Whenever the ROTY topic comes (and frequently even when it doesn’t), Chet and Wemby are compared and matched up against each other. As in the recent Rookie ladder post. In many posts and comments, stats get compared, no further analysis is conducted, and then a conclusion is drawn. That I find a bit annoying and irksome. The context of how stats come to be is crucial.

What is the context? Wemby plays as the primary option on a barely functional team and needs to create a lot for himself (18.6 ppg on 43.2/28.3/76.6 splits). While Chet got slotted into a well working unit and get’s good looks when he’s open (15.7 ppg on 52.7/46.3/90 splits). Chet fitting seemlessly and efficiently into that system is great and should be lauded. But IMO it can’t be understated how much Wemby is struggling in a raw and developing Spurs team that is failing to generate good looks for him. Playing without an actual Point Guard definitely hurts him.

But wait! There is a PG on the Spurs roster: Tre Jones. Not a world beater like SGA by any stretch of the imagination, but a competent passer and facilitator, that very obviously is the teammate with the best connection to Wemby. So how’s Wemby doing while they share the court?

The difference this makes honestly is quite drastic. Just look through all the stats for yourselves if you are interested: https://www.pbpstats.com/on-off/nba/player?Season=2023-24&SeasonType=Regular%2BSeason&TeamId=1610612759&PlayerId=1630200

With Tre, Wemby is shooting 65.4% instead of 39.7% from 2, 36.4% instead of 23.7% from 3, he is making 38.2 instead of 23.6 points per possession, while having 4.8 instead of 7.2 TOs without him, and so on and so forth. While Tre and Wemby share the court, the Spurs are actually a winning team with a 19.76 Net rating, believe it or not!

And, mind you, we’re not talking about Magic Johnson here, but Tre Jones, who simply symbolizes “playing with an actual PG”.

Anyway, unintended wall of text. None of this is to say that Wemby>Chet or whatever. I just wanted to provide some context. Because the Spurs being an at times borderline dysfunctional team really is a factor. Hard to blame the Wemby for not regularly putting up world class numbers and being an inefficient shooter during the, uh, Point Sochan experiment.