CK Mailbag: Turnovers, 'controversial opinions' and tricky roster scenarios
Plus, a little commentary on the Spurs-Thunder comparison submitted by a subscriber.
I have to hand it to y’all: Whenever I posted the prompt for questions this time around, I received at least 10 of them within an hour or two. It warms the cockles to have a community that engages like this, and the more it grows, the more fun we’re going to have. Thank y’all once again for all you contribute.
Enough with the sap, though. On to your questions, ya bums!
(Note: If you submitted questions via the chat, they were answered on the most recent edition of CK: After Dark, which you can find right here!)
Turnovers seem like the biggest problem for the Spurs’ offense these days, but Wemby, Keldon and Sochan all seem like high-turnover players at this stage in their careers. Given that all of these players need to handle the ball to some extent, what are the prospects for reducing the turnovers moving forward? — Matt A.
Turnovers have definitely been an issue, which is to be expected (at least for a while) for young teams assimilating new players, but I don’t think it’s as large-scale an issue as folks might think.
To go off the list given: Keldon is averaging fewer than a turnover per game, so he’s actually taking care of the ball; and Jeremy had been giving it away too much in the early going, but I’d lean toward giving some benefit of the doubt considering his elevated usage level, which should drop if and when everyone is healthy and he doesn’t have to shoulder as much offensive responsibility.
Wembanyama, however, seems to be the player whose turnover total affects the game more than anyone else’s does. But this is all a big part of the learning curve for a kid who’s the focal point of an offense for both the Spurs and the defenses they face.
He’ll eventually figure out when he can and can’t hit that spin move near traffic, he’ll learn the timing of defenders digging in, he’ll continue to get stronger and deal with physicality more effectively, and as things slow down even more, he won’t force the issue as much.
It should be said, his 3.5 turnovers per game so far this season is actually down from the 3.7 he averaged last season, and the offense has neither operated at full strength nor found a true rhythm yet. So while the issues have shown up again this season, I do think there’s reason to believe things will stabilize. They already have since the start of the season — at least a little bit.
Controversial opinion, I want Victor to take as many jumpers as he wants. Either they’ll start to fall, or he’ll see for himself that he can’t play that way efficiently. (I think the former is more likely.) Thoughts? — Tyler
My thoughts are, ever since you typed this submission and sent it to me he’s been bombing away at a ridiculous clip. So… your controversial opinion has been duly noted, Tyler.
Once Dev is back in the starting lineup, I think Castle will move back to the bench and the team will use Sochan’s absence to see how the starting lineup performs when Vic is surrounded by four shooters (CP3, Dev, Champ, Barnes).
How do you think this experiment will go? — Chris
I tend to agree with you on this one, even if Castle continues to shoot well. Part of his value is he can play with any group, at any number of positions, and that second unit could use his versatility. Plus, Champagnie playing that movement-shooter role San Antonio has always valued works well when playing off those other starters.
But in general, the more spacing you can put around Wembanyama while not sacrificing much perimeter defense, the better. So it should go well in theory. Add to that a more balanced rotation and some added two-way punch off the bench in Castle and it’s a good-looking recipe.
I love love love the progress we’ve seen from Jeremy Sochan this year, and I know it’s early sample size, and now he’s out for a while, but at what point does the team have to decide whether he can be paired with Victor long term in the front court? Teams are already sagging off his and ganging up on Victor which I feel like has contributed to his messiness on offense thus far. It’s tough because he brings so many other things to the floor but it’s an obvious hole in the starting lineup right now. And it’s not like there’s an obvious solution in the rotation but we can already tell this is going to be a season long topic. — John Lugo
It was a small sample size, but the Spurs may have already given us a hint or two as to how they’ve decided to handle the Wemby-Sochan situation. At least for now.
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, we essentially started seeing San Antonio utilize Sochan as a big on offense. He’s screening more, he’s rolling more, he’s diving more, all while Wembanyama is operating more often on the perimeter. Hell, Pop even said earlier this season they essentially view Vic as a wing for now, so that inverse look does make sense. There’s a long way to go before everything is ironed out, but we already saw it working well for Jeremy, and the only reason it wasn’t working for Wemby is because he couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean. Now he’s hitting everything.
To be clear, it is certainly going to be an ongoing topic. But they’ve already shown at least a glimpse of what it’s going to look like in the future. And in the long run, if Sochan can bring his 3-ball up even a few percentage points — we’re not even talking league average — it will make a world of difference. In the mean time, if defenses want to guard him with their big men, Jeremy’s energy, activity and athleticism could make them pay.
