"Tim (Duncan) and David (Robinson) were having a party against us, (now) it's ours... In '99, I had tears of sorrow, today I have tears of joy."
- Patrick Ewing as the Knicks get revenge on the Spurs 27 years later 🗣
(via @HectorLedesmaTV)
I want to express my heartfelt gratitude to everyone in San Antonio. Your kindness made my trip to San Antonio wonderful. I'm really sad to leave. I will definitely come back to San Antonio. If you ever come to Japan, please contact me and I'll be able to give you lots of advice!
With Victor Wembanyama on the floor, the Spurs generate far more layups for their point guard trio — a trio I spent all summer convinced wasn’t an ideal fit. De'Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper are three downhill guards and none of them is a proven knockdown shooter. On paper the spacing math didn’t work. Mitch Johnson solved it by playing only one or two of them together at once. And Wemby handled the rest. Harper’s at-rim frequency jumps 15.5% with Wemby on the floor. Castle, 14.2%; Fox, 9.7%.
More shots at the rim is one piece. More shots going in at a higher rate is the other. Every rotation player sees a jump, not just the guards. Devin Vassell’s true shooting climbs from 55.2% to 60.8%. Harrison Barnes from 58% to 64.7%. Julian Champagnie from 58.4% to 63.3%. Fox is the exception — his true shooting stays the same.
Some of this increase is thanks to transition offense off stops. Most of it is Wemby’s gravity in the half-court.
Gravity comes in different flavors. The first is simple spacing: his shooting pulls a big out of the paint and the guards drive into an empty lane. The more interesting one is what happens when he rolls. When off-ball defenders decide to stay home on shooters, the big man still needs to prevent a lob to Wemby, which means Fox, Castle and Harper can go one-on-one with a full head of steam and walk into layups.
Of the nearly 400 handler/screener duos to log at least 100 pick-and-rolls this season, Fox/Wemby, Castle/Wemby and Harper/Wemby all rank in the 88th percentile or better in scoring efficiency.
None of this shows up on his line. Wemby finishes those possessions with zero points and zero assists and jogs back down the floor, and the box score insists nothing happened. Something happened.
Tracy McGrady tells a story about playing for Gregg Popovich on the USA Olympics team:
“I got to tell this story of practice, dog. So, I didn’t know how Pop work, right? This is me. I’m the leading scorer in the NBA, and I’m on this team with all you stars, superstars, and we in practice one day. I ain’t really understanding what Pop want. I don’t know what he want on offense, right? So, we swinging the ball. That b**** comes to me. I’m wide open. I shoot it. I’m wide open I shoot it. Pop looked at me and said, “Tracy, you think I’m speaking fu*king Russian?” I looked at Pop like what, man? It was, bro. I was like, I wanted to go at him but I caught myself because I’m amongst, you know, you guys and what we trying to build. I’m like, all right, I see what’s going on. I see what he’s trying to do, right? He’s trying to build a culture and understand. But no, this ain’t about you bro. I know you wide open, but we trying to build something here. So, I understood in that moment I was upset, but then I as like, okay, I get it. I ain’t get in my feelings or anything like that because I know what he’s trying to do. But it was just threw me off that he came at me and said, What, I’m speaking fu*king Russian.”
(Via @VinceAndTmac)