SA37 wrote:NoDopeOnSundays wrote:SA37 wrote:Doomsday hot-takes are all the rage, it appears.
The Spurs are in an envious position of having a lot of high quality talent. The issue with having tons of young players is they're generally all shooting to drive up their value and maximizing their game to earn contracts, not to take a backseat and take one for the team. That just goes with the territory, but you couldn't ask for a better organization to manage the team as they progress.
San Antonio will be more than fine.
Eh, the Spurs haven't done that great of a job putting a team around Wemby. They have 3 primary ball handlers and none of them can shoot reliably, they drafted Sochan over Jalen Duren, Eason and Jalen Williams, and he's clearly not going to be on that team moving forward. Their other lottery pick Bryant from this year doesn't play and also looks like he can't shoot. Vassell is just bad, no real good qualities too, just an inefficient me first player that makes dumb decisions.
It's really just Wemby and Harper, as much as I like Castle he's shooting 22.9% from three. The Spurs are lagging behind other young teams in terms of talent outside their stars.
Building contenders takes time and isn't always a smooth ride because what can look good on paper may not pan out (look at the 76ers, Clippers, Suns, and Nets in recent years). My take is it is still WAY too early to be declaring the Spurs a disaster zone -- especially when they are 8-4 playing mostly without Sochan and Fox.
You see the glass half empty; I see it half full. Wemby and Castle were a great picks and Harper looks like he could end up being a very good pick. Vassell is a solid SG, and Sochan is a starter in the NBA. Fox, Kornet, Barnes, and CP3 were all very good acquisitions. They're currently 8-4, and lost the last 2 because Steph Curry went wild. Even so, they're on pace for ~55 wins.
That all seems really promising to me.
Those teams you're naming didn't have once in a lifetime talents on them, building around Wemby should be simple - get guys that defend & shoot the three, so far they have nobody that can do both of those critical things.
The glass is half full because of Wemby, he's a generational talent and by himself he's going to be good enough to make his teams look better than they are. I like Castle, I love what Harper has shown, outside that they don't have any keepers, and I would be monitoring Castle's shot. Because no matter how good you are as a playmaker or defender, if you can't shoot the three in this league you're going to be a liability against good teams in the playoffs. The rest of their young players - Sochan, Vassell, Johnson are not good, Sochan is virtually unplayable against good teams because you can't have him Fox and Castle on the floor at the same time, there isn't enough shooting to make a defense come out and respect them. Sochan is a center trapped in a power forwards body, he is in no way shape or form a starter on a good team.
Harper is going to be really good, he's going to make Fox redundant, especially if Harper can make the three.
