Analysis GRADES: Spurs @ Pelicans 10/24/2025

[scott]

SPURS 120 - PELICANS 116, SPURS MOVE TO 2-0 TO START THE SEASON

Thanks again everyone for submitting your grades. It was a bit of a dropoff from the opener, but still a solid almost 30 grades for a Friday night game in October! As a reminder, you can find a link to the grading form in the pinned post or on the first post of the Game Thread!

Scott's Thoughts

• This was a really tough one to grade. We should have never been in this kind of fight with the Pelicans to begin with, and I think if we had Fox we would have blown these guys out. Before the game I said I thought the only way the Pelicans could keep up with us would be if they got hot from 3, and sure enough they did.
• What made this one a tough grade is that all of the players who were having bad nights (Castle, Harper, Champ, HB specifically) all came up with huge plays in important moments, and that needs to be recognized. It would have been too easy for these to crawl into a shell, but they each stuck with it and made plays that were the difference between a win and a loss. As such, they all scored a 3 in my book when they would have otherwise gotten a 2, and Harper got a 4 when otherwise he would have been bordering on a 2 or 3.
• Why a 4 for Harper? The game looked OVER until he single handedly drug this team back into it and spurred a 14-0 run. Pretty good for a rookie!
• Devin was close to a 5 for me. When he's playing off the ball with the starters or as the primary option with the bench unit... he looks REALLY good and exactly the role we need him to play. But there were a few moments when that devil on his shoulder was whispering "this is our time" and he reverted back to Main Character Dev. That needs to be kept in check.
• Pretty unbelievable that I'm giving a guy who was robbed of a triple double by shoddy scorekeeping a 3... but I have my reasons. I was torn between a 3 and a 4 (probably would have been a 7 if this were a 100point scale), but there were some mental lapses, most notably that 6th foul, that really hurt the team. Also, we need to realize that Wemby gets graded on a different curve... I don't think this was an "above average" game for him... it was just Wemby being Wemby, which is insane to think about.
• I'm kind of glad Wemby's 3 & block streak is over. Wemby's style of play is awesome this year and no need to force up 3 balls. Another huge development for Vic? 0 turnovers through 2 games.
• Mitch I thought called a good game. Substitutions seemed right. Fox would have made a huge difference, and this is the kind of game I think Lindy Waters would have got some run in to give us that shooting spark. Need all 4 of our injured guys back soon.
• Last but most certainly not least... Korndog. Absolute cinema from this man. Love everything about him. No more notes.

What You Had To Say

• Rack Ham: Castle was somehow both awesome and terrible down the stretch
• @Area 51.247: Spurs demonstrate the resilience to overcome adversity, including their own mistakes while Mitch and the staff let them learn on the job. After getting hammered for four quarters plus OT by Zion's hammerhead shark blunt blows, Harrison Barnes stepped up to the line with three seconds left, and, with a fishmongers workaday matterfactness, clubbed the Pelican's upset hopes into a memory to reside on an Altar for Day of the Dead Lost Dreams.
• @Em-City: The lack of quality 3pt shooting and experienced point play in the second half were a major issue. [Fox] will fix one of these but the other will require consistent and frequent shooting from the likes of HB and Champ. Solid rebounding and a weaker opponent was the saving grace
• @Davidicus: Easy trap game for us. Bunch of young guys coming off the high of destroying a contender on national television. Next game on the road, against a historically bad team, injured.
• @heyheymymy: Dylan Harper struggled, but that 4th quarter outburst saved the game for SA. 5 straight points, hit a 3 and then drove for a lay in. Hit 2 FTs next. Harper showed some flashes of what he can bring even in his second game despite some rookie mistakes.
• @wemvp: Champ hitting that late 3 took him from a 1 to a 3
• @Robz4000: This is a game they lose by double digits last year, but luckily the team has Harper and Kornet this season. It looked like it was heading that way in the fourth before Harper checked in and led the team on a 14-0 run; kid flashed clear superstar potential tonight. Kornet was our second-best player tonight after Wemby. Spurs dominated the boards thanks to him and gave the Spurs many easy buckets.
• @Splits: Harper was on a verge of a 1 until he came in the 4th with wemny benched and led a 14-0 run. Ended up a 3. Castle wasn't as bad as Harper at that time but came up in the clutch in OT with a 3 and 3/4 from the line. Ended up a 3. Not sure what more to expect from Kornhub. 5
• @Correct Crusader: Winning this game tells me a lot, especially considering our wings didn't know they were allowed to play until the last 2 minutes of the game

Home opener on Sunday in an early tip-off, 1p local time, 8a for me out in HI. We need to come out and put BKN away early and be ready for a solid TOR team in the second game of a back-to-back on Monday.

What did you think of the game?

 

[Correct Crusader]

Man I literally JUST submitted my grades lol

 

[scott]

Man I literally JUST submitted my grades lol

Ha, yeah I just saw them come through. I'm going to end the post to include some of your comments!

And this is a good reminder, the grades keep getting collected even after I publish this post! The dashboard will continue to take in the new grades and recompute the averages, so please do submit your grades even if I've already posted the grades post!

