Game Thread Spurs @ Pacers (Mon 10/13/25) [6:00PM CDT]

Only worry is that Mitch still prioritise Fox and Castle over D-Harp and he can choose to walk at the end of their rookie contract like Harden
first you have to go with Fox and Castle as known commodities over a rookie. What Harper does after his rookie contract ends is not decided by the playing time he get in his rookie season. I want to see him play as well, but already putting him ahead of Fox and Castle without them shitting the bed is a bit premature.
 
Exactly. Spurs are missing the guy the Kings kept and traded away Haliburton instead of. I'm not saying Fox is better at this stage, but it's still close. Fox is a better scorer, Haliburton is a better play maker.

D-Harp looks great. I thought he made great plays for his teammates out there, and controlled the game when he had the ball and ran the point.
 
Only worry is that Mitch still prioritise Fox and Castle over D-Harp and he can choose to walk at the end of their rookie contract like Harden
They just gave that guy $200M so, yes, he will get the nod. If they can't figure it out with all those guys, my hope is that Fox is the big contract in a few years that brings in the finish piece for a title push.
 
Hopefully Wemby's conditioning carries through to the regular season. Looked a lot better in that dept tbh.

Dylan Harper is gonna be a superstar IMO.
Yeah, imagine Cade Cunningham on a non tanking team,with a superstar and another All Star to play off.
 
Harden didn’t walk.
Yea he and okc were off by something like 2-4mil per year right after okc gave perkins 5/40 lol.

Everyone cites the ibaka contract but you could easily justify keeping him at the time. Perkins though… yikes. Though he did pop off against us in one of those 2012 playoff games, i think game 5. Shot like 7-9 from the field including several jumpers lol
 
I don't understand why people think Fox/Harper/Castle can't play together.
It's just about if they can shoot well enough, they have enough size. Especially for the regular season.

Cavs won 64 games with Garland/Mitchell/Strus, our trio would have size advantage in all three positions.
You can say those three are way better shooters, but they also ran Mobley/Allen.
Barnes/Wemby or even Sochan/Wemby and Wemby/Kornet offer more frontcourt spacing.

OKC also played with a non-shooting big and none of their starters is an elite 3pt shooter.

If Castle and Harper keep shooting like they have in the regular season and Devin continues to stink the place up, we'll definitely see a lot of Fox/Harper/Castle.
 
Underrated development this pre-season. Champ looks like a starting 3 and Keldon looks like a legit energy bench scorer, both of which we desperately needed.
Keldon is really good in a supporting role, and one of only two guys that can get to the cup at will, the other being Castle. At this point, though, Keldon is the better finisher.
 
He has not been good in a supporting role during competitive regular season games in several years. He’s either been bad in a supporting role or good when everyone is injured and tanking and he takes a leadership role.
 
Keldon is really good in a supporting role, and one of only two guys that can get to the cup at will, the other being Castle. At this point, though, Keldon is the better finisher.
I haven't yet seen anyone prevent Harper from getting to wherever he wants to be on the floor, especially the rim. The approach is different (finesse vs muscle) but he may be the best on the team at it before long. Fox might also qualify here.
 
However they want to carve the rotation, there probably shouldn’t be a single minute of competitive play where neither of Fox/Harper are on the floor.
 
I don't understand why people think Fox/Harper/Castle can't play together.
It's just about if they can shoot well enough, they have enough size. Especially for the regular season.

Cavs won 64 games with Garland/Mitchell/Strus, our trio would have size advantage in all three positions.
You can say those three are way better shooters, but they also ran Mobley/Allen.
Barnes/Wemby or even Sochan/Wemby and Wemby/Kornet offer more frontcourt spacing.

OKC also played with a non-shooting big and none of their starters is an elite 3pt shooter.

If Castle and Harper keep shooting like they have in the regular season and Devin continues to stink the place up, we'll definitely see a lot of Fox/Harper/Castle.

This especially. Three guys that could theoretically get to the rim consistently and draw fouls with Wemby and a shooter like Champ is recipe for success in the regular season. Sure, it might not work if they're in a playoff series but I'm not worried about that lineup wrecking shop in regular season games. It's an amazing problem to have especially after the Tre/Blake/Malaki era tbh.
 
However they want to carve the rotation, there probably shouldn’t be a single minute of competitive play where neither of Fox/Harper are on the floor.
Well more broadly we should always have 2 out of the 3 guards playing at once.

Which brings up the main crux of lineup tension - Julian vs Keldon. Keldon should be the 10th guy. Last guy off the bench who isn’t even a part of the first wave of subs. He’d maybe get on the court with a couple mins left in the first when they sub Vic back in, but even then I’d rather just see champ and Devin go 50/50.

