Player The unfortunately low-ceilinged Shaolin monastery of Victor Wembanyama

Bam don't got time to study film.
Just like Jesse Ventura don't got time to bleed.
 
MannyIG said:
The problem is that we don't know how many defensive rebounds Wemby gets that others would get if he didn't. I think your use of these stats in this way doesn't work greatly. The Spurs are overly dependent on Wemby creating misses and thus rebounds to begin with but I don't think they have a rebounding problem outside of him despite those stats.
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What I did was actually the other way around, I saw that there were a few cases where wemby forced a miss (challenge or a block) but the other team got it back and scored as Wemby is still out of position from the challenge. It’s often not the person who missed the shot but his teammate. I’m not sure if teams are focusing more on this and exploiting it or I’m just noticing more lately but it seems to me it is happening more lately.

I was surprised when I looked up the defensive rebounds and we are #1, then noticed wemby is leading the league. Then I found out that our team, without Wemby, are not that strong on drebs, then went back and watched some more.

I wish I can get rebounds off challenges layups but I just can’t find those.

So most definitely could be me finding things to prove something I suspected, but I can also see a team with multiple strong offensive rebounders crashing the boards when their teammate drives in the paint and anticipating a miss from a wemby challenge.
 
Ice009 said:
When did he say that? The post game press conference? The video I watched, it sounded like he was saying he wants to do more ball handling.
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The post game interview from nbc. Im not sure if heard it right.
 
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ambchang said:
What I did was actually the other way around, I saw that there were a few cases where wemby forced a miss (challenge or a block) but the other team got it back and scored as Wemby is still out of position from the challenge. It’s often not the person who missed the shot but his teammate. I’m not sure if teams are focusing more on this and exploiting it or I’m just noticing more lately but it seems to me it is happening more lately.

I was surprised when I looked up the defensive rebounds and we are #1, then noticed wemby is leading the league. Then I found out that our team, without Wemby, are not that strong on drebs, then went back and watched some more.

I wish I can get rebounds off challenges layups but I just can’t find those.

So most definitely could be me finding things to prove something I suspected, but I can also see a team with multiple strong offensive rebounders crashing the boards when their teammate drives in the paint and anticipating a miss from a wemby challenge.
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It really looks like a product of the generally poor defensive discipline that the Spurs have as a team. It's gotten better as the season went on, but still within the typical "young team" realm.

It's compounded with another of my pet peeves: since our guards like to "leak out" ahead, they leave Wemby behind to grab the board and also push the ball up, and he's not so good at it - leading to steals and turnovers, but also to him defaulting to "starting the play" and going into those combo-dribble moves that seldom work.

I'd like better communication/duty sharing from our guards so that one of them always tries to grab the rebound (kinda like Westbrook does), AND also tries to start the play. A soft screen-and-roll with Wemby could be so powerful...... If they'd just do it consistently!
 
Ice009 said:
When did he say that? The post game press conference? The video I watched, it sounded like he was saying he wants to do more ball handling.
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The interview with jim gray after the game vs sixers

he was asked what he needs to improve to be a complete player
 
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Sugus said:
It really looks like a product of the generally poor defensive discipline that the Spurs have as a team. It's gotten better as the season went on, but still within the typical "young team" realm.

It's compounded with another of my pet peeves: since our guards like to "leak out" ahead, they leave Wemby behind to grab the board and also push the ball up, and he's not so good at it - leading to steals and turnovers, but also to him defaulting to "starting the play" and going into those combo-dribble moves that seldom work.

I'd like better communication/duty sharing from our guards so that one of them always tries to grab the rebound (kinda like Westbrook does), AND also tries to start the play. A soft screen-and-roll with Wemby could be so powerful...... If they'd just do it consistently!
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I looked up more numbers, and this could be a stretch. I am putting in defensive put back numbers (when the Spurs are on defense and the other team has a put back).

