As Gregg Popovich and Tom Thibodeau shook hands at center court following Victor Wembanyama’s Madison Square Garden debut, Pop was caught on camera saying, “It’s going to take some time.” The San Antonio Spurs took a 21-point drubbing by the New York Knicks, days after getting beaten by the Pacers by 41 and blowing a 22-point second-half lead to the Raptors. Through two weeks, they are 3-5, with the NBA’s worst point differential by a wide margin. Even with Wembanyama, the league’s youngest team hasn’t proved to be an exception to the maxim that young teams don’t win much.
“We’re learning,” Wembanyama said after the game. Learning that leads can disappear, that you can get run out of a gym in an instant, that you are a target on a nightly basis. Ahead of the game, Knicks starting center Mitchell Robinson compared Wembanyama to Bol Bol, just like Shaquille O’Neal did the week prior, and Robinson went on to outplay him. Knicks fans chanted “OVERRATED” in the second half, which was bound to happen when Wemby had been hyped as the greatest prospect since LeBron James.
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The early review for Wembanyama is still positive: He’s already a transformative defender who deters players from testing the paint when he’s lurking and causes them to rethink jump shots because of his 8-foot wingspan. If San Antonio’s perimeter defense weren’t so porous, he’d receive Defensive Player of the Year consideration even as a rookie. But defense is about five players, not one.
On offense, his 38-point banger against the Suns showed his potential to be the best player in the world. But he is nowhere near as ready to consistently string these big games together as LeBron was as a rookie. Draft evaluators unanimously agreed that Wemby is an underdeveloped shooter with a raw post game and a lean frame. Through eight games, he’s averaging 1.8 assists compared to 3.5 turnovers, 18.8 points on 73.3 percent shooting at the rim, 32.1 percent from midrange, and 29.3 percent from 3. Individually, it’s a good start, though he needs to improve his perimeter numbers over the course of the season by hitting the shots he’s frequently taking.
Through the ups and downs of Wembanyama’s young career, fans have begun to look for something to blame other than unreasonable expectations. Spurs fans are engaged in a civil war about whether Jeremy Sochan should be playing point guard, even though he was drafted in the lottery just one year ago as a 6-foot-8 bully with defensive versatility and passing feel. Here’s what I wrote about Sochan in my 2022 NBA Draft Guide:
Capable of excelling as an athletic two-way player who can defend all five positions, and if he develops a jump shot he has limitless potential. He’s a playmaker with a fluid handle that features misdirection and sudden movements to generate space.
Sochan has had some good games, as he did with nine assists against the Suns, and even in Wednesday’s stinker against the Knicks, he was the team’s best player. But things haven’t been perfect with him running the offense. He’s shooting 25.6 percent from outside the restricted area, which limits driving lanes and often leads to possessions that stagnate. But Pop called him the “official 2023-24 experiment” because the Spurs want to see what they have in him and let him grow through his mistakes.
With so much attention on the Spurs thanks to Wemby, a debate about Sochan that would normally be reserved for local sports talk and reply threads on social media has reached a national stage. On my podcast, The Mismatch, Chris Vernon and I argued about it, and a day later, my boss Bill Simmons said on his podcast that the Spurs should pull the plug on the Sochan experiment in favor of trading a first-round pick for T.J. McConnell.
While I understand the point Verno and Bill are making about prioritizing Wembanyama’s development, we disagree on the way to do that. I don’t think the answer is a career backup who also can’t shoot and isn’t better than the current Spurs backup point guard, Tre Jones, who’s similarly a rock-solid game manager but not a shooter. Jones and Wemby share the floor plenty. But for now, it’s more beneficial for Wembanyama to grow with Sochan, who is the second-best defender on the team and has the highest upside on the roster as a facilitator. Plus, we already know that Wembanyama can destroy the rim with crazy dunks. There is more developmental benefit to making things harder on Wemby with creation opportunities at the end of the clock, a packed paint that forces him into in-between shots, and the physicality of veteran centers. These are the things he needs to get better at.
Wembanyama would get easier opportunities at the rim playing with a sharpshooting guard who can draw defenders away from the paint, leading to rolling lanes for him and space for lob passes. The Spurs should monitor trade opportunities for Jaden Ivey if the Pistons make him available because of their logjam of ball handlers. And with college basketball season beginning, they should have their eyes on Ja’Kobe Walter, the third-ranked player on my August big board, who went off for 28 points in his debut with Baylor. But in the meantime: No, the Spurs shouldn’t trade for T.J. Freaking McConnell.
It’s only November, anyway. It’s too early to be tinkering. The Spurs are playing trial and error across the roster. Devin Vassell will get creation chances. Keldon Johnson will be fed jumpers. Malaki Branham will be asked to get stops on defense. Second chances are being given to the oft-injured Zach Collins and a castoff like Charles Bassey. Soon, someone from a group of unproven players, like Sidy Cissoko and Dominick Barlow, could get floor time, too. The 2023-24 season is less about optimizing the roster for today and more about figuring out who’s worth keeping and what’s needed for the future, when Wembanyama is ready to lead a championship contender.
“Every game is a game of mistakes,” Popovich said Wednesday. “You learn when you win. You learn when you lose.”
It wasn’t like this for San Antonio when Tim Duncan, a four-year senior out of Wake Forest, joined another no. 1 pick in David Robinson. The Spurs immediately turned into winners and won the first of five championships in Duncan’s second season. But the likely upside for the Spurs this season is a play-in spot, and the downside is another chance in the lottery. Realistically, especially with the West playoff race totally stacked, they’ll be hoping to get lucky in the lottery again. And they’ll have to endure a lot of losing until lottery night because there is no guaranteed success, even for the team with the most hyped prospect in decades.
“As a young team, any team really, we’re going to go through losing streaks,” Wembanyama said. “The most important thing is how we bounce back.”
And in that simple admission lies the crux of it all. Despite the rush for instant results, the Spurs are a reminder that the seeds of greatness are often watered with the sweat of present struggles.
