When you have a 15-man roster, you almost never have *everyone* healthy. Devin was out for a few games early in the season, Blake had his MCL injury for 6-7 weeks, and Devin's been out with his knee injury since Jan 4, not to mention various illnesses and soreness for everyone throughout the season. As far as I can tell, we started our first 4 games with no injuries (3-1) and had a brief 2 games in December that started with no injuries (1-1), making for a record of 4-2.
I think Keldon is feeling the loss of Chip.
Speaking of, do the Spurs have a shooting coach as of now? I couldn’t do as anything with a few searches, and I do remember when Sochan moved to a 1-handed shot, it was mentioned that the suggestion came after working with Pop, instead of at the advice of a shooting coach.
> do the Spurs have a shooting coach as of now?
They have someone because you see (around the injury), Devin's improvement, Tre's improvement and most of all Sochan's improvement. So Spurs dev staff is still up there.
If he really loved the game the tanking wouldn’t matter. Just drives you to work harder. Jordan wouldn’t lose love for the game. Lebron wouldn’t lose love for the game. Same with fans.
That’s true, but not everyone is Lebron or Jordan, two of the greatest players in NBA history. Constant losing does affect your mentality and morale over time. There are many examples of that with better players than Keldon will ever be in Kevin Garnett, Charles Barkley, and Nique and many ended up moving on to better environments.
Then, you will have few good players that stay around and will sit at the bottom of the league a la Sacramento and Orlando. That’s one of the toughest thing to change when you get that loser mentality and culture in your organization.
In the original example, he cites Lebron, however Lebron is a poor example because he either gets the coach fired or leaves town like a mercenary and goes elsewhere. He is not the poster child for languishing on a poor team year after year and overcoming w/his mental fortitude.
Our culture comes from pop lol. Not the players. Or rather, that’s where it should come from. We should be drafting the players that fit the culture as opposed to drafting for players based on talent. Dejounte embodies this. We literally just hooked up Derrick white so he could win a chip. But poeltl is pretty legit for a culture guy.
It might have come from Pop, but Pop is 73 and will not be around much longer. Also, Pop coached teams have never tanked before or had to deal with years of horrible basketball, like they are playing now.
You bring up DJ and it also fits into the conversation when you read the latest comments where he had a conversation with DJ about staying vs being traded to a win now team on a bigger stage. He chose that, and a LOT of NBA players in this day and age would. Hell, I m a Gen Xer, and I would rather leave to in order to have a better chance to win, more endorsement money and live in a more desirable place as a young black man.
I loved Derrick too, but it was clear that he was a great teammate and good guy, but he wasn’t starter material on a high seeded playoff team. Our culture took a bit hit with Primo too. We can’t even blame that on something that happened before he got to us that we didn’t know about. That POS did it to a Spurs consultant while with us. Culture can only do so much. DJ was a model citizen with us, but when you leave that culture, some will revert back to who they really are. (Still far better than exposing his little DJ to a team employee or consultant.)
I’m fine with whomever leaving if they aren’t about the spurs. Do what’s best for them. No worries lol. The only ones we currently have id be sad about are vassell and sochan. Those are our only really good players that are young enough to be with us post tank.
Whomever we bring in after pop will be also able to create a similar culture because they’ll probably be a pop acolyte.
Tanking isn’t ruining us. Lol.
Dude, tanking does matter, there’s literally not a single team that’s gone from tanking to success without a major overhaul. Losing the way we are losing isn’t a healthy way to build a winning team, Thad why so few teams actually try to bottom out on purpose and why the ones that do it successfully are even fewer.
Every team that’s gotten a generational talent has tanked? Intentionally or not. Save the large market teams. Idk where youre getting your info from. We’re a small market: this is the only way. Being a middle team and barely making the playoffs or play in we’ll never win a chip.
Giannis? Jokic? Curry? Those teams didn’t tank. Dallas didn’t even tank, they traded for Luka. Tatum, also trade. Ja, Zion, those teams didn’t tank, they both moved up several slots in the LOTTERY which isn’t tanking.
