San Antonio Spurs Season Preview: What to Expect from Fox , Castle & Harper

San Antonio Spurs Season Preview: What to Expect from Fox , Castle & Harper

We’re talking San Antonio Spurs. We’re going to dig into some of the questions regarding their rotation, some of the players on this team, and how they make it all work. Michael Bolton, let’s go. Thanks, Josh. It’s Michael Bolton here, and it’s time for another episode of the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast. Let’s get to it. Let’s get to it. Indeed. You are Locked on Fantasy, your daily NBA fantasy podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. Hello and welcome to the Locked On Fantasy Basketball Podcast, brought to you by Basketball Monster. My name is Josh Lloyd and they don’t call me Riverwalk Josh for nothing. I’m also the lead fantasy analyst at basketball.com and today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. New customers right now can get $150 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. Thank you also for making Locked on Fantasy Basketball your first listen every day. We are free. We’re available on all platforms. So give us one of those thumbs or two of them if you got them. Uh listen on the audio the video, thumb it up, comment. You know how it all works. And what we also know how it works is that we’re doing a team preview and we’re talking about the San Antonio Spurs. Of course, for the 10th consecutive season, we are here to talk about the San Antonio Spurs with the host of the Lockdown Spurs podcast, Jeff Garcia is back. Jeff, welcome back. Good to be back. How you doing? I’m good. I’m good. It’s good here to talk about this Spurs team who should be looking to make a pretty sizable push this season towards the NBA playoffs. Um, I’ll get this isn’t one of the main questions we’re going to ask, but I think most people know this. Victor Wmanyama is healthy, ready to go. No restrictions. We’re all good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we’re all good. He got the clearance from team doctors to resume full contact practice and uh yeah, hopefully he brings all that Shaolin knowledge and Kevin Garnett chats. What about bicycle kicks? Yeah, bicycle kicks to uh to training camp and open runs. Uh yeah. Yeah, I I I’m looking forward to not only him doing dazzling things as he always does, but can he finally get close to a full season? That’s my big question for him uh this upcoming season. I know he can put it together. Defensively, he’s some piece. Offensively, he’s a monster, but can we get him for at least 70 games, you know, for the first time in his young career? Yeah, I think I think we’re okay with that. I’m not that I wouldn’t be that worried about the blood clot thing. Obviously, that’s one of those things that happens. It can be it’s a freaky sort of a situation clearly and it’s scary, but it’s all good. I I think we’re okay with that. But that’s really like there’s no I don’t outside of like, hey, will he get a random blood clot that ends the season early? That’s there’s no real question there. The question to me or one of the big questions comes with the guards. Not only did they have the rookie of the year, Stefon Castle, they traded for Darren Fox and gave him a very very lucrative contract, but then they took Dylan Harper at number two, who was I in my mind very clearly the easy choice there irrespective of those players. Now the question is going to be regarding the starting lineup and the Spurs historically Jeff like even last season Stefan Castle was a bench player until you know four or five guys were out like they they did that with Deon Vel. These guys don’t start necessarily. Castle, Harper, Fox. If it if it was me, and it’s very clearly not, I would be trying to capitalize on an award for Stefan Castle and moving on because I think Harper is is the guy they want to build around. But we are not going to see Harper in the starting lineup opening night, are we? No. No, not at all. No, it it’ll be Castle and Fox starting in that uh guard spots heading into the next season. And yeah, you’re paying a guy Fox uh how much money? Seriously, generational money? Yeah, he better be starting. So yeah, check that box. And then Castle, obviously he earned the spot. Came in late last season due to injuries and really showed out. Rookie of the year, put up monster numbers offensively, defensively. Uh his shot was still a little suspect, but to his credit, it did improve towards the end of the season. Not by leaps and bounds, but it was enough to at least put a little smile on your face if you’re a silver and black fan and say, “Okay, he’s getting better.” This off season, he’s been working with the the Garden Whisperer. uh simplist. So he’s showing out that he’s working on that three shot and that’s the biggest jump for him next season. We know he can tack the rim. We know he can score in the paint. We know he can facilitate. We know he’s a dog defensively. But if he could just open up that mid-range game deep two shot, three shot maybe. Uh then yeah, then