I can't promise I won't joke on the topic again...
And honestly, we'll see what happens in the playoffs. I'm all for egalitarian offensive sets.... Until crunch time in the 4th hits, and you need to setup half-court offensive sets to out-execute a set defense keying on your players. I hope we succeed with everyone eating, but I've also seen Castle drive a bit too much into the teeth of the defense and get stuffed to freely say he's just as good a primary initiator as Fox, for example, leaving Harper aside.
Having said that, he continues to play great, and had another great outing tonight. His chemistry with Wemby is even better than Harper's and they're a formidable duo. By-the-by, I'd love to get a player with more of a wing-sized body to replace Fox when the time comes, if possible... That way we could have Castle and Harper both be bigger-than-average for their position, while still maintaining the "Hydra Offense" stuff, instead of pushing Castle to the "nominal SF" starting spot and defensive assignments. But it's champagne problems to have, for sure!
I know we’re kind of just rehashing the same point at this stage, but I wanted to add a bit more detail to what I think the Spurs are actually doing.
I think him driving into the teeth of the defense isn’t really a flaw, it’s kind of the point of what they’re doing. That pressure matters. It forces rotations, collapses the paint, and makes the defense react even if the possession doesn’t end cleanly.
Out of the three, that’s his lane. Fox controls pace and space, Harper keeps things flowing, and Castle brings the physical pressure. He’s the one consistently putting the defense in uncomfortable spots and getting them into foul trouble.
If he stops doing that, defenses can just stay home, keep their rim protector planted, and not really adjust. That takes away one of the things that keeps the offense unpredictable.
So yeah, some of those drives look rough in the moment, but that’s part of the tradeoff. The value isn’t just whether he scores, it’s what it forces the defense to do over time.
I also don’t really know if having all three on the court at the same time long-term, or replacing Fox with another version of that same mold (which I doubt will happen), should even be the goal. What they’ve actually stumbled into is a winning setup: elite playmaking for all 48 minutes. It’s not about all three sharing the floor, it’s that they function as one point guard unit across the game, applying different types of pressure depending on who has the ball while one or two sit.
That’s the part that keeps getting missed. It feels like people are trying to force it back into an old school setup with defined roles, when the whole advantage is that the trio gives you three primary playmakers, different looks, and constant pressure
all game. That strategy is what has us at 56 wins (and counting)
in their first year together.