Yes they are. Full stop. If he were the player you think he is, they would be a more successful team this year. That's not a knock on Victor. He's a rookie. But if you could transplant Prime Wemby onto this team instead of Current Wemby, the team would win 45 games and make the playoffs. That is how high he can get (and needs to reach to be a HoFer/GOAT candidate) and far he still has to go. Of course that doesn't mean the roster and posture aren't also factors. The team doesn't care about winning this year, and the team is both young and still playing guys with below-average ability. But this roster and this coach still won more games last year despite much more obviously wanting to lose. There are a number of little explanations for that, but the big one is that they reoriented their team to focus on a raw player and create the developmental environment they believe he needs.
I get that to you with your belief in Wemby, that seems ridiculous. But I also think you haven't separated Wemby the player from Wemby the hype train. I think you're projecting the frustration you're feeling that the reality doesn't match the potential onto Victor and combined with the scarring from Kawhi's whole thing, it's making you apply a level of desperation onto the situation that just isn't there. If the Spurs become a 30-win team next year, that's good, especially if it's the result of Victor improving and/or the roster getting better and showing more chemistry. I'd go so far as to say that that would be MUCH better than if they win 40 games after a Young trade. The Thunder only improved by three wins in Durant's sop re season. They jumped to 50 wins their third year when Durant became an MVP candidate and doubled his win-share total. This really wasn't a supporting-cast thing either, as Durant at almost as many win-shares (16.1) as Jeff Green, Westbrook and Harden combined (17.2). The Thunder were still very much in the mode of selling cap space for assets. Most of their top-dollar guys were either deep in the rotation or weren't even on the team by the end of the year. No, this was literally a HoFer ascending and carrying his team to the playoffs.
Presti obviously had special luck in the 2007-2009 drafts, but it's much easier to find examples of that sort of story than the one where a team drafts a phenom, makes a quick trade and takes off. I think folks should look at what strategies have worked and failed in the past. There's a real chance Wemby starts putting pressure on the Spurs after year six if they haven't truly pivoted to contending. People can fear it happening earlier, but after year six is when Wemby will be eligible for his second extension, and him not signing that extension immediately will be the first time the Spurs will really feel pressure. Of course, with the DPE, it's unlikely he'd pass on it anyway. But putting it out there that he might want to wait to sign it that will be the signal to the Spurs that he might ask out. Any time before then, it's an unrealistic fear. (And yes, that timing is exactly why Young might be traded this summer and why Luka wasn't a risk to be traded before now).
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