Drafted a generational talent and got worse? wErE nOt tAnKiNg

Even not having tre jones off the bench is tragic😭that shit was ROUGH

I really wonder what do the players learn from shitshows like these. What is the point except absolutely wreck morale ? You can see glimpses of spurs basketball trying to be executed on the offense and it was bound to be a complicated evening lacking any PG. But seriously. No sets. No pick and rolls/pops when you have a nimbly 7’'4 to play them. No clean entry passes. Virtually no open shots. No offensive boards. What is there to be learned except “we are shit at what we do” ?

But what will solve this on the defensive side ? For the offense is dreadful the defense borders on inexcusable. How many open shots at the rim tonight and the other days ? I have rarely seen such chaos on the defensive rotations. The defense collapses with 3 passes and 2 screens every time. Complete lack of intensity, where no one guards his own man. Is there anything salvageable with this roster, which was already historically bad on the defensive side one year ago ?

I have been following the NBA for 20+ years and I can’t remember sighing like that every 15 seconds between the sloppy offense and translucent defense. And I’m confident no Tre or Keldon would have prevented the wrecking, save maybe cutting 5 or 10 turnovers.

Perhaps Pop is actually waiting for Victor to come to him and say “Coach we can’t go on like this we need sets and order”.

As for him I am somewhat lukewarm. I must admit that although I didn’t expect him to dominate from day 1, I was expecting more basketball IQ from him having seen him a lot before the NBA - i’m french. So many bad shots. So many missed defensive rotations. So many useless jumps on defense. Screens are mediocre to terrible. On the okay looks he gets at the 3pt line - which are basically uncontested since his release point - the efficiency is meh - not counting all the horrible shots he takes. He really seems lost at times on the court. Dribble is too high to allow him to really try to play like a guard - and he accordingly attempts less and less drives as games go by.

And I’m not that sure that more lobs would compensate because I am also quite startled at his lack of physical strength. He really struggles to get the advantage in the paint. If I was 80% sure that sky was the limit back in June, I would say now I’m 50% sure. I can see a future were he remains too frail to really bang in the paint, not shifty enough to play the wing, and not deadly enough from distance to be a modern stretch 4 a la KD/Nowitzki. In any case the “guard in a center body” seems more and more like an overstatement - and once again I saw him play 10 times in person in France last year.

Seemed like early on in the preseason and the first few games, Wemby was looking to run the floor after every miss. I’ve definitely noticed this has not been the case as of late, where I’m guessing he’s been challenged to help clean the glass. This is destroying the pace and forcing the team to be a half court team. They don’t have the ball movement to do this and are going through some very visible growing pains. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen where someone picks up their dribble and gets trapped, and no one moves in to help them. Happened today, with McDermott getting stuck near the half court, where he got trapped, no one came to help, he moved his pivot foot and got a turnover. We already knew this. The honeymoon is over and this is going to be a painful season

there just nothing good about last night, probably that it ended.

I know this is a process and an experiment and whatever, but how long will it be before Sochan collapses or his confidence is completely destroyed?