Player The Uncertainty Realm of the Improved Jumpshot of Jeremy Sochan

[scott]

I was so worried you have nothing to complain about when he said he worked on his shot like a normal person would but then you reached deep in your creative bag and went back years to complain about the past. Like why wouldn’t he just get on a Time Machine and work on those things previously, right? Such a waste of time doing that now. Like shot, shouldn’t have Kawhi have worked on his shot in HS? Or Lonzo ball? Or Clyde Drexler learned to dribble with his head up?

Also can talk about how he didn’t work on sitting on the bench like he should because that’s what he’s good at and what he should always be doing.

Next level SpursTalk toxicity is to say he should have used this time machine to go back before he was born and prevent his parents of conceiving him, so that we could have used the #9 pick in 2022 on someone better.

 

[Shmurs]

Sure, all those things too if you like.

He’s a bad watch. Makes my personal enjoyment much lower. I might stay unhappy until he’s shipped out

Edit: Zach Lowe finally out on Sochan. Someone in the national media finally said it so maybe it will inspire me to shut up.

 

[elpimpo4cc]

Sochan sucks until proven otherwise. Basically because he can't/won't shoot. I think that's all there is to say about that.

 

[elpimpo4cc]

Next level SpursTalk toxicity is to say he should have used this time machine to go back before he was born and prevent his parents of conceiving him, so that we could have used the #9 pick in 2022 on someone better.

Edit: "Spurs Talk"

 

[Exstatic]

Sochan sucks until proven otherwise. Basically because he can't/won't shoot. I think that's all there is to say about that.

Ben Simmons has not shot a 3 pointer in 117 games, stretching over 4 seasons. Jeremy shot 452 3 pointers in 3 seasons.

 

[ambchang]

I have to run some numbers but sochan is no where close to as bad as people say he is here. He is a decent role player who has a huge flaw in his game.

Elite rebounder especially on the offensive end, at least a good individual perimeter defender and passable interior defender, can somewhat handle the ball, reasonable passer.

I recall going through the numbers and the spurs are slightly worse on offense but much better defensively with him.

The most important thing is he seems to be able to play at a reasonable level with wemby which is what every single player on the spurs should be measured against.

Last year, with Paul, sochan is a positive on offence (I think, have to look up the numbers again) because he needs a creator to be useful. This year with Dylan, fox and hopefully castle and wemby stepping up on shot creation, sochan can possibly, or even likely fit into a fifth option role.

 

[KobesAchilles]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1972682030727987282

Can it be “perfect” 37% of the time from 3 on wide ass open shots? Or “perfect” more than 18% from the 16-22 range. Or better than 28% from 10-15?

Dude just doesn’t talk like a shooter at all. Mindset is just as important.

 

[scott]

Sure, all those things too if you like.

He’s a bad watch. Makes my personal enjoyment much lower. I might stay unhappy until he’s shipped out

Edit: Zach Lowe finally out on Sochan. Someone in the national media finally said it so maybe it will inspire me to shut up.

Got a link to Lowe comments?

 

[bozhemoi]

I have to run some numbers but sochan is no where close to as bad as people say he is here. He is a decent role player who has a huge flaw in his game.

Elite rebounder especially on the offensive end, at least a good individual perimeter defender and passable interior defender, can somewhat handle the ball, reasonable passer.

I recall going through the numbers and the spurs are slightly worse on offense but much better defensively with him.

The most important thing is he seems to be able to play at a reasonable level with wemby which is what every single player on the spurs should be measured against.

Last year, with Paul, sochan is a positive on offence (I think, have to look up the numbers again) because he needs a creator to be useful. This year with Dylan, fox and hopefully castle and wemby stepping up on shot creation, sochan can possibly, or even likely fit into a fifth option role.

Sochan is a good player, it's just that Spurs fans get on hissies for some reason. They're constantly wanting to trade Keldon Johnson, like that's all they want to talk about, when he's a bench player who doesn't have a huge role on the team. They'd much rather bitch and complain than concentrate on the core players.

