Vassell and Sochan could give Spurs reason enough to just go big
The NBA has become a wing's game, and San Antonio may have the pieces in place to truly size up along the perimeter ... if it thinks its players are ready for that.
For years now, Spurs General Manager Brian Wright has explained almost ad nauseam the team’s roster-building approach through the NBA Draft: It’s all about versatility, because the league has gone position-less.
Seeds have been planted along the way that reflect this strategy, too, and if you were paying close enough attention you probably caught them. During training camp last September and October, it wasn’t Devin Vassell’s scoring or shooting the team and its players were raving about most, it was his passing and facilitating out of the pick-and-roll; and if you were tuned in early in the season, you may have heard Gregg Popovich call Jeremy Sochan a “point guard” all the way back in November before rolling him out to lead the offense at times over the remaining months. Hell, remember Joshua Primo? He was nothing close to a point guard in college, but he was being molded into one before his eventual release in October.
There’s reason to believe San Antonio has plans to go big, even if you’re not inclined to take everything that was said in the past literally (which is always wise).
But first, zoom out to the 10,000-foot view and take notice of what the final eight teams standing in the NBA Playoffs looked like from a roster-building perspective. Only one of them possessed a “true” point guard in the traditional sense, but Chris Paul’s Phoenix Suns also happened to employ two of the most lethal wing threats in the league in Kevin Durant and Devin Booker. Even New York’s Jalen Brunson — who fits the physical description of a traditional point man — bucks the trend of what we’ve all grown to know as a lead guard. At 6’2, that guy plays like he’s five inches taller, using positioning, footwork and craftiness to score first and pass second, rather than straight-line speed or burst to collapse a defense. And still, his team got bullied out of the postseason.
It doesn’t stop there, either. Go back and look at the last decade of title-winning teams. It’s Durant, Steph Curry, Kyrie Irving, LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard and Giannis Antetokounmpo, with point guards like Jrue Holiday, Kyle Lowry and Rajon Rondo (!) there to keep things organized. Tony Parker almost did it as ‘The Guy’ in 2013, but that dude was beaten to hell by the time the Spurs were able to bring it home the next season when Kawhi made his leap. Aside from the legitimate marvels of the sport like Steph and Nikola Jokic, and perhaps still Kyrie at times, this is a wing’s league — where complementary and situational passing is becoming more critical by the year, with hockey assists and secondary ball- and player-movement being the elements that break increasingly technical defensive schemes.
It’s not easy to abruptly begin watching basketball through an unfamiliar lens after decades of leaning on certain definitions of player roles, but the way the game has changed practically necessitates that alteration of perspective. There exists a real possibility that, should the Spurs not strike some sort of major deal during the draft or once the offseason officially begins, they may regularly roll out a jumbo lineup of Sochan, Vassell, Keldon Johnson, Zach Collins, and A Certain Not-Yet-Drafted Rookie From France. And while that may seem unconventional to some, it begins to make a lot more sense when you consider the amount of potential playmaking that exists within that group as a whole, and even more sense considering the direction in which the league is headed.
The sample size is still relatively small, but between Vassell and Sochan, San Antonio may have the requisite pieces to effectively set the table for Victor Wembanyama. At least for now, but perhaps even beyond.
Vassell spent so much of the season out of sight and out of mind due to injury that it’s fairly easy to forget how his season began. He loved the pick-and-roll, showed a newfound confidence in attacking the rim, and was even more effective with the ball in his hands than he was spotting up along the perimeter — the area of his game that had previously been his bread and butter.
But as the year moved along, and as the knee injury that eventually required arthroscopic surgery began to bother Vassell more and more, his aggressiveness around the basket began to wane. Still, the facilitating never wavered, and the preseason hype surrounding his ability to collapse the defense and find shooters was clearly justified.
The Spurs’ starting swingman was always looking for his teammates, kicking the ball out on 50.6 percent of his drives while racking up 19.8 potential assists per game and a 12.5 assist percentage off penetration, which placed him in the 90th, 82nd, and 82nd percentiles in those respective categories league-wide, per BBall Index. Additionally, San Antonio scored 1.223 points per possession with a 63.4 effective field-goal percentage off Vassell passes to spot-up scorers, per Synergy data, a huge number for a team that didn’t exactly boast a roster full of deadeye shooters.
For my friends who do not nerd out over basketball the same way many of us degenerates do, here’s the easy-to-follow version: Vassell was excellent at leveraging his scoring ability to draw in defenders, find the men they left open, and create easy looks for his teammates.
Still, this is only half — if not considerably less than that — of the Vassell equation. He is a scorer first and foremost, which is why these passes are available to him in the first place.
There will be a deeper dive into Vassell’s game later this summer, but here’s a breakdown to tide y’all over in case you missed it earlier this season
But none of that is a secret. In Vassell, we’ve seen flashes of a guy who can be a secondary scorer on a good team, with hot streaks that can carry an offense at times. The concern lies in his and his teammates’ abilities to not only create for themselves, but to prop up Wembanyama once he gets to town.
It remains to be seen exactly how the rookie will be utilized in San Antonio, but you can bet there’s going to be a whole lot of pick-and-roll offense. A WHOLE lot. Fortunately for Wemby, Vassell is built for the two-man game. With a wide array of shots off the bounce — the pull-up, side-step and turnaround are all money in the mid-range — he’s got the type of scoring gravity that can make life easy for the big man with whom he’s partnered, and his growth as a facilitator just streamlines the fit even further.
