Player The blessed howl's moving Castle of Stephon Javonte

Kick-Stand said:
Yeah sorry I had you do my research. But my hunch about the shot selection being an enormous problem makes me think maybe I'm not so crazy to still be nipples hard sprung on Steph's upside.
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I'd be significantly more excited about Steph's upside if I were convinced we'd utilize him properly. @LeBowen has brought it up a few times but I think it's actually kind of insane we're asking him to be our primary perimeter defender taking the toughest assignment AND be our lead ball handler. The fatigue alone may cause some of his stupid mistakes. There is really no reason to be doing this. We can say it's for development... but I actually don't want us to develop him this way. To me he'll clearly be most effective as a cutter/secondary creator... let's just develop him that way, especially since we have both the immediate (Fox) and long term (Harper) primary ball handlers already on the roster.
 
wemby catch and shoot at the top of the break as the trail man has pretty clearly been his most consistent 3 point threat... especially coming off a blocked shot. block and trailer 3pt shot is the closest thing he has to a signature play.

and since he's not a physical screener or rollman, him picking and popping later in shot clocks makes a lot of sense

the pullup 3's are ok with him, he was quite good at those in earlier seasons iirc but he just has to be selective. yeah if you have some stiff fuck like vucevic or eubanks guarding you, sure throw a cross and get a wide open 3. he does this a lot end of quarters. but no need to be doing that in the middle of the quarter with 12 on the shot clock, etc
 
Kick-Stand said:
Yeah I hate Wemby's pull up threes unless he just rejected the fuck outta someone. Those always seem to go in, but maybe my mind is playing tricks on me like Bushwick and I'm just remembering the highlights. I figured Wemby's pull up percentage this year was going to be awful since he largely cut down on them hard early in the year but has shot them nonstop in his recent cold streak. Hard to believe at one point his rookie year that he was Curry level above 40% on pull up threes.

Ugh Dylan's shooting is way more concerning to me than Steph's tbh. IIRC he was over 40% on catch and shoot threes at Rutgers and I never expected him to be the kind of liability Steph is from the three. Plus Dylan has been playing passive as fuck which is IMO much worse than Steph making young and dumb mistakes forcing things. I miss the Dylan Harper we saw in 2025 who could hit an open three and was great finding shooters through traffic. I know he's in there somewhere but he seems to have no confidence right now.
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I think Dylan's shooting is just as big of a factor in how we build this team in the future. He and Castle simply aren't compatible unless one of them can shoot better than league average on volume or both of them simply shoot league average on volume. A decision is going to have to be made. I don't know which one we should focus on, but whoever we don't keep should be moved while their value is still high.
 
scott said:
I'd be significantly more excited about Steph's upside if I were convinced we'd utilize him properly. @LeBowen has brought it up a few times but I think it's actually kind of insane we're asking him to be our primary perimeter defender taking the toughest assignment AND be our lead ball handler. The fatigue alone may cause some of his stupid mistakes. There is really no reason to be doing this. We can say it's for development... but I actually don't want us to develop him this way. To me he'll clearly be most effective as a cutter/secondary creator... let's just develop him that way, especially since we have both the immediate (Fox) and long term (Harper) primary ball handlers already on the roster.
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Could be on the fatigue, Steph indeed looks pretty bad late game recently. With HB becoming useless as a shooter seems like it might be hard to use Steph that way though. Just having a decent shooting role player at the PF to hit wide open threes could do wonders for this team.
 
less would be more with steph. we saw this last year too. the more we leaned on him to be an offensive focal point, the less remarkable his defense became. and this is completely understandable. there are not many guards who are truly dominant full time two way players. you usually see it from forwards like kawhi or giannis. but great defenders like kobe would inevitably wind up coasting on defense. cant think of any guards in the last 10-15 years who were truly great full time 2 way players other than CP3.

and for some reason even after using our resources to go get Fox, we are still leaning on Castle way too much to be the offensive focal point. its mind boggling. sure, he is not a good shooter, and you can mask poor shooting on-ball better. thats true. but i'd rather deal with him being a slasher/screener on offense who can crash the glass than just have him dominate possessions and relegate fox to a spot up player. you know, like he was at uconn.
 
mo7888 said:
I think Dylan's shooting is just as big of a factor in how we build this team in the future. He and Castle simply aren't compatible unless one of them can shoot better than league average on volume or both of them simply shoot league average on volume. A decision is going to have to be made. I don't know which one we should focus on, but whoever we don't keep should be moved while their value is still high.
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Problem is Harper's trade value was high on draft night, probably not so much right now when he's not even in the NBA.com top 10 rookie rankings. God what I would give to have a high end coach like Jenkins. With Mitch being Wemby's development coach before Pop's stroke and Victor having a lot of bad habits sticking I really don't put much stock into Mitch's development ability and think hiring him was an incredible mistake.
 