watch out NBA. This guy’s going to be a a handle. He had yeah some horrific shooting numbers. If you look at the course of the season, there was some nice little spikes there and in the end it settled in a pretty bad area. Like, yeah, we’re talking, you know, bottom 10 to 15% of players in the NBA. My thing with Castle, I everyone who’s watched this show for a long period of time knows that I am not high on him and I have never been particularly high on him and for the reasons that I think showed last season and I think a lot of what happened and you would have seen this Jeff is down the stretch when those guys are out he was fed everything like he was at you go out there and have 33 usage and you do everything. So the counting stats they ticked over they were huge and they were big on a real team players and he’s not one of them he can’t do that. My query with him is like you’ve heard this narrative a lot about this team. What are they going to do? They got three point guards. All right. So last season they drafted Savon Castle and they went and signed Chris Paul. They had Trey Jones in college. He didn’t play as a point guard. This season they traded for Darren Fox and they dropped another point guard. He’s not a point guard. I don’t think I don’t think he’s a point guard at all. And then to me the worry I have with him is as a shooting guard playing on the wing like if you can’t shoot where where does he fit? How do you see him positionally because again every move that his team has made his college team made suggest that we actually do want somebody else to be the point guard. How do you view that? Yeah. I I’m assuming you’re talking about Castle, right? Yeah. Castle. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Just want to make sure I got a little confused there. Yeah. uh with how he fits in. I think what makes him be able to fit in is that he can play the two or the three at most. Uh so I think that’s where you’ll see him just or at least new coach, I guess, new rookie head coach technically. Um really try to use him at different positions. I think that’s where you’re going to see him. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’s at the three spot from time to time. Uh but I think he’ll heavily be in the two spot next season. Um you’re right. you know, he got a lot of usage because the Spurs just got wrecked with injuries, namely the big one was to Darren Fost towards the end and that really helped Castle at least get some numbers up. But I really think they believe in him. They they they invest a lot in, you know, they really see him as part of this u I guess the building blocks to get out of the rebuild. Technically, I think they’re just a step away, you know, from getting out of the rebuild and really having a nice run in the coming seasons. But I think with Castle, they see him as a foundational piece alongside with Wimi and uh Fox. So they may not say it, but I think they I’m pretty sure they believe that he is part of that. I don’t want to go far as say he’s a big three, but they do see him as that. So I think his fit is going to be wherever they need him to fit. They need him to run point guard, they’re going to make him run point guard. They’re gonna Look, it’s not Are you shocked the Spurs are trying to force somebody to make a point guard to be a point guard? They did Jeremy Hill a couple years ago. Yeah. So, it’s common in San Antonio. And think about it, too. Go back in history. The Spurs have been looking for big guards. Josh Primo didn’t work out, but he was a big guard. Um, now you got Steph Castle, a big guard. And I think the wrench in all this is actually Dylan Harper. You read my mind. The wrench in all this is Dylan Harper. Because if this kid shows out, then they have a good problem to have. Then how did this fit? Because how do you justify benching the number two overall pick if he’s playing like the number two overall pick? I think they get a bit of they get leeway this season because it is a rookie season and this is they can just point to all of these guys and go look you Manu came off the bench his whole career and like Deon Vel came off the bench and Castle came off the bench and yeah the only one who didn’t is WBY out of these reasons. They’ve got like that, but there will be a point where it’s not it’s not feasible if he develops the way he is. To me, he’s got more shooting upside than Castle. He’s got better passing upside. He’s he’s big. Like he’s like 6’5. Like there’s a lot to like about Dylan Harper. I think it’s going to be rookie uh Rocky as it is for all rookies um early on. That’s just a a common thing. Like we know that’s how it goes. But I was incredibly encouraged watching him in summer league. Uh even though the numbers aren’t like he shot 13% for three. Who cares? Like it was just the way that he played. He was able to manipulate games as much as he needed to. I thought his defense looked good. And what you said, I think, is the key part of this. It’s a great problem to have because if they all work out, fantastic. You know