Are the Spurs the favorites? | Southwest Division Preview
Our offseason series continues and Dave DuFour, Es Baraheni and Zena Keita are here to hand out offseason grades for the Spurs, Rockets, Pelicans, Mavericks, and Grizzlies.
Host: Dave DuFour
With: Es Baraheni and Zena Keita
Producer: Andrew Schlecht
Audio/Video: Carl Finocchiaro
TIMECODES
00:00 – Intro
00:35 – San Antonio’s slow and steady offseason
04:11 – Final grades for Spurs summer moves
08:29 – Have the Houston Rockets solved their personnel problems?
14:50 – Amen Thompson struggling for space to develop
17:02 – Is the New Orleans roster good enough for top 6?
20:23 – Tough grades for Pelicans front office
23:03 – The Dallas Mavericks making interesting roster moves
27:52 – Kyrie Irving trade possibilities
31:43 – A fresh start for the Memphis Grizzlies
34:40 – The final verdict on the Grizzlies roster moves
Full Episodes Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEuhZTLf0SW9N9etjaRh-KK7zRgKUOQ9l
Shorts Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEuhZTLf0SW8NBkdA2krD_sHQfI7Uhn4r
Thumbnail credit: Alex Slitz / Staff / Getty Images North America via Getty Images
Victor needs to control his elbows. He's a Frenchman in the USA. Ice Ice baby.
How about Rui Hachimura instead of Tobias Harris ??
And you forget Oscar Tchiebwe as a signing for the rockets 🚀 I like that signing a lot
They are until all those guys start getting extensions the 2nd Apron will slow their roll just as it is slowing the Thunder's right now.
Can the Spurs get better:
I mean they didn't win and half the roster can't yet rent a car without an insurance upcharge so yeah.
Now will they? Probably, but who knows. Nothing's guaranteed in this league.
The Spurs' pathway to improvement is internal development. Wemby, Castle, and Harper were all 22 and under.
Another key offseason move for the Spurs that doesn't get talked about enough is the addition of Billy Donovan as an assistant coach. Mitch Johnson was clearly inexperienced as a first year head coach against Mike Brown in the finals. With Donovan, they add much more experience and offensive schemes in their mix.
Rockets offense is a coach issue not a player issue. He doesn't know how to play offense
6:28 okay? he was an allstar
I’m the comment about the spurs needing more shot creation and Harris being that was really dumb. Both because the spurs have lots of great shot creation but they couldn’t hit their shots in late game situations. Harris will help with shot making but not creation. Seriously what was she talking about?
Trade KD for Jaylen Brown
Trade Jaylen Bown from Philly to GS for Steph Curry?
If you’re Dalllas you want to get Cooper in the playoffs as fast as you can, to get the chance to start building a Legacy… if he is generational then you want for hint be able to show that in the playoffs
Why would the Spurs not move Dearon Fox for Kyrie? Trey would be crazy not to do that deal… Kyrie and somebody like and Gafford for Fox
I can tell yall didn’t watch the season. Fox wasn’t even running point majority of the season. It was castle all first half.
The biggest changes that people keep underestimating are the 4 guys we drafted and adding Billy Donovan.
Tobias Harris is a perfect add for us. He fits our team really well and increases our depth but he’s not the difference maker.
A difference maker is adding Billy Donovan. We struggled with X’s and O’s and in game adjustments on offense. At times it looked like on offense, we didn’t know what we wanted to do. Billy Donovan changes that for us in a big way. He’s great at bringing creativity and versatility to our offense. He also is a good defensive coach whose teams often pressure full court on the ball like we like to do to disrupt opposing teams’ offense.
Another difference factor is going to be our young draft picks. All four guys play good to great defense. And now we have real, athletic big man depth and versatility by adding Reed Jr, Quaintance and Brown.
We finally have a real post presence with Reed that we can post on the block like we did for many years with Duncan. This frees up Wemby to play a style that is more like a combination of Dirk & KD on offense which suits him better. This alone is HUGE for us. On defense, Wemby is still Wemby but our young athletic bigs can each guard stretch fours away from the basket and switch allowing Wemby to stay in the paint more instead of getting pulled out.
Maliq Brown is versatile enough at 6’-9” in shoes to guard 1-5 now which we really didn’t have before.
Then don’t underestimate JaKobi Gillespie who will develop into Patty Mills 2.0 for us in time.
Quaintance will be back around the All-Star break. His knee is structurally sound. His recent operation was just meniscus tear cleanup to address the swelling he was experiencing in his knee. Basically, they needed to just trim off loose cartilage in his knee that was causing irritation and swelling. Duncan had the exact same procedure after his meniscus tear so the Spurs knew what they were getting into when we drafted him. He will be a game changer when he’s ready for the stretch run.
McLaughlin is our emergency PG. Gillespie will pass him up in the depth chart.
I think Billy Donovan also helps unleash Devin Vassell. Vassell used to be a 20 point scorer for us. We used to actually run plays for him since he’s a versatile wing scorer. But we’ve gotten away from that over time transforming him from one of our primary scoring options to our 4th or 5th option on offense.
I’m hoping Billy Donovan draws up plays and actions for Devin. He can catch and shoot off of screens, he can attack close outs, he can take his man off the dribble on clear outs, etc. He’s not just a 3 point shooter.
Just look at his highlights from his first couple years with the team and you’ll see that we used him much differently than we do today.
I think the Spurs will take a step back this year. No one expected them to be as good as they were last season and other teams didn’t have a game plan for them. That will not be the case this season and the Spurs, being so young, are still learning the game. Give them time.
0:14 i’m only here for the spurs talk. GO SPURS GO!!
1:31 responsible and decisive moves. That’s the Spurs way.
Es and Zena are on their shiz in this ep! so crisp! the fuckin sparkling cider of basketball podcasting! crispy, tasty, helps reset the ph on yr throat, refreshing lol
Spurs' front office is not going to overreact to a season that the team massively over performed on by trading for Steph Curry unless Steph makes a trade request amd says "Spurs or bust"
The team's first playoff run led to a competitive finals run. Literally no one in the starting line up had every been to the playoffs before EXCEPT for Fox who was playing on a high ankle sprain he only rested for two games
Rui would be a better fit tbh Tobias is good but Hachimura is a better shooter and younger with playoff experience
Every time these people say your team is doing good in the off season, you will get a disappointment.
I am so thankful they gave the Rockets a C this time. Thank you for your mercy.
Trade vassel for kawhi, Fox for Garland better pick and roll with wemby and kornet, Kris dunn cheaper than carter Bryant and batum french for Harrison Barnes no picks involved