Came across this video of Trey Murphy scoring from cuts.


While Steph doesn’t have the size of TMIII I can definitely imagine him making an impact by cutting to the rim where he can use his two footed leaping ability to finish at the rim which he can’t really do when he’s driving with the ball. You don’t have the space or time to leap off 2 feet.

I’ve mentioned this before another reason for his struggles is he doesn’t actually have a good leap of one foot which affects his finishing at the rim, especially now that he’s been scouted and defenders aren’t biting on fakes. He’s like the opposite of LeBron whose an explosive one footer leaper but a mediocre two footer leaper.

He’d also be great crashing the offensive glass given he should have a size advantage on alot of 2 guards. And if the bigger guard is guarding Fox, Castle should be able to physically dominate the opposing PG.

Anyway, we just need to get the damn ball out of his hands for this team to take a leap offensively.
 
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I’ve been saying the spurs with wemby should develop cut and movement based offence, whether using screens or not.

The weakness of our team was well identified even before the season began, but we kept using a drive and kick offence without addressing our lack of shooters.

Sure we are great and driving into the paint but shooting from outside is average. Not only that, but having a one trick pony offence is incredibly easy to stop. Even the prime curry warriors utilized plenty of movement and “legal” screens to get shots off.

With positional size advantages in Harper and castle, mid/long range threats like Barnes and Vassell, heads down big body in Keldon, an athlete like Bryant and an excellent screener in kornet (and even sochan), it makes absolutely no sense to not incorporate a movements based offence. All five players can be threats on the floor. Oh yes, we also have wemby who can just bail us out with high post jumpers, low post scoring, cuts, drives and *gasp* threes.

The offence doesn’t have to be overly complicated.

On the other end when we have an eraser in wemby (and to a lesser extent kornet), close out on the shooters and that helps lessen the impact of the three point difference between the teams.
 
Was CP3 a Spurs anomaly last year, that a promise of a starting gig was kept? I'm wondering if similar assurances were given to Castle, to give him a long leash to establish himself as a bonafide PG this season. It makes some sense that management may have wanted to emphasize player development going into a season where Vegas projected a mid-40 win team, but all that flew out the window on Christmas day.

Anyway, I'm displeased with the way development has unfolded, but remain firmly a Steph Castle fan. Cheering for improvement.
 
Guru of Nothing said:
Was CP3 a Spurs anomaly last year, that a promise of a starting gig was kept? I'm wondering if similar assurances were given to Castle, to give him a long leash to establish himself as a bonafide PG this season. It makes some sense that management may have wanted to emphasize player development going into a season where Vegas projected a mid-40 win team, but all that flew out the window on Christmas day.

Anyway, I'm displeased with the way development has unfolded, but remain firmly a Steph Castle fan. Cheering for improvement.
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Castle has to start because he's the best perimeter defender we have.
Harper is also good, but smaller.
Castle is the only one who can do a good job against elite wings. We even had him on Queen against NOLA.

As for being promised the starting role, we'll find out if Barnes has one after Devin is off the minutes restriction.
 
BatManu20 said:
https://twitter.com/x/status/2016534416684925362
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Man, Castle's shine would be so much brighter right now if we just leaned into him as primary defender and secondary creator/cutter. It's not just that he isn't the best option to be the primary ball handler, it's that it also saps energy away from one of his biggest strengths (defense).

He's a good passer, so people think that means he's a PG... but it doesn't... it just means he's a good passer. He can be a good passer as a 3.

Stephon Castle is a 3.
 
scott said:
Man, Castle's shine would be so much brighter right now if we just leaned into him as primary defender and secondary creator/cutter. It's not just that he isn't the best option to be the primary ball handler, it's that it also saps energy away from one of his biggest strengths (defense).

He's a good passer, so people think that means he's a PG... but it doesn't... it just means he's a good passer. He can be a good passer as a 3.

Stephon Castle is a 3.
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2 years ago during the lead up to the draft his camp was putting it out there to everyone that he views himself as a pg in the NBA and to draft accordingly. At the time it was thought by some (myself included) that was Stephs way of helping nudge him to one destination over another but it appears now he just wants to run pg even though it is not his natural fit.