what? That gives us opportunities to either have them, trade them, get other pieces in, like do whatever. Like you’d much rather have all of them be great than all of them be bad because then what the hell do you do? Like that’s not how it works. And and that’s key and I think it’s getting not looked at at these these three guards here is that if it doesn’t work out they can move a pe one of them and make it work and oh no I mean this is just an example. Well we traded Fox. Oh no we only have Harper and Castle and you know we traded Castle. No no not Harper and Fox. So they’re they’re good either way. If it doesn’t work they can make a decision and move on from the three guard lineup. If it works, thumbs up. Let’s rock and roll. And hopefully the Spurs break out of their playoff drought. And here’s the thing, too. I am I’m expecting Harper to really really force this coaches staff to be okay. Yeah, he’s got to start. I think I think next season they’re going to come to a impass at that point because if he he’s going to come off the bench start this season, yeah, it’ll probably be a little rocky. you know, rookies are, you know, shaking out, getting adjusted to the league and whatnot, but I just feel that’s going to come a point where Harper’s going to go, I get it. I get it. Yep. And um they feed on him the ball and he’s just wrecking shop. And the thing about it, the Spurs in this in Dylan Harper’s mold, they haven’t had a guard like this ever. Not even he has a little bit of mono. He has the size. He has the shooting ability, the slashing ability. He can facilitate. The closest, and you’ll probably correct me right away, the closest comp I could think of in a Spurs jersey was maybe DeJonte Murray. Maybe he’s the closest comp. I think that Harper’s got I think Harper’s a better passer. I think he’s got more shooting upside than Deonte. De Jonte did have some good shooting seasons, but sizewise and yeah, length and all that sort of stuff, it Yeah, I agree with that. That’s a pretty like that’s a pretty interesting sort of a comp. Harper’s a different sort of a player, more of an in control player. He’s someone that like even if he like he’s bad for the first two months. I I have no like concerns. I just like he’ll figure out. I’m that confident in his ability as a as a player to fit in and work where it needs to go. It’s a good problem to have. It can become a problem and we want to see how it all works out. The worry of course of this is all shooting. But you know what? We’ve talked about these three guard lineups, right? We haven’t even talked about the guy that’s been the starting shooting guard on this team for a few years in a row now, which we’re going to come back and talk about Deon Vel in a sec. Before we do that, today’s episode is brought to you by Open Phone. If you run a business, you got to make sure that you are contactable. You don’t want an emergency situation where someone calls and then they just can’t get a hold of you. They just move on to the next one. You’re not going to wait around for someone to get back to you. Open Phone has the AI agent that helps you handle afterhour calls, answer common questions, and capture the leads so you never miss a customer. It enables you to integrate your business and personal phone cuz you access the Open Phone number on your phone or on your computer using an app. It’s the number one business phone system built to streamline and scale your customer communications all from that app on your phone or your computer. The shared inbox is great because anyone in your team can jump into any conversation instantly without missing a beat. Overphone is offering you guys 20% off your first 6 months at openphone.com/lockdon. That is op.com/lockdon. And if you have existing numbers with another service, Open Phone will port them over at no extra charge. Open phone. No missed calls and no missed customers. So Jeff, we now have to talk about Deon Vel, who got that pretty big extension a few years ago, was someone who had stepped up into roles of being like a number one before they had Victor Womenyama on the team. And we hear the narratives. We hear the discussion. We’ve done it right now. Hey, what about the three guard lineup? Well, I’d say what what about the actual guard who’s been good and has helped this team out and where the hell does he fit now? Cuz if we’re going to play Castle, Fox, and Harper together, I don’t know where Val fits in that. So my question to you is like where is he where is Deon Vel in the Spurs plans at this point? If it’s up to me he’s coming off the bench. Interesting. I think that’s the best fit for him. I think he’s off the bench in my opinion. Uh he’s he hasn’t really adjusted to taking a secondary tertiary role. Um and if you look at the depth right now obviously Wimby number one obvious you got Fox obvious number two. He’s the That’s the one two punch. And then what? Is it Castle? Is it Harper? If he really comes on, how does he fit? We can’t even forget about Harrison Barnes. Uh who I I hope we can I hope we can