian Wright have done a masterful job loading up the war chest - in fact to me it is their greatest achievement in the post-Kawhi era. I think they can use some of that capital now, while by no means depleting it, to start building the team that best supports Year 3-5 Wemby (but is READY for Year 3 Wemby). I also think it is important for some of those elements to be in place in Year 2, so they can grow together, go to the playoffs (and be eliminated) together, etc.

*This asterisks is specifically to the notion of acquiring some aging veterans, like Chinook has proposed. That would be a scenario where your Year 3 Wemby team is no longer capable of being your Year 5 Wemby team, because those players will be completely washed or retired by then. I'm actually not sure I understand the point of acquiring a Durant now at all. He will still cost significant assets, for a short window in which Wemby is supposedly not ready, and relegates Wemby to a supporting role. I don't think that makes us a championship team in the short run - so what's the point?

[KobesAchilles]

This board generally praises OKC for stacking picks, building up from scratch, not throwing money at washed up FAs but when the Spurs do the same, FO sucks

Spurs wanted to know what they had with Victor before committing now they know, let's see what next moves are going to be.

They developped a first round pick in a healthy potential goat, if you don't see the great work they are doing developing Victor incredible skill set you are blind. I'm fine for now with FO not giving up picks and flexibility on whatever flavor of the month FA.

I would love to go the OKC route. Presti replaced pretty much everybody he drafted. Wright doing that would be my wish. Not realistic to assume we are getting rid of Sochan, Vassell, and KJ, but Presti was a stonecold killer of getting rid of first round players.

And OKC made trades to get their current star. So we would could go that option. We could also keep our picks and use them on young players, continue to develop our current "core" in KJ Vassell and Sochan, AND sign expensive vets on short term deals that wouldn't get us over the hump to win a championship, but would give us actual playoff experience. Chris Paul on a one year deal, Klay on a 3 year deal. Middleton's contract. Even Gordon Hayward would be a gem to get. This team needs vets who are both good and have playoff experience and know how to play/mentor our stupid ass young player. Bc if there's one thing our players have shown, Pop has no idea how to reach them.

The reason why nobody believes in OKC and the Wolves is bc they've never done in the playoffs. Getting Wemby battle tested asap is the best route for us to go. I don't see how anybody is arguing against that.

[KobesAchilles]

Also Chinook I know you say that signing flawed star players will hamper our future. But the Spurs are doing the same thing anyways but instead of all-stars we are doing it with flawed non-allstar players. We gave Collins an extension, KJ is making 20 million, Vassell is making 30(?), and Sochan's extension is coming up as well. IMO we could just as easily hamper our future with ty players and given the choice I'd rather go with a flawed allstar

[Brazil]

Wright is nowhere near the drafter that Presti is. Biggest difference right there.

I'd go all in on Lauri and Trea Young and form a affordable big three for the next three years.

Presti drafter gets a lot of credit but SGA is a trade, chet is a 2nd overall pick, durant is also a 2nd, westbrook a 4th, harden 3rd... its not like the big names are coming from bottom second rounds guys.. ibaka was a good pick at 24 there are other examples and you can find also some good picks from wright

[Brazil]

I would love to go the OKC route. Presti replaced pretty much everybody he drafted. Wright doing that would be my wish. Not realistic to assume we are getting rid of Sochan, Vassell, and KJ, but Presti was a stonecold killer of getting rid of first round players.

And OKC made trades to get their current star. So we would could go that option. We could also keep our picks and use them on young players, continue to develop our current "core" in KJ Vassell and Sochan, AND sign expensive vets on short term deals that wouldn't get us over the hump to win a championship, but would give us actual playoff experience. Chris Paul on a one year deal, Klay on a 3 year deal. Middleton's contract. Even Gordon Hayward would be a gem to get. This team needs vets who are both good and have playoff experience and know how to play/mentor our stupid ass young player. Bc if there's one thing our players have shown, Pop has no idea how to reach them.