I realize when he was drafted our pg corp was Tre Jones and Blake Wesley so pg Steph made a lot of sense. At this point, with Fox and Harper on board and with both having obviously more natural on ball talent and instincts I figured Castles reps as lead guard would be reduced a bit. It seems MatFO view this year as a development year still at its core still which is sure to disappoint a bunch of us.
 
Like a lot of people have been saying for about a month now, when Castle plays the role he did tonight he is incredibly valuable. Lockdown defender, and on offense a 15 point scorer with a usage around 15-20%. Perfect for his archetype and current skillset. Now he just needs to focus on the catch and shoot 3, and cutting off ball, mix in the occasional initiator and focus energy on defense.

When he’s the primary ball handler and initiator with a usage of 25% (his season average) or even above 20%, well he’s just a flat out net negative because he doesn’t have the offensive game to be a positive with that much usage.

Good to see the coaching staff finally adjusting. Let’s hope they don’t revert back.

These on off numbers are still disgusting, but hopefully they can improve with a reduced role on offense.

IMG_1096.webp
 
scott said:
I'd be significantly more excited about Steph's upside if I were convinced we'd utilize him properly. @LeBowen has brought it up a few times but I think it's actually kind of insane we're asking him to be our primary perimeter defender taking the toughest assignment AND be our lead ball handler. The fatigue alone may cause some of his stupid mistakes. There is really no reason to be doing this. We can say it's for development... but I actually don't want us to develop him this way. To me he'll clearly be most effective as a cutter/secondary creator... let's just develop him that way, especially since we have both the immediate (Fox) and long term (Harper) primary ball handlers already on the roster.
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I think this is a fair critique and the minutes tonight where Harper and Castle both shared with Harper being the main ball handler were a good data point. Ultimately its likely to be pretty clear that Castle is the 3rd ranked ball handler behind Fox and Harper so I think we'll get there.
 
MannyIG said:
I think this is a fair critique and the minutes tonight where Harper and Castle both shared with Harper being the main ball handler were a good data point. Ultimately its likely to be pretty clear that Castle is the 3rd ranked ball handler behind Fox and Harper so I think we'll get there.
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How we used the three guards in the second half tonight was as close to optimal I've seen in a month, and it felt great. Reminded me of how potent this trio can be when deployed correctly. Castle was an absolute destroyer on defense tonight and contributed in a controlled way in the second half... it was just... chef's kiss.

Let's do more of this!
 
scott said:
How we used the three guards in the second half tonight was as close to optimal I've seen in a month, and it felt great. Reminded me of how potent this trio can be when deployed correctly. Castle was an absolute destroyer on defense tonight and contributed in a controlled way in the second half... it was just... chef's kiss.

Let's do more of this!
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I wanted to say something similar to this, just watched the game, and for once, I loved the way the three guards were used. Finally Dylan got more run with the game on the line too. Steph's defense was awesome. If he can just be good/decent on offense, he's a great all-around player.
 
STAT88 said:
Like a lot of people have been saying for about a month now, when Castle plays the role he did tonight he is incredibly valuable. Lockdown defender, and on offense a 15 point scorer with a usage around 15-20%. Perfect for his archetype and current skillset. Now he just needs to focus on the catch and shoot 3, and cutting off ball, mix in the occasional initiator and focus energy on defense.

When he’s the primary ball handler and initiator with a usage of 25% (his season average) or even above 20%, well he’s just a flat out net negative because he doesn’t have the offensive game to be a positive with that much usage.

Good to see the coaching staff finally adjusting. Let’s hope they don’t revert back.

These on off numbers are still disgusting, but hopefully they can improve with a reduced role on offense.

View attachment 601
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Just increase Harper's on ball pg minutes. Problem solved
 
I waffle back and forth about Castle. Sometimes he looks like Westbrook with the TOs, drives to nowhere, and inefficient shooting. But other times, he reminds me that he's a far more intelligent player who knows how to play winning basketball and actually locks in on defense. Having Harper and Fox be the primary ball handlers definitely helps cover some of Castle's weaknesses.

The shooting %s will be a constant pain. Either Castle or Harper needs to be able to shoot 3s 35% or above for this to be a viable backcourt in the future. I don't know what is going on with the Spurs shooting coaches but they haven't been doing their jobs in the past few years. At the bare minimum, Castle should be shooting 75-80% on his free throws.
 
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