The Spurs ranked 3rd best in the league in defensive put backs per game at 5.4 possessions. This looks great until I realized:
1) The Nets are #1 at 5.2, and not coincidentally, the worst defensive team by FG% in the league. The other team scored on the first try, so there are no put backs. Not coincidentally the Nets are also last in DReb, as there are just less of those given they aren't that good at forcing misses. This isn't an issue for the Spurs as we are #4 in the league in defensive FG%.
2) The Spurs are #1 in defensive rebounds, so shouldn't we be #1 in defensive putbacks as well? The Knicks are #6 in DFG% and #10 in Drebs and yet #2 in putbacks allowed at 5.4, with 4 players having a DRB% > 20%, and another 5 >15%. Hornets are #16 and #8, and yet #4 in DPB possessions, with 3 players having a DRB% > 20% and another 6 >15%. As a comparison, the Spurs have 1 player >20% (Wemby with a league leading 33%) and another 4 players >15%. Our good friend OKC is actually relatively poor in this area ranking 22 in the league in DPB, even though they are #5 in defensive rebounds but #1 in DFG%, they have 3 players > 20% and another 2 >15%.
3) However, OKC is #3 allowed in PPP in DPBs, at 1.02. The Wolves and Cavs are #1 and #2 also at 1.02 and not surprisingly, they both have more than 1 rim protector (Gobert, McDaniels, Reid for Wolves and Mobley, Allen for Cavs). I take it OKC just hack the living crap out of people under the basket without getting called. The Spurs are middle of the road, ranking 17th in the league at 1.11 PPP on DPBs. A bit surprising given that both Wemby and Korndog are pretty good at protecting the rim.

To your point, the Spurs should put some emphasis around securing the rebound once Wemby challenges a shot. It's all nice when we go out for fastbreaks as we have young legs and players who are devastating in the open court (Castle, Harper, Keldon and of course Fox. But even Wemby and Vassell are great). but if we can't secure the rebound for those fastbreaks, it is all for naught. We are already the best defensive rebounding team in the league, and hope we can take a bit of that pressure of Wemby and not rely on him to challenge the shot, get the rebound, start the break and sometimes finish the break.
 
Sugus said:
It really looks like a product of the generally poor defensive discipline that the Spurs have as a team. It's gotten better as the season went on, but still within the typical "young team" realm.

It's compounded with another of my pet peeves: since our guards like to "leak out" ahead, they leave Wemby behind to grab the board and also push the ball up, and he's not so good at it - leading to steals and turnovers, but also to him defaulting to "starting the play" and going into those combo-dribble moves that seldom work.

I'd like better communication/duty sharing from our guards so that one of them always tries to grab the rebound (kinda like Westbrook does), AND also tries to start the play. A soft screen-and-roll with Wemby could be so powerful...... If they'd just do it consistently!
Click to expand...
I guess I need to know what you're talking about as poor discipline, because we routinely gamble in the passing lanes specifically because we have Wemby. They've created a defense that is aimed at maximizing his ability to erase mistakes by playing what looks like bad defense at times and in fact is working perfectly as intended.
 
Part of the thing is that the Spurs are going to give up more offensive rebounds - and thus lower the amount of defensive rebounds - when Wemby is out of position because that's the cost of running a wing heavy d that asks so much of Wemby on the interior. Wemby, more than any one player has business doing, is in two places at once in so many defensive situations but we can't expect him to help AND still prevent the offensive rebound. So then obviously, the rotator is supposed to make up for this, but because we are running smaller athletes this isn't going to happen as much. But I think you just have to ask youself if the trade off is OK here and obviously it is. This isn't to say that the Spurs can't improve on rebounding when Wemby is out of position, but I think there's a realistic celling to that and its probably pretty low with the players we have.
 
MannyIG said:
I guess I need to know what you're talking about as poor discipline, because we routinely gamble in the passing lanes specifically because we have Wemby. They've created a defense that is aimed at maximizing his ability to erase mistakes by playing what looks like bad defense at times and in fact is working perfectly as intended.
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We've fixed a lot of our perimeter defense issues as of late (we'll see how it holds up in the playoffs) but I was specifically thinking of the Spurs' lack of strong boxing-out principles when I made that post. I'm watching the Pistons game right now and they continue to give up D-boards to any random Piston player strutting through the paint.

You said it - Wemby's doing far too much already. He threatens blocks and alters shots on every possession; the rest of the team should be quite eager to pick up the misses he creates, tbh. It'll bite us in the playoffs otherwise when every possession counts. But again, one of the normal things about young teams, it's to be expected.
 
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