The reason why nobody believes in OKC and the Wolves is bc they've never done in the playoffs. Getting Wemby battle tested asap is the best route for us to go. I don't see how anybody is arguing against that.

I'm with you on getting Wemby battle tested as soon as possible but what FO has done so far is ok in my books, let see what they will do next year

[scott]

As to the question of DARKO's use as a potential proxy for "championship readiness", this is a tweet from the middle of a good thread on why I like DARKO. Essentially, DARKO proves to be the best predictor of game outcomes, and I take the simplistic view that the ulative result of game outcomes are the best indicator for "championship readiness" (which is another way of saying... good players make good teams, and good teams are the ones who contend for chips)

[Alain]

Presti drafter gets a lot of credit but SGA is a trade, chet is a 2nd overall pick, durant is also a 2nd, westbrook a 4th, harden 3rd... its not like the big names are coming from bottom second rounds guys.. ibaka was a good pick at 24 there are other examples and you can find also some good picks from wright

Presti credit in SA comes from the time he sold TP to Pop and Buford. He bet on the young inexperienced frenchman and won. But I'm sure you know the story already...
But other than that you're right, there is not much to write home about.

[scott]

Presti drafter gets a lot of credit but SGA is a trade, chet is a 2nd overall pick, durant is also a 2nd, westbrook a 4th, harden 3rd... its not like the big names are coming from bottom second rounds guys.. ibaka was a good pick at 24 there are other examples and you can find also some good picks from wright

PAFTO have historically been one of the best drafting teams, but as of late (2018-2021) they've kind of fallen back to the median. Hard to blame anyone who lacks some faith in the Spurs FO based on recent drafts. With that said, outside of JWill and the obvious Chet pick... I don't think Presti has been exactly crushing it himself. In fact, you could make a pretty decent young team just out of the picks he's traded away (Quickly, Lively, Sengun, McBride)

[Chinook]

And what kind of forced that impulse to rush ?
Well, mostly .... hype.

Eh, I'm not going to get into semantic games. The FOs didn't make the bad choices because of the players they had. They could've seen what they had and made better choices, and those choices would've been just as much supported by "hype". The reason why I felt the need to point out that it wasn't "hype"'s fault is because the players weren't fool's gold. They were very good right away. This has nothing to do with them creating a false impression they were more ready than they were. It is all about how execs made short-sighted decisions because they were unwilling to entertain that players don't becoming championship centerpieces over night. Tim's readiness was just as superlative as Wemby's size/skill combo, and even he was only partially ready until 2002.

[Chinook]

Also Chinook I know you say that signing flawed star players will hamper our future. But the Spurs are doing the same thing anyways but instead of all-stars we are doing it with flawed non-allstar players. We gave Collins an extension, KJ is making 20 million, Vassell is making 30(?), and Sochan's extension is coming up as well. IMO we could just as easily hamper our future with ty players and given the choice I'd rather go with a flawed allstar

It's not about "flaws". It's about direction and timing. Young doesn't open a window. There are players who do open windows, but Wemby is going to be the most likely person to do that, and that's not really something the Spurs can rush. The Spurs having contracts won't stop that. They can still trade for almost anyone, and having Dillingham or whomever to trade instead of an undifferentiated pick isn't going to stop that.

Moreover, I don't know why I'm getting painted with a brush of saying I don't want the team to make moves. This thread, according to its OP, is about Young and Mitc . Not thinking they're good targets is not the same thing as wanting the team to do nothing.