Sochan is a good player who probably will do best coming off the bench. And, as you say, with Paul he was getting unlocked because he can do cuts and rolls that are pretty lethal, similar to how CP unlocked guys like David West. But the team doesn't really have that facilitator anymore.

 

[elpimpo4cc]

Ben Simmons has not shot a 3 pointer in 117 games, stretching over 4 seasons. Jeremy shot 452 3 pointers in 3 seasons.

Oh OK ben simmons

 

[scott]

I have to run some numbers but sochan is no where close to as bad as people say he is here. He is a decent role player who has a huge flaw in his game.

Elite rebounder especially on the offensive end, at least a good individual perimeter defender and passable interior defender, can somewhat handle the ball, reasonable passer.

I recall going through the numbers and the spurs are slightly worse on offense but much better defensively with him.

The most important thing is he seems to be able to play at a reasonable level with wemby which is what every single player on the spurs should be measured against.

Last year, with Paul, sochan is a positive on offence (I think, have to look up the numbers again) because he needs a creator to be useful. This year with Dylan, fox and hopefully castle and wemby stepping up on shot creation, sochan can possibly, or even likely fit into a fifth option role.

I always like looking at Wowy Combinations (www.pbpstats.com) for this very reason. Of course, everyone's stats look better with Wemby, as they should. But what about other combinations?

The team is remarkably similar in terms of NetRtg/ORtg/DRtg with or without Sochan on the floor. To the point where on the surface level you could argue that he's almost inconsequential, but that off course is a simplistic view and doesn't take into account who he spends most of his time with.

For now let's focus on the Sochan-Wemby combination. The table below is only for 2024-25.

Players On	Players Off	Minutes	NetRtg	OffRtg	DefRtg
	Sochan	2579	-3.11	114.42	117.53
Sochan		1367	-2.70	114.39	117.09
Sochan	Wembanyama	884	-7.21	113.81	121.02
Sochan, Wembanyama		483	5.63	115.46	109.83
Wembanyama	Sochan	1044	1.72	115.91	114.20
	Sochan, Wembanyama	1534	-6.35	113.41	119.76
Wembanyama		1527	2.97	115.77	112.80
	Wembanyama	2419	-6.66	113.56	120.22

The team is slightly better offensively without Sochan on the floor without Wemby, but the defense is considerably better with the two of them on the court together. The team is better defensively with Wemby on the floor, regardless of if Sochan is on the court, but the two of them together pay huge dividends defensively. Sochan's defensive impact kind of falls apart without Wemby on the floor, however.

Looking at the same on-offs for 2023-24, the stats tell kind of a similar story with some variances:

Players On	Players Off	Minutes	NetRtg	OffRtg	DefRtg
	Sochan	1773	-4.59	111.29	115.88
Sochan		2193	-7.35	109.96	117.31
Sochan	Wembanyama	944	-12.46	109.25	121.71
Sochan, Wembanyama		1249	-3.56	110.49	114.05
Wembanyama	Sochan	857	-2.15	112.34	114.49
	Sochan, Wembanyama	916	-6.79	110.34	117.13
Wembanyama		2106	-2.99	111.24	114.23
	Wembanyama	1860	-9.61	109.80	119.41

In both years, Sochan on the floor without Wemby is a complete disaster, but that's kind of true of the whole team (though we got considerably both with and without Wemby in 2024-25). Wemby's minutes in 2024-25 were better WITH Sochan on the floor than without him, because our defense was considerably better and our offense didn't seem to miss a beat. That wasn't the case in Wemby's rookie year, when Sochan dragged the offense numbers down and the defense kind of stayed the same. In 2024-25 it was the offense that stayed the same but the defense got better.