They’re putting mileage on JC right now. If he’s in their plans I can’t picture what Keldon’s gonna be up to.
 
I don't understand why people think Fox/Harper/Castle can't play together.
It's just about if they can shoot well enough, they have enough size. Especially for the regular season.

Cavs won 64 games with Garland/Mitchell/Strus, our trio would have size advantage in all three positions.
You can say those three are way better shooters, but they also ran Mobley/Allen.
Barnes/Wemby or even Sochan/Wemby and Wemby/Kornet offer more frontcourt spacing.

OKC also played with a non-shooting big and none of their starters is an elite 3pt shooter.

If Castle and Harper keep shooting like they have in the regular season and Devin continues to stink the place up, we'll definitely see a lot of Fox/Harper/Castle.
The Vassell point is what sticks out to me the most. Agreed that the trio can definitely play together, but the pretenses under which this happens are far more interesting to me. Does Harper sub in for Vassell even if he continues to play really well? Does Dev go to the bench? Do they get weird with it and start all 4 next to Wemby and make Castle a de facto 4 (not happening but oh well)?

Dev really needs to bounce back this year, for his own sake plus for the team/fans to make more sense of the lineups.
 
This especially. Three guys that could theoretically get to the rim consistently and draw fouls with Wemby and a shooter like Champ is recipe for success in the regular season. Sure, it might not work if they're in a playoff series but I'm not worried about that lineup wrecking shop in regular season games. It's an amazing problem to have especially after the Tre/Blake/Malaki era tbh.
Regular season is all about keeping up the pace and intensity throughout not just games, but the entire season.
Young teams easily get +5 to 10 in W column because of their energy.
Obviously doesn't work in the playoffs when the veterans lock in, but our goal this season is to get to the playoffs, not to win it all right away.

Having 48 minutes of relentless rim pressure will be exhausting to play against.
 
Keldon is really good in a supporting role, and one of only two guys that can get to the cup at will, the other being Castle. At this point, though, Keldon is the better finisher.
It’s like half of this message board forgot that Fox (the highest paid player in franchise history by AAV) is on this team
 
Well more broadly we should always have 2 out of the 3 guards playing at once.

Which brings up the main crux of lineup tension - Julian vs Keldon. Keldon should be the 10th guy. Last guy off the bench who isn’t even a part of the first wave of subs. He’d maybe get on the court with a couple mins left in the first when they sub Vic back in, but even then I’d rather just see champ and Devin go 50/50.

They’re putting mileage on JC right now. If he’s in their plans I can’t picture what Keldon’s gonna be up to.
I see Harper as a tier above Castle as a driver/penetrator. He’s more explosive, has more of a plan while attacking (other than shoulder + decel every time).

Castle can do just fine in secondary actions like an iguodala but i don’t think he needs to be the primary point guard at all if we have Fox playing 35+ minutes and having the luxury of Harper off the bench
 
I see Harper as a tier above Castle as a driver/penetrator. He’s more explosive, has more of a plan while attacking (other than shoulder + decel every time).

Castle can do just fine in secondary actions like an iguodala but i don’t think he needs to be the primary point guard at all if we have Fox playing 35+ minutes and having the luxury of Harper off the bench
Has to be tough being a defender and adjusting anticipation for Harper's glide, only to cross paths with Castle's hesi the next trip down the floor.
 
Has to be tough being a defender and adjusting anticipation for Harper's glide, only to cross paths with Castle's hesi the next trip down the floor.
for sure. and yeah if one of our guys is hurt i have zero issue with Castle stepping in to handle point duties. instead of just handing 15-20 minutes to McLaughlin or something
 
If he does his cutesy shit in a RS game I'll yell about it. Until then, I trust him to use the preseason to gauge what works and what doesn't.
Yeah, I think he'll have a lot less opportunities to do that with two of Fox/Castle/Harper pretty much always on the floor with him.
He smart and cares about winning, I trust he'll largely clean up the most egregious TOs.
 
Not on the spurs with fox. I have feeling he will end up on a different team and become a superstar like harden.
Hahahaha
1. Fox is more than 8 YEARS older than Harper. Westbrook is only 9 MONTHS older than Harden. You don't miss out on 15 potential yrs of Harper to placate Fox, that's ridiculous.
2. It was a cost and allocation of resource issue. They already had Durant, Westbrook, and Ibaka very young and very teamed control. They'd already paid what seemed like a big price for Kendrick Perkins and signed him to a deal. They were coming off a finals where Durant went 31/6/2 and Russ went 27/6/7 both playing 42mpg. There was only 1 ball, Harden and Russ both needed it and KD needed some ISO time. They didn't want to overcommit salary so they traded their 6th man who had no potential spot in the SL for a haul- 3 1sts (one turned into Steven Adams), a 2nd, and a 28 y/o Kevin Martin coming off of 5 20ppg seasons in 6 yrs.
KMart looked like a better 6th man/financial fit for a team coming our their 1st final appearance. It was always dumb, almost as dumb as Kendrick Perkins is, but it was about money and keeping Westbrook happy. Terrible decision, Westbrook can't actually be happy.