[Brazil]

PAFTO have historically been one of the best drafting teams, but as of late (2018-2021) they've kind of fallen back to the median. Hard to blame anyone who lacks some faith in the Spurs FO based on recent drafts. With that said, outside of JWill and the obvious Chet pick... I don't think Presti has been exactly crushing it himself. In fact, you could make a pretty decent young team just out of the picks he's traded away (Quickly, Lively, Sengun, McBride)

We tend to forget that White is 30th pick as Murray even though we are talking 2016/17 draft... I mean it is a bit soon to call 18 to 21 picks bust, Vessel at 11, Keldon at 29 and Tre at 41 are great value already

[scott]

We tend to forget that White is 30th pick as Murray even though we are talking 2016/17 draft... I mean it is a bit soon to call 18 to 21 picks bust, Vessel at 11, Keldon at 29 and Tre at 41 are great value already

Didn't say they were a bust... just that they had fallen to the median. I go by this methodology (and my opinion doesn't play into any of this - I believe what this tells me):

https://towardsdatascience.com/which...g-20070ccd1702

If you go to the Dashboard (here: https://braydengerrard.shinyapps.io/Draft_Scores/) - you can filter by timeframe. If you take the longest possible view (2009-2021), the Spurs rank as the 3rd best drafting team. But 2018-2021, they rank as the 12th best (even with Keldon and Tre rating as "excellent" picks). Vassell is rated an Average pick, with Lonnie, Luka, Primo and Wieskamp rated as bad picks.

[Chinook]

As you said, Chinook, there is no stat that measures "championship centerpiece" (however that is defined). All we have are proxies that can act as data points to guide our best guesses as to someone's ability and timeline to develop into a centerpiece, (or a useful role player, or starter, or whatever). The proxies that we use have been the same throughout the history of organized sports: some combination of statistics and the "eye test". The mixture of the two has changed over time with the advent of Sabermetrics, Moneyball and the host of other advanced analytics that are in play now. But that's all we have.

You have your opinion of Wemby's timeline, I have mine (which appears to be more heavily dependent on analytics). There is not a right or wrong answer until there is one, which will come at some point in the future and we'll really only know one half of the equation (it's very possible both paths are right or wrong. It's possible Wemby will become a championship centerpiece regardless. It's also possible he never becomes one).

Intangibles are called that for a reason. I don't think overlooking them in an attempt to have an objective measurement makes sense. The Spurs are going to have to go with their subjective evaluation of the situation and not be able to rely on some suite of stats to get them through. That's not just an "eye-test" thing, in large part because a lot of the evaluation will be about off-court elements to Wemby's life. Victor's a kid, and part of the journey to becoming a centerpiece will be him maturing as a human being. I doubt any of us are so young as to not know how much time that takes. None of us crammed for the test and came out the other side as adults. In that same way, Wemby being 7-4 and able to dribble a ball doesn't automatically mean he doesn't need the hours in the gym and film room and off-seasons to learn how to become his best self. That doesn't just come out of nowhere. With the overseas commitments, I'm not even sure how much he'll be able to work on that stuff this summer.

I am disinclined to be overly patient for a few reasons:

• The aforementioned patience trap. It's easy to get baited into just being a little more patient, convincing yourself that your patience is a virtue, unaware of your own paralysis

I don't think that applies here. Victor hasn't been a Spur for even a year yet. There's no reason to believe the Spurs are going to do nothing, and there are a lot of options between that and being ultra aggressive to acquire additional players.

• What I would perceive as a false premise that moves today inherently lock you into a future with no ability to course correct. That has been shown to not be the case in a mul ude of sports, repeatedly over time. This is the notion that if we (for example) traded for Trae Young, then we would be stuck with him and have given up our ability to do anything else. This ignores the fact that Trae Young may still (and in all likelihood) will continue to have value that can be salvaged later. A recently example would be how the 76ers essentially got back what they paid for James Harden. Yes, there are also examples where teams bungle this and end up worse off, but that isn't necessarily the case.

