Spurs finish with 50+ wins and make the playoffs outright as a Top 6 seed.- god I hope, first two nights made me adjust Wins expectations from 46+ to 48+.
Wemby will average 27pts, 12.5reb, 4ast, 3.7blks and flirt with a 50/40/90 season, making All NBA First Team, winning DPOY, finishing Top 5 in MVP voting. Yup- unanimous DPOY is gonna happen
De'Aaron Fox will have a "down" year in scoring average, but will be more effective and more impactful than ever, averaging 23ppg, 3.5rpg, 7.9apg (career high), 2.2 stl (another career high) and shoot 37.5% from 3 (another career high) while earning votes (but falling just short) of All NBA 3rd Team.
Stephon Castle will back up his ROTY campaign with a solid sophomore effort. 16ppg, 4pg, 5apg, 34% from 3 and a defensive intensity more akin to what we saw at the start of last season. I think we're going to see Steph dialed in, with confidence in the 3pt shot. The efficiency at times might still be a little rough, especially in the first half of the season, but I anticipate Castle adding some variety to his hesi game that will pay huge dividends, and he'll continue to get to the FT line at a high rate.
One of the Power of Friendship are traded- Yup, maybe 2, Sochan is first to go, likely package with one of Barnes/Oly or even Keldon.
Dylan Harper won't be serious ROTY contention, but he will make All Rookie 1st Team.
Luke Kornet becomes a fan favorite and stars in his very own HEB commercial, while proving to be the best bench C in the league.- 100%
Kelly Olynyk has a bigger impact than 90% of Spurs fans are expecting.- 100%
Lindy Waters III plays a huge role in more than a couple of significant games for us.- Agree
Carter Bryant spends most of Pre-ASB in Austin, but makes a real contribution Post-ASB and logs some meaningful playoff minutes.- Agree
Mitch Johnson earns serious COTY buzz, finishing Top 5 in voting.- 100%, if Vic goes MVP/Spurs get 48+ he is the clear fav.
-Wemby in the realm of 27/13/4/4, taking closer to 5 3s per, but continues to attack the rim and draw fouls and cleans up the stupid TOs.
-Fox shares the ball a lot more, proving he came here to win, not to score. He looks a lot like Tony from 05'-08', but gets back to 36-37%. His attempts fall to 15-16 FGA but his efficiency is excellent and he is more free to gamble in the passing lanes than ever before. Goes 21/4/7.5/2+ and his shooting looks a lot like his '23-24' yr. Fox returns on National TV against the Lakers 11-5.
-Castle makes the jump to clear #3, media stirs the Fox/Castle pot until New Years as Castle plays like a #2 until Fox returns in November and Spurs rocket to 6-0. Castle handles the transition just like he handled his UConn role, focuses on lock-down D and gets All-D votes. Puts up close to 20/g without Fox, closer to 16 upon his return. Finishes 17/6/4/2 on low volume by getting his FTrate up to 40% from 35% last yr. People really start the Jimmy Butler comps. 3% improves to 33+%
-Harp leads the bench, plays primary initiator for Keldon and Korndog, hits spot-ups with the starters. Pleasantly surprise the board with his shooting and maturity but has rookie up/downs. Finishes #3 in ROY but everyone sees the Superstar potential. He gets about 13/3/4 per.
-Keldon and
Vassell keep up they're pre-season play. Vassell puts his "main character" energy into D and becomes a more steady/smart shooter- 14ish on .47/.38/.80 splits. Keldon keeps bringing the energy and intensity but probably gets less than 10 per because its rare to have 6 guys average 10+. He keeps boarding and turns his "black hole" in high-voltage microwave gets us back into some games we would otherwise lose.
Rest of the team accounts for about 20 per, with
Korndog and
Champ getting most of that.
-
Barnes regresses to 38% 3pt shooter he was until his outlier season last yr and loses minutes to Champ and Oly and Korn. Becomes an expendable and value expiring + solid vet/rotation guy for a team in need.
-Sochan is the odd man out, becoming the bench D-specialist he should be until proven otherwise. Sochan either grow TF up, learns, and develops for next yr w/o Barnes/Oly or pouts and Spurs aggressively look to move him.
-Champ ends up playing a lot of PF minutes, doesn't get many shoots but takes almost all of them from 3 and shoots better from 3 than Barnes.
-
Kornet gets career high in minutes, absolutely wrecks the O-boards, and we get 8+ minutes of French Vanilla
Spurs mostly run a 9 man rotation of Fox/Wemby/Castle/Vassell/Harp/Champ/Korn/Barnes/Keldon with all those guys getting 20+ minutes.
-Oly is the 10th man and becoming a Fan Favorite filling any gap he sees, serving up lunch, and being a absolute sniper from the corners and looking like some weird combo of Malik's hustle +Bonner's shoot + Boris's IQ/connector skills. Oly is gonna give us great minutes, especially down the stretch.
-
Bryant goes to the G league when Oly gets back to develop. Joins the big club around New Years, and shows a equal amount of promise and rookie struggle when he gets back. But he progresses through the season and is ready to give 8-10 good minutes a game by the time Sochan/Barnes get moved.
Either Sochan or Barnes are traded by the deadline. Spurs also field offers for Vassell and Keldon, but those guys finally turned a corner and don't get moved for less than real value bc Spurs love both, are happy were their play, and think both help get them to the Play-offs this yr.
NBA continues these light foul calls, things that have never been flagrants become normal fragrants, FTs go up, points go up. Spurs reap the benefits with Fox/Castle/Harper having elite body control and penetration skills and Wemby being an alien getting Superstar calls.
Spurs score about 120 per and maybe lead the league in pace with Fox/Castle/Harper/Wemby continually forcing the issue, with Castle being Top 15 in FT rate (up from 27th last yr) and the other 3 end up top 50 in FT rate. Spurs live at the line and constantly put opponents in foul trouble.
48 wins expected, but a couple of breaks (like Houston last yr) makes 50+ very possible. Mitch wins COTY.