 

[Splits]

not sure how you justify no score lower than a 3 on such a frustrating night. Yeah Champ and Barnes each hit a meaningful shot but were atrocious all game, especially defensively. And sure hope this is an "average" Victor night. I understand the curve, but no possible way I could give Vic, Champ, and Barnes the same grade.

 

[Correct Crusader]

not sure how you justify no score lower than a 3 on such a frustrating night. Yeah Champ and Barnes each hit a meaningful shot but were atrocious all game, especially defensively. And sure hope this is an "average" Victor night. I understand the curve, but no possible way I could give Vic, Champ, and Barnes the same grade.

I mean the community votes were only slightly lower than a 3, so consensus says 3.
(for the record I gave them both a 2)

 

[Splits]

I mean the community votes were only slightly lower than a 3, so consensus says 3.
(for the record I gave them both a 2)

Yeah but Wemby was over a 4 and Barnes was a 2.48

 

[NASpurs]

Can the "Community Grade" title be changed to "Scott's Tots" ( The Office reference if you don't know)

 

[scott]

not sure how you justify no score lower than a 3 on such a frustrating night. Yeah Champ and Barnes each hit a meaningful shot but were atrocious all game, especially defensively. And sure hope this is an "average" Victor night. I understand the curve, but no possible way I could give Vic, Champ, and Barnes the same grade.

We talked a little bit about this when we started this project... a 3 (or a 5) for Wemby is different than it is for role players. I was between a 3 and a 4 on him.

The other thing to keep in mind, this is designed to be graded using integers. A the community average has the benefit of being able to deliver a 2.52 for Barnes (his current average over 27 grades), but I only grade a 2 or a 3. I explained why I went with a 3... but I also see the case for a 2. A community average of 2.52 pretty much reflects that he was right in between there, so I feel pretty aligned with the 3.

Had we ended up losing, a lot of those 3s would have turned into 1s and 2s, tbh.

 

[scott]

And also... my column is just one person's opinion, and my opinion doesn't mean shit

I only get my own column because I built this thing. The community average is much more important (and is why I have the dashboard set to sort by Community Average).

Once we get enough games under our belt, the consistent rating and hot cold metrics will be cool. We just need more games under our belt before it becomes relevant.

 

[Splits]

I get it, I'm just pokin' fun at you because yours are the only grades public. Will be interesting to see the consistent rating, hot/cold. My guess is that it shift as a pack based on win/loss streaks because as you said, people will grade the same performance differently depending on the team outcome.

 

[Davidicus]

We might need .5 options

 

[spurraider21]

I haven’t been able to watch most of the second half yet. I’ll get grades in eventually for the averages

 

[Em-City]

Can I see what grades I have somewhere?

 

[dn0774]

@scott please tell me the devil on Vassell’s shoulder is Kobe w/ horns and a pitchfork

 

[scott]

Can I see what grades I have somewhere?

I could pull your grades... but I'll be honest, I probably won't. It's not personal, I'm just not trying to open the door to a request to pull a bunch of people's submissions. I've tried to automate this sheet as much as possible. Maybe at certain milestones I'll compile individual grader averages.

 

[Em-City]

I could pull your grades... but I'll be honest, I probably won't. It's not personal, I'm just not trying to open the door to a request to pull a bunch of people's submissions. I've tried to automate this sheet as much as possible. Maybe at certain milestones I'll compile individual grader averages.

Al good - if the tool takes off, it'd be cool for members to have some kinda self serve query capability to retrieve data.

Not expecting you to do it but an idea for future.

 

[scott]

Al good - if the tool takes off, it'd be cool for members to have some kinda self serve query capability to retrieve data.

Not expecting you to do it but an idea for future.

I thought about it but my concern is that it would be too easy for someone to mess up your grades by submitting one under your name. Idk if anyone is that petty, but that’s my concern. Maybe eventually we could build it out with some kind of ID verification but for now I’m trying to keep it “lo fi”

 

[Correct Crusader]

I thought about it but my concern is that it would be too easy for someone to mess up your grades by submitting one under your name. Idk if anyone is that petty, but that’s my concern. Maybe eventually we could build it out with some kind of ID verification but for now I’m trying to keep it “lo fi”

100% agree with that approach. You're doing great work!

 

[spurraider21]

I thought about it but my concern is that it would be too easy for someone to mess up your grades by submitting one under your name. Idk if anyone is that petty, but that’s my concern. Maybe eventually we could build it out with some kind of ID verification but for now I’m trying to keep it “lo fi”

thats it. im going back to dbestprotalk

 

[Area 51.247]

• "What made this one a tough grade is that all of the players who were having bad nights (Castle, Harper, Champ, HB specifically) all came up with huge plays in important moments, and that needs to be recognized. It would have been too easy for these to crawl into a shell, but they each stuck with it and made plays that were the difference between a win and a loss. As such, they all scored a 3 in my book when they would have otherwise gotten a 2, and Harper got a 4 when otherwise he would have been bordering on a 2 or 3."

Scott's point was the key to the value of this game for the Spurs team: learning how to make plays and win when you're distracted, not playing your best, in a hostile environment, etc. Have to give credit to the players when they pull it together and make plays that change the game's course and the staff in guiding them to keep pounding the rock.