Hey y'all! My 3rd grade son has really started to get excited about basketball and loves the Spurs. He wants to see Wemby and LeBron play on Friday the 15th as an early Christmas present. Does anyone have tickets for sale? Would like to be lower deck or first 5 rows of upper deck

Thanks!!!!

Weddingtons Coffee said:

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Hey y'all! My 3rd grade son has really started to get excited about basketball and loves the Spurs. He wants to see Wemby and LeBron play on Friday the 15th as an early Christmas present. Does anyone have tickets for sale? Would like to be lower deck or first 5 rows of upper deck

Thanks!!!!

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I noticed this thread on Reddit a couple days ago. It's a good Spurs community. It's worth a shot. Also, there are still some tickets available on ticket master both regular and resale.

https://www.reddit.com/r/NBASpurs/comments/18axs0f/spurs_vs_lakers_1213_1215_for_sale/

Edit: Also be aware that ticket prices for this game will likely be the highest of the season because Lakers.

Reading last couple pages... I'm very much a fair weather Basketball fan so I'll ask y'all. Is this team tanking on purpose?

The idea being to use this as Wemby learning/growing year while putting yourself in a position to hopefully get another top pick (perhaps #1) to complement him. Once you have that, then you can go out and plug in some vets to really jump start this new era.

jr15aggie said:

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Reading last couple pages... I'm very much a fair weather Basketball fan so I'll ask y'all. Is this team tanking on purpose?

The idea being to use this as Wemby learning/growing year while putting yourself in a position to hopefully get another top pick (perhaps #1) to complement him. Once you have that, then you can go out and plug in some vets to really jump start this new era.

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I personally don't think we are purposely tanking. For one thing, it is way too early in the season to do that. Secondly, next year's draft class is one of the weakest in recent memory. Also, having another nice raptors 1st rounder should give us more incentive not to tank to get another early bite at the apple. Lastly, Pop said the goal was winning, last year was for 'growing'. Of course it's not that black and white but even he had higher expectations. We are just not a good basketball team.

I think we are 100% tanking. There isn't a Wemby in there, but there are some really solid players that we could get two of.

IMO it's pretty clear that the organization has goals for this current team that aren't win at all costs. Otherwise there would be no reason to continue to play Sochan at pg, Branham wouldn't continue to get playing time, someone would tell Collins to quit shooting so many threes, and when it comes to crunch time we'd quit letting Keldon drive head down into traffic and tell him to get the ball to Vassel or Wemby. I think it's pretty clear it's another developmental year for our extremely young team, which is why we keep letting guys do things that lead to our team not being as successful as we'd all like.

Sochan will benefit offensively in the long run from playing point, but it's obvious that he's not the guy to run your offense. Hopefully Collins can shoot it well enough ti be a threat from outside to compliment Wemby, but he's never going to be a volume guy from outside. Branham has shown lots of flashes of having a solid offensive game, but a team trying to win wouldn't put a guy out there that's playing as poorly as he is.

The most disappointing thing to me about this team is that we haven't taken more of a step forward defensively. Our rotations are still awful and for some reason we continue to help one pass away, leading to a ton of wide open threes. Yesterday against the timberwolves was much better and hopefully will be a step in the right direction, but it's gotta be more consistent. A team with the greatest defensive force in the league and as much length as we have shouldn't be that bad on the defensive end.

jr15aggie said:

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Reading last couple pages... I'm very much a fair weather Basketball fan so I'll ask y'all. Is this team tanking on purpose?

The idea being to use this as Wemby learning/growing year while putting yourself in a position to hopefully get another top pick (perhaps #1) to complement him. Once you have that, then you can go out and plug in some vets to really jump start this new era.

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They aren't tanking. They are rebuilding. A vast majority of Spurs fans have never experienced it, so we don't know what we're looking at.

It's a fact that really young teams don't win. Period. All these ridiculous posts about playing certain guys are SOOOO short sighted. The team has 9 players in their first or second year and most of them can't buy beer. If you decide not to play a guy then great, you are putting in another young guy who also doesn't know how to play yet.