It's not about one iteration. It's about the cycle to occurs. A team that accelerates their timeline cannot go back. They can undo a Young trade in the sense they can trade him to another team, but they can't get back the picks they used to trade for him or the time they could've been spent on developing those picks. They'd instead get another win-now trade that is either less valuable and thus likely to be a downgrade or more valuable and including additional assets. They could get future picks or prospects, but at that point it's not really possible to take the time to develop them. Trading for a guy like Young also locks up salary space in one player, making it harder to be flexibility in acquiring more talent. If the Spurs are going to stay around the first apron or below, they aren't going to be able to build up mid-size salary slots while carrying multiple max contracts. That's not a problem if Young works out, but it's bigger deal if he only partially works out and the team needs to acquire another high-priced player to try to shore up the talent.

• The question of whether Wemby's own perception of his timeline matches up with a prolonged vision for him. This doesn't mean that Wemby will immediately demand a trade or anything like that... but in year 7 when it's time to start thinking about his big extension... I don't want him in a place where he is thinking about how half of his time here was wasted slowly climbing steps when he wants to run up them. Even if that was the right thing to do from an outside observers POV (which will be debatable, and the media likely won't be sharing that narrative), what will matter most is whether Wemby feels that was the right thing to do. To this point, I do get the sense that Wemby and the Spurs have found a place where they are working together appropriately in this regard and whatever we see the Spurs do, it will have significantly involved Victor and this point will be mooted to some extent.

I don't know anyone who's advocating for building toward starting to compete in Year 7. Even Pop didn't say that. But Wemby's going to be battle expectations his whole career, which is part of the reason why I do think it's important to talk about how fans view Victor. Seeing him progressing more normally than some thought shouldn't be an issue, but fans and the media are making a huge deal about it. It doesn't matter how much Wemby sees himself as a centerpiece if he hasn't gotten there yet. That doesn't change reality. Yes, I agree that the Spurs do have to be in constant communication with Victor to make sure they're on the same page, and everything I've seen from them recently makes me think they FO is prepared to do that going forward. But they also need to be willing to respond. They aren't going to have the leverage to direct the conversation for too much longer, and that's why it's important that they try to shape it now.

[objective]

I'm on the side that Wemby will be ready to contend as soon as next year. His improvement through the year, the brief apparitions of a rookie wall, how his body has handled the increased workload of an NBA season, how good he has been in the clutch, his compe iveness...

Wemby is the window, even modestly successful drafting and roster additions with solid Wemby health will have them in the play-in at least. I look at how this team has been in games and winning with Wemby minutes only for wrecks to explode everything else.

The team's winning is going to flip like climate change. Small changes like replacing scrubs and Wemby being Wemby without the rookie non-calls, without the rookie minutes limits .... And all those games that the Spurs were in respectably are going to flip like a runaway greenhouse effect and will not be survivable for most teams.

[scott]

We strongly disagree. We'll see what happens.

[Joseph Kony]

Trae Young is the obvious answer. Get someone like Risacher in the draft, trade for Young, and suddenly our prospects at competing look much better. If Spurs only need to give up the Hawks picks for Young, you do that all day. This allows them to basically keep all their other assets for another big move. Young/Wemby duo will be absolutely lethal on offense, Spurs just need a couple two way wings to fill out the roster and they're winning 50+ games and contending for the foreseeable future, imo

[TD 21]

where do you guys get this tbh

Paying attention.

I feel like I've made my stance abundantly clear in multiple threads, so I won't spend too much time on it now. In short, the Spurs being patient has nothing to do with finding the right co-star for Wemby. It's because there are no co-stars for Wemby that can alter the team's window besides a handful of top vets like Durant, James, Curry, Leonard and maybe Butler (this is excluding the top-five players who aren't going to be traded). Young, Mitc or whoever else is not going to do anything until Victor becomes a championship centerpiece, and that will take years. Once he's there, the specific differences between those players won't matter. It's like how James won les with a bunch of different co-stars. They have the time to draft players they like and develop them, because Victor's window isn't open yet. Once that changes, then they can make a trade for the co-star, if one is even necessary at that point.