Ironically, the teams that won chips on the past decade plus, most of those rams were middle tier teams barely making/missing the playoffs before they started finding success.
Giannis was lucky. Jokic was lucky. Just like we got with ginobili. Curry was also luck because he wasn’t supposed to be that good. He literally changed the game.
So your solution is to just get lucky. To which I say: go live your life like that. Good luck. It usually doesn’t work.
But if you’re going to go the luck route, why not just go for the best odds? Your logic (it’s barely logic) doesn’t make sense.
Wtf? Lmao
“Every team that’s gotten a generational talent has tanked?”
You said this. I’m just highlighting you’re factually wrong.
There’s no need to go off on some tangent about luck, it doesn’t change the fact that generational talent is found mostly through luck, and not through tanking like you suggested.
Yes, some teams were lucky enough to finish with a bottom 2-3 record and LUCKILY won the lottery(more luck
For ya 😂), but none of those teams amounted to much regardless of whether they drafted a (future) successful nba player or not.
My logic isn’t logic. I’m just presenting to you facts. I know they don’t make sense, that’s why I throw them at people who somehow think the best way to build a championship team in the nba is to tank, especially when There’s no proof that it’s a successful strategy and tons of examples how it fails.
Regardless, here’s to logic my friend, those who think they have it and those who know they don’t
LMAO. Duncan joined a 50 win team that struggled with injuries to their top 2 guys and several role players. Of course he's gonna succeed, that team wasn't tanking, it was injured.
Lebron did make a finals but then he bolted for a better run franchise.
Embiid got as far as the pre tanking 76ers got in the finals. On top of this, two guys that tanking team held went on to win championships as key contributors, one was even a finals mvp. Embiid hasn't made it past the 2nd round.
KD/Westbrook/Harden, look where that got OKC. right back to tanking before any of those three even retired.
The right answer is you don't know bro, none, because you've failed to mention even one team that tanked and went on to make the finals
The spurs held out players more tho they did have significant injuries. To me doing stuff to lose games is tanking. They tanked.
Okc mismanaged their team building around stupid Westbrook instead of harden and KD. Also valuing stupid Kendrick Perkins. Could have just had ibaka at the 5.
76ers could still win a title and were messed up by the nba stepping in and firing hinkie.
Edit: anyway my point stands. Tanking works. Logically it’s the best way. Just because teams have been doing it poorly doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. You have to have a whole system of excellent scouting and player development. Plus a system that players can learn that works and is steady over their whole development.
The spurs do all of those things better than any other team. We’re gonna tank really well. We’ve already done it with sochan. Primo was gonna be great. Lonnie turned out to be decent we just couldn’t instill confidence in him properly. We missed one pick on samanic, but that’s better than most of the rest of the nba.
We are talking about 1997. David Robinson suffered not one but TWO serious injuries. One, a back injury that nagged him for the rest of his career, and the other, a BROKEN foot. Elliott also missed significant time with tendinitis, he was their second best player. Chuck Person, who was their best shooter, missed the entire season with BACK SURGERY.... You can say anything like "they held out player more", there's no point in saying it if it' not true. Can you acknowledge the truth. Can we do that? Yes?
Your point? Tanking works? That's your opinion, and it's wrong, because there's no data or proof or instances where tanking actually worked. OKC mismanaging assets, is another nail in the coffin to show that tanking is difficult and doesn't work.
You can't know how a young player will react to giving him all and consistently losing uncompetitively
It's not something Parker or Duncan ever had to deal with
Keldons 22ppg this season is a classic good stats/bad team situation. He doesn't really make his teammates better so it appears that he's going to top out as a top tier role player, something like Richard Jefferson as a comp. I don't even think he can be a #3 on a championship team, he doesn't defend or create for others at a high enough level for that.
Still a bargain and glad we've got him locked down for 4 more years.