Look at Houston... Look at Orlando... Look at Detroit. All three have had multiple years in a row picking in top ten. Houston is now looking better in large part because they signed a bunch of veterans to supplement the young talent. Orlando is starting to play well after stacking a half dozen high picks. Detroit is still terrible even though they have at least 6 top 5 picks on their roster now. Remember Memphis built up on the back of two top 3 picks in a row (and look how bad they are without one of them).

The Spurs didn't bottom out enough to draft really high until last year. They are literally in year ONE of this rebuild. You get better by playing these guys and watching who develops. Then draft some more and develop them too. Then when the time is right either sign or trade for some veteran pieces. Its a pretty well heeled playbook.

The good things I see are in the habits. They give effort and they share the ball. Being top 3 in the league in assist rate is wild for a team this bad. I hope to see steady improvement defensively and maybe they'll win some games this season. It's also a fact that the league is loaded right now and it's going to be tough for teams that haven't figured it out.

I hate the idea of throwing **** against the wall after drafting Wemby just to get guys experience. Some of y'all keep touting how young we are and that that's a valid excuse, but also that we have a lot of great draft picks coming up and it's a rebuild. You can't have it both ways, there seems to be a disconnect in the argument. If the age is a limiting factor that we should just all accept, the the new draft picks can't be expected to be beneficial at all. If the argument falls on some of these measly young guys turning into solid contributors in years 3,4,etc., that is pretty wobbly.

I hope Pop isn't effing this up. Thankfully Timmy and Manu, etc., seem to be mentoring Wemby a bit. Probably necessary becaus this amount of losing is not something you just wake up and shake. If it goes on too long Wemby will bolt.

Chipotlemonger said:

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I hate the idea of throwing **** against the wall after drafting Wemby just to get guys experience. Some of y'all keep touting how young we are and that that's a valid excuse, but also that we have a lot of great draft picks coming up and it's a rebuild. You can't have it both ways, there seems to be a disconnect in the argument. If the age is a limiting factor that we should just all accept, the the new draft picks can't be expected to be beneficial at all. If the argument falls on some of these measly young guys turning into solid contributors in years 3,4,etc., that is pretty wobbly.

I hope Pop isn't effing this up. Thankfully Timmy and Manu, etc., seem to be mentoring Wemby a bit. Probably necessary becaus this amount of losing is not something you just wake up and shake. If it goes on too long Wemby will bolt.

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That strategy has been working out for OKC pretty well and it's starting to look like Orlando is turning a corner. Do you have a better one? How bout trading some picks to get Derozan back. Ask Chicago how they feel about trying to accelerate their process by trading for some vets. Welcome to mediocre-ville. We've been there and it sucks.

Btw, nobody wants to talk about it... but I've watched every game this season and Wemby has a lot of development to do himself. He's obviously the most talented but VERY inefficient.

Chipotlemonger said:

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I hate the idea of throwing **** against the wall after drafting Wemby just to get guys experience. Some of y'all keep touting how young we are and that that's a valid excuse, but also that we have a lot of great draft picks coming up and it's a rebuild. You can't have it both ways, there seems to be a disconnect in the argument. If the age is a limiting factor that we should just all accept, the the new draft picks can't be expected to be beneficial at all. If the argument falls on some of these measly young guys turning into solid contributors in years 3,4,etc., that is pretty wobbly.

I hope Pop isn't effing this up. Thankfully Timmy and Manu, etc., seem to be mentoring Wemby a bit. Probably necessary becaus this amount of losing is not something you just wake up and shake. If it goes on too long Wemby will bolt.

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This is the melodrama people are referencing. It's been 20 games. Chill.

This team was being built a certain way since unloading DeMar and Murray. Then, San Antonio struck gold and landed the #1 pick, and it happened to be a possible generational talent. That changes EVERYTHING.

I'm going to say this loudly, the rebuild started over this summer when the Spurs landed Wemby.

Stop looking at the last couple years. They literally don't matter anymore. The calculus changed.

Obi Wan Ginobili said:

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Chipotlemonger said:

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I hate the idea of throwing **** against the wall after drafting Wemby just to get guys experience. Some of y'all keep touting how young we are and that that's a valid excuse, but also that we have a lot of great draft picks coming up and it's a rebuild. You can't have it both ways, there seems to be a disconnect in the argument. If the age is a limiting factor that we should just all accept, the the new draft picks can't be expected to be beneficial at all. If the argument falls on some of these measly young guys turning into solid contributors in years 3,4,etc., that is pretty wobbly.

