“Spurs’ Woes Continue: Twelve-Game Losing Streak Despite Wembanyama’s Defensive Prowess”
Ok I’m just going to say it….this is getting a little ridiculous. VDub or no VDub, the Spurs are a marginal team at best and light years away from being competitive in the West, barring personnel changes.
Following Sunday’s loss in Denver (132-120), the Spurs losing streak stands at twelve in a row. Only the Detroit Pistons have a longer active losing streak at thirteen games and counting. The Spurs are now 3-14 through seventeen games and are dead last in the Western Conference.
This same team last season; minus VDub, was 6-11 through the first seventeen games. They have already surpassed the second largest losing streak from the 2022-23 season and are quickly approaching last season’s longest losing streak of sixteen games in a row from January 20 to February 25.
The Spurs are now 25-74 dating back to last season.
How do you bring back essentially the same team as last season that went 22-60, ADD a generational talent like Victor Wembanyama, and are WORSE than the year before? In looking at the Spurs upcoming schedule, it is highly conceivable that this current losing streak extends into late December and possibly January.
While I understand Pop’s rationale, the Jeremy Sochan experiment has been nothing short of a shit show in a dumpster fire. The offense at times resembles a 2A high school JV basketball team as Sochan struggles with making the initial entry pass to initiate the offense, and I’ve seen better pick and roll action at the buffet at Golden Corral.
Offensive struggles aside, the Spurs STILL can’t stop ANYONE.
As much as we love watching VDub cross guys over, shoot step back three’s, and perform superhuman feats at the rim, his biggest impact is on defense.
When VDub is the primary defender he is holding opponents to a miserly 53.4 percent shooting at the rim. That’s better than Chet Holmgren (56.1 percent), Jaren Jackson Jr. (56.3 percent) and Giannis Antetokounmpo (63.0 percent). The Silver and Black gave up a ridiculous 66 points in the paint in the loss to Denver.
Even when expanding an opponent’s shot chart to 10 feet from the basket, opposing players are shooting only 47 percent with VDub as the primary defender, a drop of 11.3 percent off their season averages. These numbers don’t even take into account the mental impact he has on opposing offenses in the form of second guessing their shots.
If there’s going to be experimentation, based on the numbers why not experiment with a zone on defense? With his size and length VDub virtually covers the paint and makes long skip passes difficult. A zone would also eliminate him from being caught out of position on the wing where he has no place being in the first place, thus cutting down on fouls.
It’s worth a try.
Too often the players take the heat for taking L’s. It would be too easy to blame Jeremy for the offensive woes or KJ who is only averaging 17 points, five fewer than he did last season. That would be unfair considering they’re just doing what’s asked of them in the system that’s available to them.
I know we tend to place Pop on a pedestal and for the most part it is justified, he HAS brought five titles to the River City. His job however is to put these guys in the best position to win games, ideally by highlighting the team’s strengths and minimizing its weaknesses. Game in and game out it seems as though the opposite is the case.
Often times the skill of these elite players on this level masks coaching mistakes, at least to the naked eye. These days however, there is no David, Tim, Tony, Manu, or Kawhi to mask those mistakes. There is ONLY Victor. Instead of worrying about Spurs fans booing opposing players and “poking the bear”, perhaps he should focus on putting these guys in a better position to slay the bear.
Upcoming Games:
Thu, Nov 30 vs Atlanta (8-8) 7pm
Fri, Dec 1 @ New Orleans (9-8) 7pm