Still, even if the Spurs make a more sizable shift toward a wing-centric offense next season, having someone in place to initiate actions is critical. San Antonio likes to play quickly, so there’s going to be a lot of grab-and-go from Vassell, Sochan and Johnson, straight into high pick-and-rolls, “pistol” action and “delay” sets. But as the pace in games slows down, the Spurs would need someone within that theoretical jumbo lineup to get the team into its stuff. We’ll see plenty of this from Vassell, but he’s going to spend a lot of time off the ball given his tremendous value as the focal point of whatever actions the team runs.
Enter Sochan, who has one of the more unique player profiles in the league. The majority of the success he had during his rookie season came simply from natural instincts and intelligence, and the Spurs’ free-flowing offense allowed him to explore the space around him without too many systemic roadblocks. He was a raw player coming out of Baylor, but Sochan appeared to grow more comfortable by the week in practically every facet of the game.
If Pop truly meant what he said — and for the record, Sochan didn’t disagree with the label of “point guard” or “point forward” when I asked him about it — there could be much more ball-handling in his young Polish Swiss Army Knife’s future.
Initiating offense was a slow burn, but by the end of the season, nearly a quarter of Sochan’s total possessions ended in a shot or pass as a pick-and-roll ball-handler, per Synergy. The scoring numbers were not good — just .651 point per possession — but there was a huge spike in efficiency when he operated as a facilitator. Spot-up scorers, cutters and roll men combined to score 1.12 points per possession off Sochan passes out of the pick-and-roll, and the versatility he showed in being able to work around that variety of play types, even at a relatively low volume (PnR passes made up 11.1 percent of his possessions), left reason to believe there’s plenty of untapped potential there.
And when you’ve got scoring wings at your disposal like Vassell and Johnson, a do-it-all phenom in Wembanyama, and a floor-spacing big with passing chops of his own in Collins, initiating offense doesn’t have to be all that complicated. Just get it to your guys in the spots they like, and the rest will take care of itself. Sochan is good at that, too. He’s got a great relationship with his teammates (Keldon in particular) both on and off the court, and he’s quickly grasped the necessary timing on passes that makes life easier on everyone.
There are little things folks take for granted when watching a game, but Sochan’s understanding of when to hit teammates firing off pin-down screens, rolling to the basket or cutting along the baseline developed on a weekly basis. It’s the seemingly simple stuff like that which allowed Tre Jones to be so effective in his role last season. He rarely forced the issue; he just got it to his scorers when they were in the best positions to do their jobs.
But Sochan adds an entirely different element to the equation as a potential mismatch nightmare on both sides of the ball. It really stands out on the defensive end, however, where at 6’8 he matched up with opposing point guards on nearly 25 percent of possessions last season, per BBall Index. That’s a fairly surprising number considering he essentially started at the ‘four’ most of the year. But again, position-less basketball.
The Spurs were absolutely dreadful on defense last season, but it wasn’t because of Sochan’s on-ball acumen. He gave up only .89 points per on 228 possessions against pick-and-roll ball-handlers who attempted to score against him while allowing an effective field-goal rate of just 49.4 percent. That’s excellent stuff from a 19-year-old facing the best in the world during his first go-round. And now, with Wembanyama entering the picture and altering the geometry of the court for opposing offenses, Sochan is going to be able to play even more aggressively on the perimeter. Should San Antonio deploy this big lineup, planting a lightning rod with great size at the point of attack is a mouthwatering concept.
As the roster currently stands, Sochan may end up being the key that unlocks the entire operation (non-Wemby division, of course). While there’s plenty of reason to believe Vassell could fulfill many on-ball responsibilities, he’s too versatile as a scorer to be regularly tasked with making sure everyone else is in position. Sochan, on the other hand, possesses very little perimeter gravity at this point, and defenders just don’t worry about him coming off screens away from the ball the way they do Vassell and Johnson, and the way they will with Wemby.
But given Sochan’s size, he’d still hold an advantage against smaller players matching up with him at the top of the set or at the angles, even if they don’t respect his ability to pull up and hit 3-pointers. He showed more and more willingness to walk his man into the post, where he could either spin off and get to his spots in the short mid-range or act as a distributor with his back to the basket. He also became comfortable simply attacking the space defenders gave him, knowing full well he could do damage in the paint or take advantage of passing lanes if the help came.
And it’s important to keep this in mind: The implementation of Point Sochan would come with four spacers spreading the floor, giving him plenty of room to operate. He certainly has his weaknesses as a shooter, but once Sochan gets in close against smaller defenders, it’s extremely difficult to keep him from getting the shot or pass he wants.
(He also adds stuff like this — you don’t often see perimeter players act as roll men out of dribble-handoffs actions.)
It’s too early to etch anything in stone at this point, but there are signs pointing toward a relatively conservative offseason for the Spurs. They have a group with which they’d like to move forward, nice complementary pieces already in place, and still a couple more with greater upside than that. San Antonio will be able to go big, small or in-between, and the addition of Wembanyama is going to finally allow members of the current roster to slide into long-term roles barring any further maneuvering.
Still, should the band stick together, someone’s starting spot is going to be up for grabs, and that lineup decision may be dependent on the team’s confidence in its ability to create offense from the wings. Jones is an easy plug-and-play should they have their doubts, but in Vassell and Sochan, the Spurs may have enough perimeter playmaking to justify sizing up across the board.
Both players still have a ton to prove, but it’s a much more realistic possibility than most might think.
There is a brief mention of it, but I feel like Zach Collins's passing is an underrated aspect to all this. He's really good at playing along the free throw line and finding cutters.
I know it’s not a clear comparison but Sochan has a lot of Kawhi to his game- big frame, elite defense, can initiate offense, selfless (on the court), etc. Here’s hoping our Swiss Army Knife rounds it out with a consistent jumper or go to offensive move.