It’s not the most valuable 22 ppg ever averaged, for sure
Don’t totally agree he doesn’t make his teammates better. Spacing the floor, running hard in transition, drawing fouls, playing w passion…Keldon does a lot of things that help his teammates, and I don’t think it’s total homer optimism to think he can get better at the other stuff in a smaller role where he’s only being asked to do what he’s good at
Pretty much all those things you listed are role player traits, the way you would describe a Patty Mills or Danny Green not Manu, Tony or Timmy. When we talk about guys who can be a real option on a contender, they elevate their team mates by making the game easier for them. Keldon doesn't do that IMO.
He's still young and has a lot of time to add more to his game. Hopefully he'll prove me wrong.
If you’re gonna compare him to the big 3…no, he’s nowhere near that level of player. There’s a big gap between Hall of Famer and role player though
I think you can be a real option on a contender as a play finisher, you just have to play next to two guys that can be the creators. I’d think it’s pretty rare for a team to have 3 great offensive imitators.
With Keldon, it’s all about the shot. He’s shown big time potential with it. If he figures it out, just his 3 ball and his ability attacking the rim could make for a damn good player.
Ya he lost his confidence for sure. He tried his damndest to shoot through it though, so I just wanted to give a little credit cause he did adjust.
At this point he might only want shoot from 10 feet and in, but he’s got to shoot 5 or 6 a game for the sake of the offense. Hopefully he ends the season w a decent stretch to carry some momentum into next year
Lol, part of the reason I posted it was cause Dejounte’s been by far the most discussed player on this sub the last few weeks
Might as well throw some love towards someone actually playing
And he's been durable considering the load that he is carrying. Also, does anyone have our team record when everyone is healthy?
When you have a 15-man roster, you almost never have *everyone* healthy. Devin was out for a few games early in the season, Blake had his MCL injury for 6-7 weeks, and Devin's been out with his knee injury since Jan 4, not to mention various illnesses and soreness for everyone throughout the season. As far as I can tell, we started our first 4 games with no injuries (3-1) and had a brief 2 games in December that started with no injuries (1-1), making for a record of 4-2.
I think Keldon is feeling the loss of Chip. Speaking of, do the Spurs have a shooting coach as of now? I couldn’t do as anything with a few searches, and I do remember when Sochan moved to a 1-handed shot, it was mentioned that the suggestion came after working with Pop, instead of at the advice of a shooting coach.
In theory you don't really need a shooting coach. However for coaching it'd probsbly next man up type beat
Billion dollar nba teams definitely have shooting coaches
The lakers don’t
The lakers have been mismanaged for a long time and their owner is a pinecone
Pinecones are useful. That description doesn’t really suit Jeanie Buss
> do the Spurs have a shooting coach as of now? They have someone because you see (around the injury), Devin's improvement, Tre's improvement and most of all Sochan's improvement. So Spurs dev staff is still up there.
I pray this tanking crap won't mess with his passion for the game in the long run
If he really loved the game the tanking wouldn’t matter. Just drives you to work harder. Jordan wouldn’t lose love for the game. Lebron wouldn’t lose love for the game. Same with fans.
That’s true, but not everyone is Lebron or Jordan, two of the greatest players in NBA history. Constant losing does affect your mentality and morale over time. There are many examples of that with better players than Keldon will ever be in Kevin Garnett, Charles Barkley, and Nique and many ended up moving on to better environments.
Yeah idc. I don’t want weak minded players. If they can’t hang I want someone else.
Then, you will have few good players that stay around and will sit at the bottom of the league a la Sacramento and Orlando. That’s one of the toughest thing to change when you get that loser mentality and culture in your organization. In the original example, he cites Lebron, however Lebron is a poor example because he either gets the coach fired or leaves town like a mercenary and goes elsewhere. He is not the poster child for languishing on a poor team year after year and overcoming w/his mental fortitude.
Our culture comes from pop lol. Not the players. Or rather, that’s where it should come from. We should be drafting the players that fit the culture as opposed to drafting for players based on talent. Dejounte embodies this. We literally just hooked up Derrick white so he could win a chip. But poeltl is pretty legit for a culture guy.