forget about him, but you’re right. He’s going to be there. He’s going to be there. Um there’s just so much going on revolving around him. And if they can see both sides if if they decide to move on from him because just the fit is just not there. I get it. I understand. Maybe he just needs a new address. But if he’s willing to come off that bench, all right, and come off with not with just him, it’s Kellen, it’s Vel, it’s Harper, you know, start the season, it’s Olen, Cornet. That’s a pretty formidable second unit the Spurs could have on their roster. I just I just don’t see Mitch Johnson telling obviously Fox take a seat. No, it ain’t gonna happen. He ain’t gonna tell that to Harper. Yeah, obviously not going to do that to to Wimi. So that leaves Barnes and possibly Sohan um as the other I guess two that could really compete for the for a starting spot. It I mean unless Sohan wants to come off the bench that’s that’s fine. But I think So if play Exactly. See, you’re stuck. Yeah, you’re stuck. Is it Barnes? You know, I can tell you right now, San Antonio, the team, they love Barnes. I know you don’t, but they definitely love It’s not that I don’t It’s not that I don’t love I look what he does and the way he’s able to like fill that need of like an open corner three spacer and provide passable D. Like, if you need to rely upon him to do more, forget about it. He’s never going to do it, right? He’s not going to contest shots. He’s not going to be his because the Spurs don’t, as of right now, they don’t have spacers yet. That’s he he’ll do his thing. He’ll be there. He’ll hit those open shots and that’s it. Like don’t ask for more and you might but you not getting any more but you’re not getting any less. He just he does the thing and that’s important when and they don’t have that player. They don’t have a four that can shoot like that. Like if becomes reliable there maybe that happens but Barnes is going to be in the mix. The thing with Vel that I find intriguing is that like okay so his usage has gone down from 25 to 23 to 21 the last three seasons. They’ve pulled him back, but he’s a reliable shooter. Like 37 last season, 37 the year before, 39 the year before that, 36 the year before that from three. All yeah, really strong numbers. I again I’m known as a I’ll say people might say a hater, I’ll just say a pessimist on what Castle is able to do. To me, having Vel next to your long-term Harper and Fox or Harper and whatever makes a lot of sense because he shoots, he can ramp his usage up. He can pull his usage back down. He can run secondary pick and rolls. He can also not need to do that. He can defend, he can play passing lanes. He has shown a malleability to me to be able to move in and out of, hey, you want me to be the number one? You want me to pull back? You want me to do this? All while still being a good shooter. But it does seem like you just said, you know, I think he’s comes off the bench. He might come off the bench. Like it just seems he’s like, “Okay, he’s a bit of an afterthought.” But we got these other guys. And in terms of like common sense lineup construction or how it works, I I don’t I don’t really get why the team and the moves they’ve made have just seemed to be like eh whatever. Like he’s he’s sort of as an afterthought moving CO to the bench made sense to me. I never believed in him as a long-term starter. I don’t get it with Val. But I think this is a real make or break season for him. Yeah. Yeah. And he’s here’s the other thing too. I totally this idea is do you have that conversation with Barnes and say hey you know we think you’re better off coming off that bench can you imagine that lineup then okay then that changes everything you know that’s facel Sohan wi Fox Castle not too bad at all um that’ll be very potent um but yeah that’s the thing and you know I’m glad you tell me your feelings about uh about Castle because I had a Castle jersey to send you all the way around Australia you know to I rocket I just you know this is like I’ve had I just have so many arguments with people about Castle. I remember when he was drafted people were like you know hyping up I was like I’m not sure go look I think Spurs would love it best case if you can turn into Derek White cuz I love Derek White as a player and you wrong with that with that and they go no way man that should be the absolute flaw. Okay, we need to settle down with our expectations on these on these players. Like Castle can be a valuable player, but it’s more about like where where are you setting the expectation? Like what do you do do you think he’s going to turn into this high volume shooter who’s a multi-time AllNBA player? Like I don’t think so. Can he be a starter for certain teams? Absolutely. Like can he work in certain scenarios? Yes, if the role is correct. And like me saying don’t think he’s a multi-time NBA guy doesn’t mean I hate him. just means I I’ve got this different sort of expectation to where the ceiling goes and trying to fit cuz ultimately Jeff with everything we do on this team whether it’s signing Darren Fox to a huge contract or whatever it is none of it matters it’s all about how do you fit with Victor Wimbeyama right that’s every question nothing else nothing else realistically matters it’s like how does everything work around WMY and honestly don’t need to talk that much more about WMY but that is how every decision needs to be made and you’ve also brought up this guy’s name quite a bit as well Jeremy Sohan From what from what you’ve said, you seem to you seem to believe that he is, you know, probably going to be a starter on this team. I want to dig into that in a second because he’s a really intriguing player. We’ll get back to that in a sec. Today’s episode, it is brought to you by FanDuel. 