So while it is logical to think our offense would be better overall if Sochan were replaced with a better offensive player, the data in 2024-25 doesn't necessarily back that up. However, I'll also add we had a pretty limited sample size of Wemby-Sochan minutes in 2024-25 and we didn't get a great sample of splits between Sochan v Barnes. However, this is an interesting look:

Players On	Players Off	Minutes	NetRtg	OffRtg	DefRtg
Wembanyama	Barnes, Sochan	401	-1.43	110.72	112.15
Wembanyama, Barnes	Sochan	643	3.64	119.13	115.49
Wembanyama, Sochan	Barnes	169	-2.27	116.62	118.89
Wembanyama, Sochan, Barnes		314	10.12	114.83	104.71
	Wembanyama, Sochan, Barnes	667	-9.66	107.70	117.36

It appears that it was actually defensive turnstile Harrison Barnes that unlocked the defensive prowess of the Wemby-Sochan combination. Perhaps it was because it allowed Barnes to guard the weakest low-post player on the team with Wemby as a backstop while Jeremy was allowed to play perimeter D. Wemby-Sochan wasn't actually a very good defensive combination when Barnes was not on the court. The stats for the Wemby combinations with the variable being Barnes OR Sochan at the 4 give some indication at how much better the offense can be with a better PF on the floor next to Wemby, and Barnes lineup combos didn't actually result in the downgrade on the defensive end that you'd otherwise expect.

I'll end this part of the discussion by saying anything that Wemby-Sochan without Barnes sample size is awfully low and it's probably best to not read TOO much into it, but it's clear that the Wemby-Sochan minutes for 20224-25 shared in the first graph are propped up by Barnes being in the lineup for roughly 60% of them.

Thanks for the opportunity to do my first statistical deep dive on the new site. It's almost basketball season folks!

 

[Exstatic]

Oh OK ben simmons

You said Sochan can’t /wont shoot, I shot holes in that, then gave you an example of someone who ACTUALLY can’t/wont shoot,

 

[brazil]

I think we will judge him offensively much better after seeing Carter Bryant trying to shoot the ball tbh fwiw...

 

[ambchang]

I always like looking at Wowy Combinations (www.pbpstats.com) for this very reason. Of course, everyone's stats look better with Wemby, as they should. But what about other combinations?

good stuff deleted, go back to the original post.

Arrrrggghhhh you classhole stole my thunder.

Was going to post something similar, although admittedly with much less detail and analysis as this, but great points all around about Sochan's on/off, which to me shows that he actually pairs decently, at least offensively, with Wemby, without being TOO much of an adherence on offence.

To your point, I will take the Barnes numbers with a grain of salt, as I am not sure when and how that lineup was deployed. In only 314 minutes, though a good 10 to 12 games worth of starting lineup minutes, that could have been spread out over 50 games, and deployed against offensively challenged opposition.

The numbers I look up from fantasylabs.com, paints a similar picture. Granted this is from fantasy league numbers, and it looks at individual numbers with teammates on/off impact instead of overall team impact:

Wemby stats:

Sochan	Minutes	NetRtg	ORtg	DRtg	TS%	AST%	REB%	STL%	BLK%	PPP
On	468	5.94	115.97	110.02	56.86	17.65	17.19	0.87	11.28	0.98
Off	1424	1.27	115.44	114.17	59.84	19.43	17.99	2.22	10.08	1.04

So by the looks of it, there isn't much question Sochan is cramping Wemby with his lack of spacing, and Wemby doesn't rebound or stole as much, but that's not much of a surprise as Sochan will be getting those rebounds and potentially some steals, but it is also telling that the Spurs are doing better overall with Sochan on the floor with Wemby than without.

Sochan stats:

Wemby	Minutes	NetRtg	ORtg	DRtg	TS%	AST%	REB%	STL%	BLK%	PPP
On	468	5.94	115.97	110.02	64.4	12.05	14.04	1.64	1.15	1.13
Off	864	-6.04	114.11	120.15	56.14	14.72	13.17	1.67	2.17	0.97

So Sochan is aboslutely a wreck without Wemby, both offensively and defensively, even though Sochan was shockingly one of the better ones on DRtg w/o Wemby for players with regular minutes (behind Champagnie, Wesley and Biyombo for anyone with over 500 mins).