I hope Pop isn't effing this up. Thankfully Timmy and Manu, etc., seem to be mentoring Wemby a bit. Probably necessary becaus this amount of losing is not something you just wake up and shake. If it goes on too long Wemby will bolt.

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This is the melodrama people are referencing. It's been 20 games. Chill.

This team was being built a certain way since unloading DeMar and Murray. Then, San Antonio struck gold and landed the #1 pick, and it happened to be a possible generational talent. That changes EVERYTHING.

I'm going to say this loudly, the rebuild started over this summer when the Spurs landed Wemby.

Stop looking at the last couple years. They literally don't matter anymore. The calculus changed.

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I was just irritated about it yesterday. I just hate the argument that with another draft or 2 all will be good. If we can't rely on young guys now, then we just backfill with more young guys that's supposed to just fix things? I just think one singular veteran presence in the top 8 of the roster or so would help stabilize things a bit and benefit everyone.

Obi Wan Ginobili said:

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Stop looking at the last couple years. They literally don't matter anymore. The calculus changed.

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I hate that we're 3-18 or whatever but (in my best Hubie Brown voice) when you look at this roster you don't see a lot of guys who are going to start on a playoff team. Vassell is absolutely an NBA starter and as of now the best player on the team. He'd be what, a 4th option on a top 4 seed? 2nd or more likely 3rd option on a 5-8 seed? Sochan is likely a starter on a non-playoff team but his skillset is so unique, it'd have to be on a team where he'd have to have really good complimentary parts around him to hide his deficiencies.

The roster they assembled pre-Wemby was obviously going to positionless flow. Getting a fleet of dudes who have similar skillsets and are interchangeable AND are available in the 10-20 range we've been picking at the last few years...it makes sense that's the way they were building the team. Primo notwithstanding, it was a bunch of 3 star guys (to borrow from CFB) we were hoping that maybe 1 or 2 of them could take the leap into 4-5 star caliber players to build around hopefully a top 3 pick. Wemby changed everything for us fans, but I don't think it changed much for PATFO.

I honestly don't know how much a veteran PG adds to this team. Does it elevate a 20-25 win team to a 35 win team? And is that worth the squeeze? I don't think so....not if you're intending to weed out some of the younger guys as they reach the end of the contracts, etc.

superunknown said:

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Obi Wan Ginobili said:

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Stop looking at the last couple years. They literally don't matter anymore. The calculus changed.

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I hate that we're 3-18 or whatever but (in my best Hubie Brown voice) when you look at this roster you don't see a lot of guys who are going to start on a playoff team. Vassell is absolutely an NBA starter and as of now the best player on the team. He'd be what, a 4th option on a top 4 seed? 2nd or more likely 3rd option on a 5-8 seed? Sochan is likely a starter on a non-playoff team but his skillset is so unique, it'd have to be on a team where he'd have to have really good complimentary parts around him to hide his deficiencies.

The roster they assembled pre-Wemby was obviously going to positionless flow. Getting a fleet of dudes who have similar skillsets and are interchangeable AND are available in the 10-20 range we've been picking at the last few years...it makes sense that's the way they were building the team. Primo notwithstanding, it was a bunch of 3 star guys (to borrow from CFB) we were hoping that maybe 1 or 2 of them could take the leap into 4-5 star caliber players to build around hopefully a top 3 pick. Wemby changed everything for us fans, but I don't think it changed much for PATFO.

I honestly don't know how much a veteran PG adds to this team. Does it elevate a 20-25 win team to a 35 win team? And is that worth the squeeze? I don't think so....not if you're intending to weed out some of the younger guys as they reach the end of the contracts, etc.

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That Primo draft really hurt. Maybe we wouldn't have drafted Wemby because of taking someone different but I think we could have tanked just the same by taking one of a handful of players that would have helped us now, this season. Primo wasn't even the best player from Bama taken that year. That draft selection put us one year behind in the rebuild we are doing now imo (assuming everything else worked out the way it did).