Very little matters besides Victor leveling up. There's basically zero reason to hand-wring about the team during this stretch. There are players who I think could help him do that, but changing the culture of the Spurs, mentoring Wemby are not the same as winning games or having the highest team ratings in 2K. Young, Mitc and Markkanen are basically the exact wrong guys for the team to bring in my mind. If the question is "If not them, who?" then the answer is "Basically anyone else." Besides those aforementioned stars, I would be really interested in Khris Middleton and Paul George, less interested in Gordon Hayward, Robert Covington, Klay Thompson, DeMar DeRozan and Jerami Grant, and even less interested in James Harden, Tobias Harris and D'Angelo Russell. At the same time, drafting and developing players remains a high priority. As I've mentioned before, my ideal rotation (assuming no one major gets cut or traded) would look like this:

First-Round PG, Jones, Wesley
Vassell, Branham, Champagnie
Big Money Vet Wing, Johnson, First-Round Wing
Sochan, RE-Level Vet Defensive Forward, Developmental Forward
Wembanyama, Collins, Min-Level Vet Center

There are other combinations that I think make sense, or course, but paying a bunch of assets and salary space for a PG isn't that high on my personal list.

Trae and Garland are extremely overrated considering the hype they are getting on here.

Spurs shouldn't pursue either unless they can be had for 30 cents on the dollar of their perceived value IMO.

Both would be a massive mistake if Spurs had to pay 4 high end 1sts and pay near max money on the cap.

Hawks have been doing just fine without Tre the past 6 weeks, I wonder why that is.

AKA, PATFO are above reproach, know more about basketball than you ever will, 99% of the players in the league either suck or aren't good enough in some way to fit into the Spurs precious "culture" and if they're just patient, they'll either stumble into a perfect roster via the draft or will trade for Antetokounmpo or Doncic.

How does this thread differ from the likely offseason scenarios thread or the free agent signings thread? Seems like we have multiple threads on the same topic or just slight variations. And no, I am not a serial complainer about people starting bad threads, normally.

The answer is literally in the les. Don't blame me for the usual suspects hijacking it to push their agendas.

[jesterbobman]

Wemby might well be ready to be a championship centrepiece earlier in his career than others were who won in year 7/8 of their careers. I know we crushed the Cavs in 07, but if LeBron had a better cast I think he was ready in year 4 - that, to me is the comparison point.

LeBron is an outlier success, and in terms of impact, probably is the closest to Wemby as a young rookie (Wemby's better, though older as a rookie, close enough) with a dominant path. If the Cavs did a better job building up the roster they might have been good enough to win if they got a break their way in the finals.

I think the Spurs should be thinking that Wemby is on that type of path, rather than a ready in year 8 path. I still think it's worth patience to build slowly (ish) with year 4 in mind, rather than thinking he's ready now. As good as he is, there are things to work on (Timing of taking early shots off the dribble, physical strength and ability to post up (see Holiday in the Denver game ), screen angles and slipping to take advantage of switches). Those little things will magnify his impact, move him up the total impact boards and make him a more championship ready piece as he'll have fewer holes to attack.

Slowly doesn't mean nothing, and if something comes up that means the Spurs can get an All NBA caliber player who fits, it's worth it to get the Shaq to Wemby's Wade. I don't see that as a realistic option - Curry, Luka, Shai, Hali, Brunson ain't moving, Mitc might in FA (seems dumb to trade for him at his asset value, perfectly fine swinging on him as a FA target), then you get into more fringe guys who aren't at that all NBA level (to me, Trae isn't an All-NBA level player), where trading for them is more about an asset play than truly opening up a championship window.

[Chinook]

Again, no one thinks the Spurs should plan for Wemby to not be a centerpiece until his eighth year. Pop himself said they're hoping it's sooner than that in the very interview that brought this up. The point Pop was making as far as I can tell was to try to get folks to appreciate how high that mountain actually is and to recognize the difference between talent and mastery. GOAT candidates still take years despite basically every one of them having "all the talent in the world". It takes years to hone that talent into a refined edge. Wemby's talent is not honed at all. His talent is just large enough to where it doesn't have to be honed to obliterate his compe ion.