Like I mentioned earlier, all I care about at this point is how the team functions with Wemby on the court as the team is built around him. Yes, he doesn't play 48 a game, and yes, I still do not want to team to crumble with Wemby off the court, but what ultimately decides if a player should stay on the team or gets traded should be how well he helps the team when Wemby plays.

I will open another thread looking at overall player stats with and without Wemby, as that is important to know.

Will also look at Sochan's play with vs. without Chris Paul. I know Paul is no longer on the team but I want to see how he fares with vs. without a playmaker.

 

[LeBowen]

Sochan's fit with Wemby isn't an issue, his fit with our three guards that all have questionable 3pt shot is.

We were garbage without Wemby regardless of who was on the floor, let's look at 3 man lineups with Jeremy/Wemby+1 that played enough minutes together.

https://imgur.com/JNPuKKc

As you can see, those correspond directly to how good of a shooter the third player is.
If Jeremy still can't shoot, I'm not derailing Castle's development for him.

 

[MacNeacail]

I always like looking at Wowy Combinations (www.pbpstats.com) for this very reason. Of course, everyone's stats look better with Wemby, as they should. But what about other combinations?

The team is remarkably similar in terms of NetRtg/ORtg/DRtg with or without Sochan on the floor. To the point where on the surface level you could argue that he's almost inconsequential, but that off course is a simplistic view and doesn't take into account who he spends most of his time with.

For now let's focus on the Sochan-Wemby combination. The table below is only for 2024-25.

Players On	Players Off	Minutes	NetRtg	OffRtg	DefRtg
	Sochan	2579	-3.11	114.42	117.53
Sochan		1367	-2.70	114.39	117.09
Sochan	Wembanyama	884	-7.21	113.81	121.02
Sochan, Wembanyama		483	5.63	115.46	109.83
Wembanyama	Sochan	1044	1.72	115.91	114.20
	Sochan, Wembanyama	1534	-6.35	113.41	119.76
Wembanyama		1527	2.97	115.77	112.80
	Wembanyama	2419	-6.66	113.56	120.22

The team is slightly better offensively without Sochan on the floor without Wemby, but the defense is considerably better with the two of them on the court together. The team is better defensively with Wemby on the floor, regardless of if Sochan is on the court, but the two of them together pay huge dividends defensively. Sochan's defensive impact kind of falls apart without Wemby on the floor, however.

Looking at the same on-offs for 2023-24, the stats tell kind of a similar story with some variances:

Players On	Players Off	Minutes	NetRtg	OffRtg	DefRtg
	Sochan	1773	-4.59	111.29	115.88
Sochan		2193	-7.35	109.96	117.31
Sochan	Wembanyama	944	-12.46	109.25	121.71
Sochan, Wembanyama		1249	-3.56	110.49	114.05
Wembanyama	Sochan	857	-2.15	112.34	114.49
	Sochan, Wembanyama	916	-6.79	110.34	117.13
Wembanyama		2106	-2.99	111.24	114.23
	Wembanyama	1860	-9.61	109.80	119.41

In both years, Sochan on the floor without Wemby is a complete disaster, but that's kind of true of the whole team (though we got considerably both with and without Wemby in 2024-25). Wemby's minutes in 2024-25 were better WITH Sochan on the floor than without him, because our defense was considerably better and our offense didn't seem to miss a beat. That wasn't the case in Wemby's rookie year, when Sochan dragged the offense numbers down and the defense kind of stayed the same. In 2024-25 it was the offense that stayed the same but the defense got better.

