Yes
No
The Spurs were 6 of 10 the last 10 games, and some of them against teams trying to position themselves in the playoffs including the depending champions. The first 25 games they’ve starting Sochan at point guard, minute restrictions on Wemby, and DNP for b2b games. A stronger 2nd year Wemby with 1 year learning to play together. Yes I think they will start winning more games.
As long as they don't play Sochan at point guard then Victor will have this team competing for a play in spot, much like Houston did last year. All but 4 players on this team are bums but Victor is just so damn good he's going to drag them to plenty of W's they shouldn't get.
We said the same last year...they were tanking, didn't play defense, with one more year of development + Wemby, they can catch the play in... They didn't win more.
The last games of a season are always deceptive (tanking teams, load management, injuries, teams already focused on the POs)... and the worth thing to do is use them as a barometer.
The Denver game is a fluke, DEN was up 18 or something with 9 to go in the game and seated Jokic and Murray for the POs. DEN took it for granted vs a bottom team and stopped playing. Theu put JoKer and Murray back but that was too late, they minds were already out of the game. I mean, spurs are two universes away from Denver.
Teams above us are gonna improve too anyway, and they have better material if spurs stay put. Just check the first 13 teams in the standings this year and ask yourself who are the 4 teams spurs can be ahead of to get in the play in.
OKC,DEN,MIN;LAC,DAL,PHX,LAL,NO,SAC,GS,HOU,UTAH,MEM (with Ja).
Spurs won a few games in the last 15 games of the year the year before to. Denver game was a lucky last second 2 point win against a team that took that game lightly. Other wins were against tanking teams.
If the Spurs could trade a chunk of their stockpile of draft assets for an established All-NBA player on the perimeter, then they could accelerate the rebuild.
You’d look for a team that has stagnated like the Suns and was looking to blow it all up and start over. Except the Suns aren’t doing that. What team is
Failing that, you could overpay for a lesser but still All-Star player like Trae Young, assuming Atlanta really even wanted to do that. People say you can trade him if he doesn’t work out, but you’d pay 140 cents on the dollar* to get him and then get back 80 cents on the dollar to cut him loose. The move has significant risk.
*Atlanta would insist on a premium above and beyond the Dejounte Murray trade from the Spurs. Anything less would be an admission of failure that would require front office seppuku.
So if there’s not a great option to improve the team quickly, then it has to improve gradually. Wemby might get impatient and want out. That’s a risk too. There is no risk-free option. There was no guarantee that Tony Parker or Manu Ginobili were going to pan out. It was hard to foresee the crap Nephew would pull. There is no certainty.
The 2024 draft is not great. A year ago, it seemed would like it would be replete with great point guard options. Instead, there are a bunch of options that each have talent but also significant flaws. The players are all young and have a good chance to develop and iron out their flaws. But there is significant uncertainty and risk.
Things might pan out and they might not. Now if a team builds a portfolio of opportunities like the Spurs have and strikes out on talent evaluation on all of them, then the front office deserves to be held accountable and people should lose their jobs. That’s a risk they have to accept.
yeah they're gonna tank.
It's going to be awkward if Victor returns to San Antonio with a Gold or Silver Olympic medal, and he feels like the Spurs aren't doing their absolute best to maximize wins... which is how I think some would characterize last season-- not so much that they were blatantly tanking, but that they certainly weren't maximizing wins.
It’s pretty easy for a fan to imagine that there was some blockbuster move the team might have made. But too often that it just a move for the sake of making a move.
You see this mindset in the media too. Phoenix made an aggressive move for Bradley Beal that blew up in their faces. Now they are stuck with a top-heavy, injury-prone roster with little opportunity for improvement because they are above the second apron. It was predictable and not a good risk to accept. But I’ve heard on ESPN radio that James Jones can’t be held accountable, because hey, he acquired another star.
Victor, on the other hand, is plugged into what the Spurs are doing. He knows whether they’re being aggressive in making calls that none of us ever hear about. Since we don’t know, we assume they’re sitting on their hands.
Soft tank. They are going to use another year to develop their talent and see who they need to cut bait with. For those of you getting triggered at the thought of another losing season you guys have to understand there is a difference between being good for a rookie and being a championship centerpiece. Victor isn’t there yet he’ll get there but there’s no need to rush.
If the Spurs do what some you are suggesting and burn their assets for a win now move there’s a good chance they will get stuck in mediocrity. The young players that are starting to win now have already been in the league for 4+ years. Wemby is going to get there. The 2025 draft is going to be much deeper and the Spurs have the potential to have multiple excellent picks and the FA class is much stronger too.
Like I said before this isn’t NBA 2k they aren’t going to go from lottery team to contender in one off season. And the end goal shouldn’t be fringe playoff team it’s to be a perineal contender year after year for a le.
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