(Aside: That's why, to the dumbasses in the back, no one in their right mind is picking Chet over him. It only looks close right now because Wemby's at the start of his journey. Vic has so many more levels than Chet that it doesn't make sense to make them rivals. It would be like if Marcus Camby were set as Tim Duncan's rival. It'd be ty to Camby to judge him by that standard, and in that same way, it'd be ty to Holmgren is he has to be compared to someone that far out of his league his whole career.)

People want to assume that Victor having a lot of talent will speed up his ability to hone it. It may happen, but it's not a given just because he has a lot of talent. They're different qualities.

With that in mind, we can set a window opening somewhere between Wemby's fourth and sixths seasons (ranging from when Jordan exploded to when James, Durant and Leonard did), it should make more sense why trading for Young on his two-year max deal isn't really that great. People keep trying to say, "Trae's young, so he and Wemby will be a duo for 10 years." The reality is that by the time Wemby's ready to go, Trae will be either gone or on a new max deal making 30-something percent of the cap as an aging small-guard -- and that's like the best-case scenario. The numbers look even worse for Mitc . No I'm not saying the team should be trying to go even younger. I firmly believe in the team staggering the ages of their main guys. But the team shouldn't make the decision to lock themselves into that kind of commitment right now. If you're looking for guys to raise the ceiling now, then sign actualized vets. If you're looking to build long term, draft and develop. If you're looking for a balance of the two ideas, do both. What you don't do is trying to split the difference. Get vets and draft. Don't try to get early mid-career vets instead of drafting.

[KobesAchilles]

It's not about "flaws". It's about direction and timing. Young doesn't open a window. There are players who do open windows, but Wemby is going to be the most likely person to do that, and that's not really something the Spurs can rush. The Spurs having contracts won't stop that. They can still trade for almost anyone, and having Dillingham or whomever to trade instead of an undifferentiated pick isn't going to stop that.

Moreover, I don't know why I'm getting painted with a brush of saying I don't want the team to make moves. This thread, according to its OP, is about Young and Mitc . Not thinking they're good targets is not the same thing as wanting the team to do nothing.

I’m almost in full agreement with who you want. Everyone on your list is exactly who I want. Vets that are professionals, winners, and embrace leadership and youth. Except Demar. I don’t need him clogging the lane with another non shooter next to Wemby. But I think where we differ is that if we don’t get those vets then I believe we should trade for Mitc or Trae. It’s not ideal. But Wemby being on a 25 win team next year doesn’t get him closer to championship caliber Wemby. He has to get to the playoffs asap. Even as the 7/8 seed. We might be pigeonholed into a second round team max for the next 3 years but I prefer that than not making the playoffs in the next 3 years.

Bc honestly as constructed, this team is 3 years away from being the7/8 seed.

[exstatic]

I’m almost in full agreement with who you want. Everyone on your list is exactly who I want. Vets that are professionals, winners, and embrace leadership and youth. Except Demar. I don’t need him clogging the lane with another non shooter next to Wemby. But I think where we differ is that if we don’t get those vets then I believe we should trade for Mitc or Trae. It’s not ideal. But Wemby being on a 25 win team next year doesn’t get him closer to championship caliber Wemby. He has to get to the playoffs asap. Even as the 7/8 seed. We might be pigeonholed into a second round team max for the next 3 years but I prefer that than not making the playoffs in the next 3 years.

Bc honestly as constructed, this team is 3 years away from being the7/8 seed.

TBH, anyone will get undeserved wins next year off of teams that are Pooping for Cooper. If the bottom 10 teams are split evenly between EC and WC, you’ll get 10 games against the east and 18-20 games against the west where teams are actively trying to lose. You’ll likely pick up 25 wins just from tankers. There are 19 more teams for like 54 more games, so if you just average 1 win each, that puts you at 44 wins.

[lefty]

PATIENCE