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If your first bet wins, you might even be able to lend some money to your friends who go need to go buy some sun uh sun sunblock because they’re out in the sun like again the absolute fools they are. Open the FanDuel app or visit fanel.com right now today to get started. I’m glad that Yeah. organically in this show. Jeff, you’ve you’ve brought up names or you we’ve had absences in conversations of the way that I wanted to structure the show because I didn’t even tell you the guys I was going to talk about and you’ve mentioned um Jeremy Sohan multiple times because like you said at the start of the show, they said, “Hey, let’s make you a point guard.” Now, he was never going to be a full-time point guard, but on a on a bad team. Let’s see what you can do. And then last season, he was starting at powerful and they said, “Hey, but how about we make you a backup center for a period of time and let’s see where it goes.” So, what is he like you’ve said here? Maybe he starts next to Barnes, which means he’s like a hybrid 34. He’s They brought in two other backup centers in a linen cornet. So, I don’t think he’s playing that role anymore. So, what what is he like? What what is he on this team? I’m gonna I’m gonna answer that with how Mitch Johnson answers that. He’s just a basketball player. Okay. I think that’s what he is. He’s just the basketball player. You know, you you put him at the five, great. You you put him at the one Spurs did that, fine. Might be a disaster, but yeah, he’ll do it. Uh but naturally, he is the three. And that’s what I like about the additions to the roster. I think it one of the ripple effects is that it helps Sohan maybe play his natural position, which is the three spot. Uh I’m sorry, the four spot, excuse me. Um so, you know, he doesn’t have to be worrying about backing up Wimi as much. You don’t have a not only just him, you know, Mamu’s gone, another undersized big backing up Mamu. You know, here he’s going to be at the four spot. I think that’s more of his natural position. he you know and and I so that’s why I like the additions of Cornet and Olen uh to the roster. It’s going to help Soan and I think you might see him uh flourish a little bit more knowing that that pressure is off him. Doesn’t worry a point guard anymore. That experiment’s over. But we’re in at the five maybe if they want to play small ball but outside of that um you might see him take a little little more steps towards the right direction next season. I I don’t know if it’s too soon to say this guy’s never going to be a reliable three-point shooter. I’m almost there. Uh and maybe occasional one or two, you know, but if minimal minimal Josh, I would love to just some sort of a mid-range game, anything, a put shot, anything. I think that will help because I would love to put him in the pick and roll where he’s the one receiving the ball, not necessarily facilitating. I think that would help his game as well and the Spurs as well. So, you know, he’s another guy, too, that you know, you look at him and his future in San Antonio. What’s it going to be? He’s up for a contract extension and as of this recording been quiet and the extension, well, the time for him to up his extension is passed already. So, he’s playing in a contract year technically. So, we he might be a little bit more aggressive, you know, to prove that he’s worthy of a contract extension either San Antonio or elsewhere because if not, he’s a restricted free agent. I I don’t care if he’s more aggressive to be honest. He just the shots just need to go in because he shot 31% from three the last two seasons, but like over the last two months it dropped down to 27% from three. And part of the the thing with him is is like from a a fantasy point of view when deriving value, you want him to start. He played 30 minutes a night as a starter, 22 minutes a night as a bench player, but he shot 23% from three in those games as a starter. It’s it’s in this inongruity with his numbers, right? You look at, well, he shot 75% from the line. Shouldn’t he be a better shooter? Okay, maybe. But then when he was off the bench, he shot 63. Like, he’s all over the place. And that inconsistency is unreliable. Like, you’re not okay. Well, he’s always hitting his free throws, so eventually it’s