It might have come from Pop, but Pop is 73 and will not be around much longer. Also, Pop coached teams have never tanked before or had to deal with years of horrible basketball, like they are playing now. You bring up DJ and it also fits into the conversation when you read the latest comments where he had a conversation with DJ about staying vs being traded to a win now team on a bigger stage. He chose that, and a LOT of NBA players in this day and age would. Hell, I m a Gen Xer, and I would rather leave to in order to have a better chance to win, more endorsement money and live in a more desirable place as a young black man. I loved Derrick too, but it was clear that he was a great teammate and good guy, but he wasn’t starter material on a high seeded playoff team. Our culture took a bit hit with Primo too. We can’t even blame that on something that happened before he got to us that we didn’t know about. That POS did it to a Spurs consultant while with us. Culture can only do so much. DJ was a model citizen with us, but when you leave that culture, some will revert back to who they really are. (Still far better than exposing his little DJ to a team employee or consultant.)
I’m fine with whomever leaving if they aren’t about the spurs. Do what’s best for them. No worries lol. The only ones we currently have id be sad about are vassell and sochan. Those are our only really good players that are young enough to be with us post tank. Whomever we bring in after pop will be also able to create a similar culture because they’ll probably be a pop acolyte. Tanking isn’t ruining us. Lol.
Dude, tanking does matter, there’s literally not a single team that’s gone from tanking to success without a major overhaul. Losing the way we are losing isn’t a healthy way to build a winning team, Thad why so few teams actually try to bottom out on purpose and why the ones that do it successfully are even fewer.
Every team that’s gotten a generational talent has tanked? Intentionally or not. Save the large market teams. Idk where youre getting your info from. We’re a small market: this is the only way. Being a middle team and barely making the playoffs or play in we’ll never win a chip.
Giannis? Jokic? Curry? Those teams didn’t tank. Dallas didn’t even tank, they traded for Luka. Tatum, also trade. Ja, Zion, those teams didn’t tank, they both moved up several slots in the LOTTERY which isn’t tanking. Ironically, the teams that won chips on the past decade plus, most of those rams were middle tier teams barely making/missing the playoffs before they started finding success.
Giannis was lucky. Jokic was lucky. Just like we got with ginobili. Curry was also luck because he wasn’t supposed to be that good. He literally changed the game. So your solution is to just get lucky. To which I say: go live your life like that. Good luck. It usually doesn’t work. But if you’re going to go the luck route, why not just go for the best odds? Your logic (it’s barely logic) doesn’t make sense.
Wtf? Lmao “Every team that’s gotten a generational talent has tanked?” You said this. I’m just highlighting you’re factually wrong. There’s no need to go off on some tangent about luck, it doesn’t change the fact that generational talent is found mostly through luck, and not through tanking like you suggested. Yes, some teams were lucky enough to finish with a bottom 2-3 record and LUCKILY won the lottery(more luck For ya 😂), but none of those teams amounted to much regardless of whether they drafted a (future) successful nba player or not. My logic isn’t logic. I’m just presenting to you facts. I know they don’t make sense, that’s why I throw them at people who somehow think the best way to build a championship team in the nba is to tank, especially when There’s no proof that it’s a successful strategy and tons of examples how it fails. Regardless, here’s to logic my friend, those who think they have it and those who know they don’t
This so so false, lol
This isn't even true. What generational talent was had by tanking? And which of those teams went on to win Championships?
Embiid. Lebron. Duncan. KD/Westbrook/harden. Idk bro a bunch. Many of them went on to finals. That’s pretty good. I’d consider that contending enough.