Our situation is absolutely nothing like that. If we get to the finals in 3 yrs and 4th yr Castle is the starting PG and 3rd yr Harper is playing 6th man and we're cash strapped it'd be a lot closer. Very bad take.
 
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Only worry is that Mitch still prioritise Fox and Castle over D-Harp and he can choose to walk at the end of their rookie contract like Harden
For sure, but I don't think Castle overlaps all that much with the other 2. Harper can definitely play 2 and even 3 for stretches. Castle is a 2/3 with secondary skills in my book. Unless Vassell gets a lot of undeserved minutes their should be plenty of G minutes for Fox & Harper with 96 minutes a game. If Vassell is getting lots of deserved minutes he should be fairly easy to move off.
I think a lot will come down to who Wemby likes sharing the court with the most.
 
Finally getting a chance to watch the replay.

My thoughts on the 1st half:

Both teams were really going after it. This was no low effort preseason game.
Wemby is a force of nature, but the dribble drive in a half-court setting is not his strength and probably never will be because there's too much air in his dribble, to no fault of his own because of his height, but he's so terrific in every other way.
The D communication is way better. You can see them talking much more than before. This looks like a Sweeney thing and I like it.
Kornet is such a great addition in every way.
Vassell was trying harder on D and if he would have hit more of his shots we'd be pleased, but he didn't and that's concerning. You can see they were calling some plays for him and he was failing and flailing. No bueno.
There just is no rattle in Harper's game. He is so composed, so put together. Indiana was pressuring him all half and he thought nothing of it. You can see he's processing what's going on at a terrific rate. He's special.
Castle played good D for the most part. I don't think he was effectual as their PG when tagged like Harper though.
Keldon played a good half. He played like he should play.
Champ was hot... again. I do like him as our starting SF for the moment.

I'm cautious as to how the coaches approach the changing dynamics when Fox comes back. Harper is a winning player it appears. You can't minimize him, but I get that they have a dearth of talent in the backcourt.

I think Vassell needs to be the 1st to be yanked of them every game unless he's playing lights out and D'ing up.
 
I haven't yet seen anyone prevent Harper from getting to wherever he wants to be on the floor, especially the rim. The approach is different (finesse vs muscle) but he may be the best on the team at it before long. Fox might also qualify here.
Yup, Harper's FTr at Rutgers was 41.9%, would've been the 10th overall in the NBA last yr, 4th amongst non-centers. He's elite. Flagg was at 42.9%, Edgecombe 37.3%, Kon 33.9%, Bailey 24.3%, Johnson 26.5%, Fears 32.3%.
Castle's was 37.9% at UConn (as the 4th man) and 34.8% in his rookie yr, 27th best in the NBA as a rookie, and 13th amongst non-centers. FTr generally improves from rookie yr with name recognition and "Vet calls"
Fox's was 47.4% at UK and 32.4% for his career even after 2 yrs @ 27.3%. Fox has been borderline Top 30 in the NBA 5 of his 8 yrs. Fox was 24.5% as a rook to 37.8% to 42.0%. SGA 46.4% in college, to 27.2%, to 35.2%, to 40.5%.

FTr translates and turns elite role players in Stars and Stars into Superstars. Its what's gotten SGA, Harden, Westbrook, Embiid and many others scoring Champs and took Jimmy Butler and DeRozan from good role-players to All-NBA
Absolutely nothing beats free points, free points are better than 3pt-ers because they put the other team in foul trouble.
We've got 3 high-end FTr guys today and Wemby should become one now that he's not a stick figure.
 
FTr translates and turns elite role players in Stars and Stars into Superstars. Its what's gotten SGA, Harden, Westbrook, Embiid and many others scoring Champs and took Jimmy Butler and DeRozan from good role-players to All-NBA
Absolutely nothing beats free points, free points are better than 3pt-ers because they put the other team in foul trouble.
We've got 3 high-end FTr guys today and Wemby should become one now that he's not a stick figure.
Good stuff.
Even the most wide open 3 point shot will go in at most 50% of the time which comes out to 1.5 PPP.
A 75% FT shooter gets 1.5 PPP on a two shot foul on top of putting a foul on an opposing player, most likely a big.
 
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