going to come along. And you mentioned it already. Like, can you give me something? Cuz like he hit 24% on his mid-ranges, down from 45% as a rookie. Like, that’s horrific. Now, I don’t expect him to be that bad because that is like, hey, there are, you know, only 20 players in the NBA worse than me sort of bad. He showed. He was 45% and then he was 34% and now he’s 24% on his mid-ranges. So like we need to see that improve. And then we saw an improvement in his free throws, Jeff. He changed his form and the one hand and then it went bad again. Like it went back to under 70% last season. So like where where is it? I I I like the overall game of him. I I that description it’s cliched of Mitch Mitch to say, “Okay, he’s a basketball player.” But he is like, “Okay, well he he rebounds it. All right. He passes okay. He steals okay. Sometimes he shoots well. Sometimes he doesn’t. He just does bits and pieces. But what’s Okay, let me ask you this question. What’s what’s his what’s his one standout skill apart from being a basketball player? Like what’s his thing? Like what’s his one thing? I I’m not really sure I know what it is. Yeah. You know, it’s a good question here. I I think See, I don’t know. You need to go on the defensive end because he’s okay. He’s not great. He’s all right, you know. So, defensively, he’s okay, but I don’t see him going on all NBA first team defensive team. I don’t see that happening. second team. I don’t know. Gosh, do we even do third team anymore? I don’t know. But um I I just I don’t think of is just he just does. It’s like it’s weird because you look at his stat sheet like last season, you know, after the game, you know, they hand out the stat sheets and I’m looking at and he’s just peppered everywhere. It’s he had eight points, 10 rebounds, five assists. Yep. Great. Good stuff, you know. Yep. Yeah. Look at these games. 95221. Great. like 10631 great like just doing little bits and pieces but never one thing that goes holy he averaged 18 points a game or oh my god he got up to five assists a game or he’s averaging two steals like okay sometimes you do it and sometimes you don’t and there’s inconsistency in role there’s incon he had some injuries as well during the early portion of the season where he missed a big chunk of time in November as well which can set guys back and then he came out and had a couple of 20 point games and a string of double doubles in there as well so like it’s there it’s just not consistent enough and we’re in a situation where we do need it to be consistent because we need to they need to make calls and that’s where maybe I think you know giving seeing how he operates away from being a five and just being a a four and that’s it. That’s your role. You know, we’ll let rock and roll. So, let’s see what you can do. Um maybe that’ll help him next season. But it’s it’s weird because when you again we talk about the stat sheet right now it’s like oh my god know so you shot so horribly you know what is oh okay you had 12 rebounds great ah well you had yeah you know three steals you know like you can’t it’s like I could see him talking to us right now and be like okay but look what else I do okay I do this and I do this and I do this um so yeah you know as cliche as it sound maybe Mitch Johnson is right. He’s just a basketball player. He only played 25 minutes a game last season as well. So, that’ll be interesting to see how it wins. And by my tracking of it, 41% 41% of his minutes were at center, 59 at the four. So, that’s obviously going to change. Here’s something, Josh. Do you think he’d be better suited off the bench? I I do. Yeah. I think that to me the lineup is you have Vel there to shoot, you have Barnes there to space and shoot as a low usage guy, and then Sohan comes in and he just does bits and pieces of everything. like he you put the ball in his hands a little bit. You run him off pick and rolls. He gets time with Wimby. He gets time with Dylan Harper as well. To me, you play him 27 minutes off the bench as your as your sixth man. And him and Harper are the main two guys there. But again, there are many ways they can go. They can go Barnes and Sohan. They can go Sohan, Versel. They can go Sohan next to the three guards. They they’ve got like at least a really strong sort of seven deep grouping. And then you’ve got Alolin on top of that. And you’ve got Cornet on top of that. I’ve only mentioned this man’s name once and he started many games last season because he’s a reliable shooter. But Julian Champany like he’s actually he’s a good player. Like he like is if he is Jeff Julian Champany in two years time could very easily we could sit here and go he’s very clearly better than Sohan. What are we talking about? Like it’s he’s just does he does what he does and yeah and I don’t think he gets enough credit for the defensive end. He’s not that bad. No, he’s pretty good defensively. I think he’s pretty good. I agree. He’s not quite as good as his brother defensively, but he’s a better offensive player. He’s a better shooter. Now again, we’re