Vassell has been coming off the bench due to a ramp up and minutes restriction. However, is it reasonable to think that having him remain in the second unit long term would give us an advantage against opposing benches long term (a la Ginobili)? — Romualdo Valdez
Your head is in the right place, conceptually, especially as this team continues to develop and amass talent. But I don’t think now is the time for that — you’ve gotta keep Vassell and Wembanyama together whenever Devin is fully ready to go.
However, this does line up with one of their longstanding philosophies, and balancing out the rotation is at least part of the reason Keldon was moved to the bench. That, and spacing. But at this point, the Vassell-Wemby two-man game is potentially San Antonio’s biggest offensive threat moving forward, at least with the roster as presently constituted. With Devin’s pull-up prowess and Vic’s ability to either pop off the screen or roll for lobs, it’s the team’s most dangerous combination. You want that on the floor as much as possible.
Again, put a pin in this conversation, because it will come up again. Maybe not specifically with Vassell — it could be Castle, Sochan, or a player who isn’t yet on the team — but at some point we will be talking about a good player coming off the bench.
And if they’re half as good as Manu was in that role, the Spurs will be perfectly happy.
Random question: Is Blake Wesley good enough to take the mantle from Chris Paul as the starting point guard once his time has come? Or will it be Castle, despite him being more of an off-guard, in my opinion? — Jacob Sutton
Blake is more likely to be an energy boost off the bench than a starting NBA guard, probably for the rest of his career. He has the size, length, quickness and defensive ability to be a starter, but unless he develops a perimeter shot it’s going to be difficult to crack the top 30 in one of the deepest positions in the league.
And that’s OK! Having a long career in the NBA is the dream anyway, regardless of role. Everything else is just icing on the cake. Now, if Wesley does develop a consistent 3-pointer, that opens up a whole new world. But that’s a big “if” at this juncture.
Who do you see as the big losers minutes wise once we are fully healthy? — Matty Vincent
First of all, we’re all winners here. Subscribers, writers, basketball players — valuable assets to the community. No big losers, just team players.
But the biggest team players in my eyes will likely be Wesley, Sandro Mamukelashvili, Charles Bassey, and depending on performance and depth of rotation, maybe Malaki Branham. It’s going to be difficult to find time for everyone if the injury report is clean.
I do believe, however, as the season moves along, each of these guys will get situational minutes in some capacity. At the very least, Wesley could be a spark plug on both sides of the ball if the game starts to drag, Mamu is everyone’s favorite break-glass-in-case-of-emergency wild card, Branham can help with a cure if outside shooting is what’s ailing San Antonio on any given night, and Bassey is an archetypal alternative to Zach Collins against bigger, more physical, more athletic opponents.
There is a role for everyone, but there is no world where the time split is even if the roster is fully healthy.
To wrap things up, here’s a submission from Nicholas Burgett I wanted to include. The Spurs and Thunder are headed for a future full of important matchups against one another, they share common philosophies and practices, and San Antonio is now following a similar blueprint to team-building as R.C. Buford disciple Sam Presti and Oklahoma City — a role reversal in a sense, as the latter once learned from the former the ideal way to organize and run an NBA franchise. Now, their paths are once again crossing. Thanks for the write-up, Nicholas! — Matthew Tynan
I think most people that follow the NBA to any degree would say that the OKC model of rebuilding is the gold standard of how to do it. Well, if you compare the Spurs records with the Thunder over the last few years, you can note that they started their rebuild in earnest in 2020-21 and had two down years as a result. That's in sync with the Spurs starting in 2022-23 and finishing last year. We're basically behind the Thunder by two years given when each team started. From what I can see so far, this team looks like the definition of a .500 team. Beating the teams we should beat (mostly), losing to the teams better than us (mostly), but with the same level of competitiveness as always — just with a better group going out there to compete each night. If you buy into the defense being real, then I don't see any reason the Spurs can't replicate what the Thunder did in Year 3 of their rebuild and approach 0.500 for the season. Thoughts?
2018
OKC: 48-34
SAS: 47-35
2019
OKC: 49-33
SAS: 48-34
2020
OKC: 44-28
SAS: 32-39 (Spurs begin treadmill of mediocrity)
2021
OKC: 22-50
SAS: 33-39 (Still jogging)
2022
OKC: 24-58
SAS: 34-48
2023
OKC: 40-42
SAS: 22-60
2024
OKC: 57-25
SAS: 22-60
2025
(Current BPI projections)
OKC: 57-25
SAS: 34-48
What I learned from this is my predictions are always right 😂. Btw I looked up KD’s offensive stats his first two years and compared them to Wemby:
https://stathead.com/tiny/q5Iy3
There’s a lot of similarities offensively, though obviously, Wemby hasn’t played his full second season yet.