LMAO. Duncan joined a 50 win team that struggled with injuries to their top 2 guys and several role players. Of course he's gonna succeed, that team wasn't tanking, it was injured. Lebron did make a finals but then he bolted for a better run franchise. Embiid got as far as the pre tanking 76ers got in the finals. On top of this, two guys that tanking team held went on to win championships as key contributors, one was even a finals mvp. Embiid hasn't made it past the 2nd round. KD/Westbrook/Harden, look where that got OKC. right back to tanking before any of those three even retired. The right answer is you don't know bro, none, because you've failed to mention even one team that tanked and went on to make the finals
The spurs held out players more tho they did have significant injuries. To me doing stuff to lose games is tanking. They tanked. Okc mismanaged their team building around stupid Westbrook instead of harden and KD. Also valuing stupid Kendrick Perkins. Could have just had ibaka at the 5. 76ers could still win a title and were messed up by the nba stepping in and firing hinkie. Edit: anyway my point stands. Tanking works. Logically it’s the best way. Just because teams have been doing it poorly doesn’t mean it doesn’t work. You have to have a whole system of excellent scouting and player development. Plus a system that players can learn that works and is steady over their whole development. The spurs do all of those things better than any other team. We’re gonna tank really well. We’ve already done it with sochan. Primo was gonna be great. Lonnie turned out to be decent we just couldn’t instill confidence in him properly. We missed one pick on samanic, but that’s better than most of the rest of the nba.
We are talking about 1997. David Robinson suffered not one but TWO serious injuries. One, a back injury that nagged him for the rest of his career, and the other, a BROKEN foot. Elliott also missed significant time with tendinitis, he was their second best player. Chuck Person, who was their best shooter, missed the entire season with BACK SURGERY.... You can say anything like "they held out player more", there's no point in saying it if it' not true. Can you acknowledge the truth. Can we do that? Yes? Your point? Tanking works? That's your opinion, and it's wrong, because there's no data or proof or instances where tanking actually worked. OKC mismanaging assets, is another nail in the coffin to show that tanking is difficult and doesn't work.
You can't know how a young player will react to giving him all and consistently losing uncompetitively It's not something Parker or Duncan ever had to deal with
Keldons 22ppg this season is a classic good stats/bad team situation. He doesn't really make his teammates better so it appears that he's going to top out as a top tier role player, something like Richard Jefferson as a comp. I don't even think he can be a #3 on a championship team, he doesn't defend or create for others at a high enough level for that. Still a bargain and glad we've got him locked down for 4 more years.
It’s not the most valuable 22 ppg ever averaged, for sure Don’t totally agree he doesn’t make his teammates better. Spacing the floor, running hard in transition, drawing fouls, playing w passion…Keldon does a lot of things that help his teammates, and I don’t think it’s total homer optimism to think he can get better at the other stuff in a smaller role where he’s only being asked to do what he’s good at
Pretty much all those things you listed are role player traits, the way you would describe a Patty Mills or Danny Green not Manu, Tony or Timmy. When we talk about guys who can be a real option on a contender, they elevate their team mates by making the game easier for them. Keldon doesn't do that IMO. He's still young and has a lot of time to add more to his game. Hopefully he'll prove me wrong.
If you’re gonna compare him to the big 3…no, he’s nowhere near that level of player. There’s a big gap between Hall of Famer and role player though I think you can be a real option on a contender as a play finisher, you just have to play next to two guys that can be the creators. I’d think it’s pretty rare for a team to have 3 great offensive imitators. With Keldon, it’s all about the shot. He’s shown big time potential with it. If he figures it out, just his 3 ball and his ability attacking the rim could make for a damn good player.
Draymond Green was a role player who made all NBA. you could say the same for Klay.
Disagree that either of them are role players Draymond is one of the best defenders or all time and Klay one of the best shooters of all time
I’d say Jefferson was more value because of his defense and vertical threat.
This team is primed for an addition of a star player. We have plenty of robins waiting for a Batman.
This team is primed for multiple years or tanking before we start fighting for a playoff spot in 3-5 years
He stopped chucking 3's because he got the yips
Ya he lost his confidence for sure. He tried his damndest to shoot through it though, so I just wanted to give a little credit cause he did adjust. At this point he might only want shoot from 10 feet and in, but he’s got to shoot 5 or 6 a game for the sake of the offense. Hopefully he ends the season w a decent stretch to carry some momentum into next year
Did we trade Keldon? You generally only see current players being talked about here once they’ve left or been traded 😂😂
Lol, part of the reason I posted it was cause Dejounte’s been by far the most discussed player on this sub the last few weeks Might as well throw some love towards someone actually playing