The Spurs have drafted in the top 8 once since Duncan. All these other teams have been able to get elite talents at the very top of the draft. Yeah, you find some good to great players later but the percentages go down. I think the Johnson, Vassell and Sochan picks were good picks. Those guys will all play for a long time.

Ya'll don't worry, we got this in the bag tonight. I placed a bet on the spurs ML to win

We break the losing streak tonight

Enzo The Baker said:

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I think the difference between the Spurs and OKC/Orlando is that those teams have drafted well, albeit at better draft positions than the spurs for the most part. We will see what Wright can do over the next couple years but his draft record to date is pretty underwhelming.

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I don't think we have drafted bad. Sure, Haliburton instead of Vassell would have been ideal, but Vassell is putting up 19ppg on 50/42/79 shooting this year in just 28mpg and that's fantastic.

We have had the two complete duds - Primo and Samanic. Samanic was like 19th.

2023: Wemby was a no brainer
2022: I like the Sochan pick at 9. Maybe Jalen Duran is the better option there, but we had Jakob on the team when we made the pick. Branham was 20th and again that could have been Walker Kessler - but we had Jakob. Wesley doesn't look great, but neither does anyone after him.
2021: Primo. Youngest guy in the draft, showed some potential, even if no one wanted to see it. 12th pick. Wish it was Trey Murphy, Cam Thomas, or Herb Jones. But the majority of the players after Primo sucked, there are only like a half dozen decent guys drafted after him.
2020: Devin Vassell at 11. Halliburton and Maxey were on the board, but no one had Maxey as a lottery pick. But that team had Derrick White and Dejounte Murray, so understandable we didn't pick another PG and picked a D&3 wing instead, only Devin has become more than just D&3. We also ot Tre Jones in the 2nd round and that was a great pick
2019: Luka Samanic at 19, then Keldon at 29. Luka was a bust, but Keldon was a fantastic pick.
2018: Lonnie Walker. He has come into his own this year in Brooklyn. Putting up 15ppg in just 20mpg on 49/46 shooting. Happy for him. He's never going to be a solid starter, but who wouldn't wan a guy that can come in and drop almost a point a minute on super high efficiency shooting.

Those 9-30 picks are mostly a crap shoot and we have done pretty well with them.

OKC had:
#12
#2
#12
#30
#6
#16
#18
#17

Yeah the Primo pick is the only real oof I see (Luka was an oof but hey Keldon came out of that draft and if we'd swapped the order we picked them it wouldn't be that big of an oof to me, and we wouldn't probably not be talking about a swing and miss at #29) and even then with Primo it feels it was a big reach at turning a non PG into a PG if that was the original plan. Primo turning out to be a head case makes it that much more painful.

Guitarsoup said:

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Enzo The Baker said:

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I think the difference between the Spurs and OKC/Orlando is that those teams have drafted well, albeit at better draft positions than the spurs for the most part. We will see what Wright can do over the next couple years but his draft record to date is pretty underwhelming.

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I don't think we have drafted bad. Sure, Haliburton instead of Vassell would have been ideal, but Vassell is putting up 19ppg on 50/42/79 shooting this year in just 28mpg and that's fantastic.

We have had the two complete duds - Primo and Samanic. Samanic was like 19th.

2023: Wemby was a no brainer
2022: I like the Sochan pick at 9. Maybe Jalen Duran is the better option there, but we had Jakob on the team when we made the pick. Branham was 20th and again that could have been Walker Kessler - but we had Jakob. Wesley doesn't look great, but neither does anyone after him.
2021: Primo. Youngest guy in the draft, showed some potential, even if no one wanted to see it. 12th pick. Wish it was Trey Murphy, Cam Thomas, or Herb Jones. But the majority of the players after Primo sucked, there are only like a half dozen decent guys drafted after him.
2020: Devin Vassell at 11. Halliburton and Maxey were on the board, but no one had Maxey as a lottery pick. But that team had Derrick White and Dejounte Murray, so understandable we didn't pick another PG and picked a D&3 wing instead, only Devin has become more than just D&3. We also ot Tre Jones in the 2nd round and that was a great pick
2019: Luka Samanic at 19, then Keldon at 29. Luka was a bust, but Keldon was a fantastic pick.
2018: Lonnie Walker. He has come into his own this year in Brooklyn. Putting up 15ppg in just 20mpg on 49/46 shooting. Happy for him. He's never going to be a solid starter, but who wouldn't wan a guy that can come in and drop almost a point a minute on super high efficiency shooting.

