As much as last nights game sucked I’m personally enjoying this season and think we should all stop using wins as a success criteria and focus on player development (something we all should trust PATFO to do). With that in mind I’m curious if anyone has their eyes for any specific things you want to see our younger rotation guys work on? These are mine:
Jeremy - get a solid crossover. He’s obviously learning a lot of things on the fly and I salute him - I like that he’s been backing people down a bit more and passing out of that, but I’d love him to start to learn how to get downhill more in the half court. In order to do that he needs to be able to switch directions quickly something he’s not a great at. Getting a crossover down can help begin this process IMO.
Devin - shot selection. This is stolen from Charles Barkley but I think he has a point - his shot selection has such a high level of difficulty it’ll lead to him being a streaky player. He can hit some amazingly hard shots but I’d love for him to not have to do some crazy spin move/step back with a hand in the face to get his shots. Maybe part of this is moving better off ball to get more easy catch and shoot looks.
Keldon - off ball defense. I have no stats to prove this but it feels like he’s gotten beaten backdoor too much this season, he’s increased the intensity on ball, want to see it throughout the defense.
Wemby - committing to a cut. I think this could be just team chemistry but I’ve noticed a few times in the last few games where a player starts driving, Wemby cuts and looks for the ball for a split second before running back out to the 3 point line, and as he’s running back to the 3pt line the player looks up to see if there’s a pass to Wemby. If he stuck with the cut he could have gotten the ball near the rim but now either his back is to the ball or he’s in an awkward passing lane on the outside. I think some of this is just letting the game slow down and he’s a teenage rookie… that’ll come.
Zach - passing out of double teams. Zach is an above average passer for a center but he misses open shooters a lot when he’s driving and two guys are on him.
Tre - continuing to understand the offenses “momentum” - this is kind of a weird one, I think he’s doing great overall, but one think I noticed Devonte’ do a few times last night was when the offense had a few bad possessions in a row he made sure either Devin or Wemby got the ball. It didn’t end up working but I liked the process. Sometimes the Spurs offense chases what the defense gives them and next thing you know it’s been 8 possessions with Devin or Wemby getting the ball. Once again I think Tre is doing great, but if I had to nitpick this could be something.
Malaki - keep playmaking - he’s already made strides in recent games but if he’s going to be a mainstay longterm he can’t just be trying to get up shots as quickly as possible - take the ones the defense gives you and pass when they don’t. This was a major criticism after the first 5 games or so but I think he’s settling in.
Bassey - no unforced errors - has a few terrible passes or miscommunications a game, probably comes with time, but make sure a guy is ready for a pass before throwing it their way. Honestly wouldn’t mind seeing Barlow split some minutes here.
Julian - let it fly - he’s had a tough start but I swear he makes 3s when he shoots no hesitation - when he takes an extra beat to load up it seems to miss. Don’t lose the confidence and know your value add will be getting up 3s. Also please make a layup.
Doug/Cedi - you’re perfect.
What do y’all think? I think all of these guys can accomplish the above plus more. It was a lot of fun watching Dejounte, Derrick, Poeltl, Devin, Keldon, and more develop these last few losing seasons. My advice… enjoy the ride, start getting mad if everyone still sucks in January of next season. The players seem bought into the long game so should we!
These are all great points! Good post! I’ll add a few:
Jeremy - more comfort dribbling overall. As you said, Jeremy is learning a lot in a short period of time on the highest stage. That said, some of the basics of dribbling with your head up could go a long way here. Part of the issue seems to be that smaller guards have been on him quite a bit, and so he risks what we’ve been seeing with Wemby - a low dribble for him being a high enough dribble for smaller guards to pick off. He’s been doing an impressive job of not getting the ball picked too often, but to do that, he often has his eye on the ball or his back turned to the defender (and thus his back turned away from seeing how our offense is setting up).
Devin - I guess shot selection is a good one. It’s hard to see any of Devin’s big issues as things that he could solve himself. Devin is not the best one-on-one player, so since the offense doesn’t involve a lot of player movement, ball movement, and finding pockets or open players, if Devin did not take poor shots, he would probably take 5 shots per game. Even with teams doubling Wemby (like OKC last night), they’ll come off of anyone but Vassell - and rightfully so. Devin’s defense has also not been as good as I’d like to see it, but again, the team defense is so bad, it’s hard to figure out which individual issues are causing it.
Keldon - court awareness on drives. Keldon’s drives are his main strength, as he’s the only starter that consistently gets to the rim; however, once he gets there, he often lacks the court awareness to find any of the shooters or cutters. It might not be instinct to look for cutters once you’re in the lane, but with how huge Wemby is, he can often just jump over everyone and still finish. Tre has given him some of these types of passes this season. This is also related to your suggestions for Zach (court awareness on post-ups) and Wemby (cutting/diving hard).
Wemby - being more strategic on defense and rebounding. Sometimes when I’m just watching him, I see a ton of what looks like overhelping and then recoveries that at perplexing. There are times when he collapsing to the lane to help, but then when he recovers he just switches on the fly (confusing me and his teammates) and then leaving the secondary swing after the kick out wide open. Also, I cannot get a read on when he decides to crash the boards on offense or defense or when he decides to leak out on the break or get back to stop a break.
Zach - picking his moments. I think Zach has been pretty good this season. That’s hard to see with his outside shooting starting so rough, but he does a lot of things well. That said, as good as he can be in the post, some of his moments to choose to post up are odd to me (e.g., some against Gobert/Kat, Chet). This is kind of a nitpicky thing, because I think he’s been very effective in the post overall.
Everyone - layups and free throws. Lots of unforced errors with these so far this year.
All great pints, especially like the Wemby point. I remember Steve Jones saying he doesn’t know what to make of his defense cause it looks like he’s out of position a lot but he’s so long he can make up for rotating a little late. I think that concept applies to all of those, sometimes he over helps and sometimes you’re left wondering why he didn’t take a half step over and contest a driver. I think it’ll come with time, think he’s going mostly off instinct when it comes to those kinds of plays.