in the situation like either Julian Champagne is getting squeezed or he’s that eighth guy in that mix to where it is going to be harder for Sohan to get 25 minutes and to establish himself into this larger cuz they’re into the situation where you’re a good team. There’s not enough minutes for everybody, but we all need you to do your little bits and pieces to make the team better. And that’s going to be the big challenge, I guess, for Mitch this season. That’s where I struggle when I get asked, well, who do you think is what’s going to be the starting five next year? You brought up Facel. Okay, sure. Not a problem. Yep. You know, I can bring up Sohan. All right. I get it. You know, I get it. I can see that. You know, you know, Sohan, you know, we talked about it. A little bit of everything. You know, I think a starting unit would love to have a player to do a little bit of everything, do some of the dirty work and whatnot, but you started Vel, great. You got a guy who hit the mid-range, hit the three shot. You got a guy created his own shot, you know, who’s gotten bigger over the season if he added more muscle to his frame. There’s that as well. So that’s the one spot I struggle with. But personally I man if I had to pick right now I think they go so hand starting in this off the bench. It’s going to be so intriguing to watch how this plays out cuz they now now there are expectations. You’ve committed this money. You’ve got these picks. There are expectations. You need to be in the playin at worst and then we’ll see where it goes. Jeeoff and of course you’ll have it all covered for us over on the Lockdown Spurs podcast. So once again, thank you for coming on for the 10th or 11th consecutive season to talk about this Spurs team. It’s always different. There’s always something interesting and this is going to be a fun team, Jeff. I’m looking forward to it. Thank you again for coming on. No problem. Look forward to that uh Castle jersey coming at you. Yeah, can’t wait for it. In all of that, we talk about the depth of this team and those players and that seven or eight guys if you include Champagne like Kelvin Johnson is in that mix as well. Now I don’t think who’s Kell Johnson? Forward Stefon Castle maybe. I don’t particularly love Kell Johnson but as a 20-minute a night reserve player is there. They are deep. Are they great? No. But they are deep and depth hitting getting depth in the NBA this season is going to be the key. Teams are going to I believe play faster. Teams are I think what we’re going to see this season in the NBA okay this is a general overview. Pace up. I think you are going to see steal rate across the league up, turnover rate across the league up as teams put more ball pressure on. So you are going to see players get more tired. There’s going to be more uh depth required. You’re going to see instead of sevenman rotations, Tomo, you’re going to see nines, 10s, 11s. You’re going to see Steve Kerr’s foreseeable future 13man rotations at times because they are going to be like we cannot put our foot off the gas because if we do our opponent won’t and we will get cooked. So, be aware of that. Depth is important. Depth is more important. More pressure, more steals, more pace. I think that’s what we’re going to have this season. Who knows if it’s going to come out that way, but that’s how I think it is going to play out. And the Spurs are building that depth at the moment. If you want to build some depth with me, whatever the hell that means, hit the thumb on the video, leave your comments, subscribe, guys. We’re done here. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. Oh, by the way, next show, Sacramento Kings. Oh my god, so much fun. See you. [Music]

🎧 San Antonio Spurs Season Preview | Fantasy Basketball Impact of Wembanyama, Vassell, Castle & More

Josh Lloyd is joined by Jeff Garcia of @LockedOnSpurs to break down the San Antonio Spurs heading into the 2024-25 NBA season. We dive deep into Victor Wembanyama’s fantasy basketball outlook, the messy guard rotation with Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, and De’Aaron Fox, and whether Devin Vassell’s role is secure. Can Jeremy Sochan deliver value, or is he too inconsistent? What will Mitch Johnson do with this young and deep roster?

Get a complete analysis of how the Spurs’ roster decisions will impact your NBA fantasy basketball draft strategy.

📌 Wembanyama’s health, usage & impact📌 Vassell’s fit with new guards📌 Guard expectations: Castle, Harper📌 Sochan’s upside vs role uncertainty📌 Spurs depth chart and rotations

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0:00 – Introduction and Spurs overview
1:36 – Victor Wembanyama’s health
2:14 – Stephon Castle rotation discussion
7:45 – Dylan Harper’s potential
10:21 – Devin Vassell’s role
12:34 – Harrison Barnes’ fit
16:23 – Lineup possibilities
19:53 – Jeremy Sochan’s versatility
24:26 – Sochan’s inconsistency
26:10 – Bench role for Sochan
27:38 – Starting lineup speculation
28:53 – Team depth and NBA trends
30:27 – Conclusion and next episode