Those 9-30 picks are mostly a crap shoot and we have done pretty well with them.

OKC had:
#12
#2
#12
#30
#6
#16
#18
#17

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Yea the Halliburton snub doesn't bother me because we took the best player available for the position need approach (we already had white and DJ) so major hindsight bias there for people who call out that as a mistake. But then the next year we still have the same backcourt and draft Primo, passing up on Sengun (who many felt was the most spursian player in the draft and would have filled a position of need.) That pick just did not make sense at all imo. Seemed like we tried to be the smartest front office in the room.

Yeah, there really isn't a way around it, but Primo was a reach when we took him and looks really bad now. But I also think that's our only bad pick of the post-Duncan era.

In addition to the 6 years I did, go back one more and we had Derrick White at #29 and DeJounte Murray at #29.

In 8 years, we had 11 picks, and only 2 were in the top 10. Of those 11 picks, I think we have one future HOFer, one All-Star (DeJounte), One really solid 2nd option (Devin), one championship-level team starter (Derrick White), and three solid to good rotation players (Sochan, Keldon, Walker.) Two guys are 21 or younger and could be rotation players at some point. Two busts (Luka/Primo.)

Only having two busts in 11 picks, and nine of those picks are outside the top 10 is a pretty awesome hit rate.

I think the idea with Primo was to have a bigger guard (6'5 with 6'9 wingspan) that had shooting skills (he was a 38% shooter at Bama) and could create for others and be interchangable defensively.

Primo is especially frustrating to me because we knew we needed shooting and Trey Murphy was the best shooter in the draft. He hit 43% at UVA. Plus he is 6'8 with 7'1 wing span.

But if you make 11 first round picks in 8 years and only two of those are busts, you have done way better than most of the NBA.

New Spurs lineup tonight: Branham, Vassell, Keldon, Sochan, Wemby.

Wemby at the 5. Collins to the bench.

Pop says staff looks at it as one big and four perimeter players, no designated point guard.

— Jeff McDonald (@JMcDonald_SAEN) December 8, 2023

Bexar County DA dismisses indecent exposure charges against former Spur Josh Primo https://t.co/kQGdS3IqFW

— San Antonio Express-News (@ExpressNews) December 8, 2023

All I do is Nguyen said:

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Ya'll don't worry, we got this in the bag tonight. I placed a bet on the spurs ML to win

We break the losing streak tonight

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Coby White is a 1st team all NBA "well that is definitely not what I pictured in my head when I saw his name" right?

Welp so much for that ML bet lol

This team is so bad at basketball. Like every single facet of the game.

Its not a point guard is an important position

Best 3-18 team in the league amirite?

Wemby goes for 21 pts, 20 rbs, 4 ast, and 4 blks. And has a negative 22 net rating. Wild.

Turnovers. Turnovers. Turnovers.

If this team ever puts together a passable third quarter and learns to stop allowing wide-open three pointers to hot shooters they might be dangerous.

Enzo The Baker said:

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Turnovers. Turnovers. Turnovers.

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And…
- Inability to rebound
- Poor shot selection
- lack of team defense

Here is what needs to happen to get to 45 wins next year:

• Trade Collins. He should have some value and would be a much better fit on other teams but is not a fit on defense beside Wemby.
• Draft or sign a starting PG. Or just commit to Jones for 35 mpg, he is not bad.
• Sign a center that can defend and enforce. I really wish we could get someone like Valanciunas from NO after watching him against the Spurs a week ago. Even someone at Poetl's level in lieu of Collins would be a huge improvement on defense. Plan on Wemby never being a true C.
• Trade either Keldon or Sochan plus draft picks to get a plus veteran at either PG or C.

Someone explain the defensive strategy of helping off the closest three point shooter to a penetrating guard.

Because we do it every damn time. You can set your watch to it. And teams put their best shooters in the appropriate spot.

It's effing dumb.