So while it is logical to think our offense would be better overall if Sochan were replaced with a better offensive player, the data in 2024-25 doesn't necessarily back that up. However, I'll also add we had a pretty limited sample size of Wemby-Sochan minutes in 2024-25 and we didn't get a great sample of splits between Sochan v Barnes. However, this is an interesting look:

Players On	Players Off	Minutes	NetRtg	OffRtg	DefRtg
Wembanyama	Barnes, Sochan	401	-1.43	110.72	112.15
Wembanyama, Barnes	Sochan	643	3.64	119.13	115.49
Wembanyama, Sochan	Barnes	169	-2.27	116.62	118.89
Wembanyama, Sochan, Barnes		314	10.12	114.83	104.71
	Wembanyama, Sochan, Barnes	667	-9.66	107.70	117.36

It appears that it was actually defensive turnstile Harrison Barnes that unlocked the defensive prowess of the Wemby-Sochan combination. Perhaps it was because it allowed Barnes to guard the weakest low-post player on the team with Wemby as a backstop while Jeremy was allowed to play perimeter D. Wemby-Sochan wasn't actually a very good defensive combination when Barnes was not on the court. The stats for the Wemby combinations with the variable being Barnes OR Sochan at the 4 give some indication at how much better the offense can be with a better PF on the floor next to Wemby, and Barnes lineup combos didn't actually result in the downgrade on the defensive end that you'd otherwise expect.

I'll end this part of the discussion by saying anything that Wemby-Sochan without Barnes sample size is awfully low and it's probably best to not read TOO much into it, but it's clear that the Wemby-Sochan minutes for 20224-25 shared in the first graph are propped up by Barnes being in the lineup for roughly 60% of them.

Thanks for the opportunity to do my first statistical deep dive on the new site. It's almost basketball season folks!

Watching this video a month ago kinda solidified my view of, not only holding some hope for Sochan but, moving him to the SF position. I posted this opinion in the Rotation and Depth Chart thread. Sochan, Barnes, and Wemby play well together.

 

[The_Second_Coming_of_VY65]

That wowy site is great. I played around with lineups featuring: Vic, Steph, CP3, Sochan, DV, KJ, and JC as these seemed to be the main guys over the course of the season.

It also corroborates that the best offensive lineups have JS off the floor (there are statistically insignificant outliers, e.g., ~20-30 minutes for the whole season, so I'm not considering those). Also interesting that one of the best defensive lineups (98.67 DRTG, 142 minutes over the season) did not include JS. The highest minutes combination that did not include JS had about a 119 DRTG, which was middle of the pack team wide.

I think that points to JS not being enough of a defensive positive to outweigh his glaring offensive weakness.

 

[ginobilized]

Love the stats!
My read on Sochan doing better with Barnes is that HB was communicating like a pro and maybe going as far as telling Sochan where to be defensively. Left to his own devices, Sochan is a mess.

 

[RC_Drunkford]

the problem with a non-shooting 4 is that it means everybody else has to be able to shoot. That doesn't work in a bench line up with Kornet, who can shoot but is much better when he doesn't and plays inside. So there Sochan would fuck the spacing up.

He actually works well next to Wemby, but being that Fox and Castle ain't actual snipers, he'd fuck the spacing up there too. You basically have to construct your roster around Sochan to make him playable, which doesn't make sense to do for a mediocre role player. If he can't shoot to at least keep the defense honest, he will be gone.

 

[ambchang]

Sochan's fit with Wemby isn't an issue, his fit with our three guards that all have questionable 3pt shot is.

We were garbage without Wemby regardless of who was on the floor, let's look at 3 man lineups with Jeremy/Wemby+1 that played enough minutes together.

https://imgur.com/JNPuKKc

As you can see, those correspond directly to how good of a shooter the third player is.
If Jeremy still can't shoot, I'm not derailing Castle's development for him.

I am not sure if I read it exactly the same way. Shooting should only have an impact on ORtg, and not on D, so I would just look at the ORtg instead, and the best combo was actually with Champ, then Vassell, Barnes/Paul, then KJ and Castle. I think the point still stands with regards to the fit with Castle, but Castle's ORtg was only 115 to begin with. With just Castle on Sochan on the floor, the rating drops to 113.23, but I personally wanted to tie Sochan's performance with a creator, as he is a roll player and roll player only.

On the team, the only creator he really ever played with was Chris Paul, and his ORtg with Paul was 114.67, making 1.04 point per possession on 60.3% TS, not earth shattering, but I'd say reasonable.

I then ran the numbers for Sochan with Paul but without Barnes, and the O rating somehow went up to 118.41 (on a 270min sample) ,with him making 1.04 ppp on 57.16 TS%

With Paul and without Barnes and Champ, the O Rating goes to 122.68, 0.97 PPP on 56.23 TS%. This is over 173 mins.

I am not sure if it paints a full picture of Sochan's requirements to excel in an environment, and I would agree that shooting would likely do him (and most importantly the team) good on offence. I always thought that with a functional offence with enough cutting, the Spurs can still put up a semi-decent offensive unit even without elite shooting.

 

[scott]

Arrrrggghhhh you classhole stole my thunder.

Was going to post something similar, although admittedly with much less detail and analysis as this, but great points all around about Sochan's on/off, which to me shows that he actually pairs decently, at least offensively, with Wemby, without being TOO much of an adherence on offence.

To your point, I will take the Barnes numbers with a grain of salt, as I am not sure when and how that lineup was deployed. In only 314 minutes, though a good 10 to 12 games worth of starting lineup minutes, that could have been spread out over 50 games, and deployed against offensively challenged opposition.

The numbers I look up from fantasylabs.com, paints a similar picture. Granted this is from fantasy league numbers, and it looks at individual numbers with teammates on/off impact instead of overall team impact:

Wemby stats:

Sochan	Minutes	NetRtg	ORtg	DRtg	TS%	AST%	REB%	STL%	BLK%	PPP
On	468	5.94	115.97	110.02	56.86	17.65	17.19	0.87	11.28	0.98
Off	1424	1.27	115.44	114.17	59.84	19.43	17.99	2.22	10.08	1.04

So by the looks of it, there isn't much question Sochan is cramping Wemby with his lack of spacing, and Wemby doesn't rebound or stole as much, but that's not much of a surprise as Sochan will be getting those rebounds and potentially some steals, but it is also telling that the Spurs are doing better overall with Sochan on the floor with Wemby than without.

Sochan stats:

Wemby	Minutes	NetRtg	ORtg	DRtg	TS%	AST%	REB%	STL%	BLK%	PPP
On	468	5.94	115.97	110.02	64.4	12.05	14.04	1.64	1.15	1.13
Off	864	-6.04	114.11	120.15	56.14	14.72	13.17	1.67	2.17	0.97

So Sochan is aboslutely a wreck without Wemby, both offensively and defensively, even though Sochan was shockingly one of the better ones on DRtg w/o Wemby for players with regular minutes (behind Champagnie, Wesley and Biyombo for anyone with over 500 mins).

Like I mentioned earlier, all I care about at this point is how the team functions with Wemby on the court as the team is built around him. Yes, he doesn't play 48 a game, and yes, I still do not want to team to crumble with Wemby off the court, but what ultimately decides if a player should stay on the team or gets traded should be how well he helps the team when Wemby plays.

I will open another thread looking at overall player stats with and without Wemby, as that is important to know.

Will also look at Sochan's play with vs. without Chris Paul. I know Paul is no longer on the team but I want to see how he fares with vs. without a playmaker.

Great conversation and looking forward to the other thread. Love this stuff! We back!

 

[LeBowen]

Great conversation and looking forward to the other thread. Love this stuff! We back!

We just need mr. Body to hit us with an in-depth analysis explaining that we're just blind haters and that Jeremy is an objectively good player.

 

[ird80]

I think mr body is schmurs...he's first vote for worst poster on new forum

 

[elpimpo4cc]

You said Sochan can’t /wont shoot, I shot holes in that, then gave you an example of someone who ACTUALLY can’t/wont shoot,

Ok chief

 

[elpimpo4cc]

BRB looking up Steph Curry stats to prove Sochan is not a good or willing shooter