San Antonio Spurs 2024-25 Season Preview
San Antonio Spurs 2024-25 Season Preview
Starting today, each day for the next 30 days, it’s season preview time! I hope no real changes happen once I start releasing, though. In each preview, there will be a quick season and off-season recap. The preview will be looking at what’s in store for the team. It’s looking at some questions, things to look forward to, digging deeper into some of them. At the end, there are final thoughts with predictions for the standings, the floor, the ceiling, playoff chances, and some other fun tidbits!
Season & Off-Season recap
The San Antonio Spurs won their lottery last off-season. Everything that you could possibly want, they got in Victor Wembanyama. All of the years of looking to rebuild is made incredibly easier once you hit on a generational prospect. The steps after that are a lot different.
They did win only 22 games again, but that’s because the team all around is at the level to compete. With Wembanyama, they were still -3.0 net(compared to -9.6 without him), but that’s honestly an improvement from where they’ve been — they were also +5.1 if you include Tre Jones with him.
There’s already significant progress in the right direction, but that’s again made so much easier when you have a generational talent. This is like hitting on Tim Duncan all over again. He’s only a rookie who was top 3 in Defensive Player of the Year voting.
But then again, there’s still a reason why they won 22 games and why they were so bad without him. Outside of him, they are still nowhere near the level to win anything meaningful. Half of the 10 players in minutes per game were 23 or younger. Three more players were 24, 24, and 26. The oldest guy that played at least 15mpg was Doug McDeermott at 32. This is a very young team.
So, what do they do in the off-season? They have some veterans — Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes. I wouldn’t say either of them are game changers or players at the point in their careers that can lift a team in any significant way. At the same time, they are proven vets that should make the team better — whether it’s their on-court skill or simply their intangibles and leadership qualities. On top of that, they continued to draft and add more young players drafting Stephon Castle fourth overall.
Key Questions & Storylines
So, what’s in store for the Spurs:
Wembanyama’s second-year leap. Will he be an all-star this year?
How much can and will both Paul and Barnes help?
The Jeremy Sochan point guard experiment
What is the rest of the core looking like?
What should happen with Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson, and Jones?
Castle’s rookie season
Will they continue to win in Wembanyama’s minutes?
Another season of development, trusting the process and banking on a good lottery pick
Let’s start with Wembanyama. I think it’s easy to pencil him in as a likely candidate to make the All-Star game. In his rookie year, he already averaged 25.7 points, 12.7 rebounds, 4.6 assists, and 5.7 stocks per 75 possessions on 51.9% eFG and 56.5% TS — just a ridiculous stat line.
He was also getting better each month when it comes scoring at a higher volume and higher efficiency:
October(4 games): 20.5 on 55.3% TS
November(14): 22.4 on 52.3%
December(10): 22.1 on 53.9%
January(14): 31.0 on 60.5%
February(12): 25.4 on 59.0%
March(12): 26.1 on 57.9%
April(5): 24.6 on 53.2%
That January to March stretch was something else for him, particularly on the offensive end. That’s high scoring on great efficiency, especially for a rookie big.
In that stretch, he averaged 28.3 points per 75 on 54.3% eFG and 59.2% TS with a 33.9% usage. He shot 55.6% from 2pt and 34.4% from 3pt on over 9 attempts per 100(over 20% of them were unassisted!).
That’s why his impact offensively was trending this way:
Here’s a fun stat! He has a 58.6% eFG as a roll man, which is higher than Anthony Davis, Brook Lopez, Alperen Sengun, Deandre Ayton, Joel Embiid, Evan Mobley, and Bam Adebayo.
There are plenty of improvements when it comes to his scoring ability. Anything outside of the rim is lacking — shooting around 34% beyond 5ft inside the arc. That’s even worse in between 6-10ft.
One of the reasons for that is he’s shooting 46% on 3.3 post ups per game. He’s also shooting 42%(49% eFG) in isolation. His self creation ability is the thing to watch out for in his sophomore season. His FG% exponentially dropped with more time that he held the ball: 50.3%(<2 seconds) → 42%(2-6s) → 38%(6s+).
This, of course, isn’t a sign of any concern or worry. He’s 20 years old that’s still looking to grow into his body and develop that ability. There should be zero discouragement that he’s not average in that area.
But this is why he was much better with Jones playing and why the addition of Paul(even at this stage of his career) should do wonders for him. With Jones, he averaged 28pts per 75 on 59% TS. Take Jones off, it drops off to 23pts on 52% TS. Though if we look at the three month stretch(Jan to Mar), it was trending upwards where he averaged 26 points on 57% TS without Jones.
He’s already way ahead of schedule on this end.
One funny stat is he’s shooting 37% on over 2 PULL UP 3s! There are 58 players to take at least, and he’s 14th in %. A reminder that this is a giant doing so.
It’s only him and Paolo Banchero to take at least 2 being 6ft 10 or taller. There’s only Michael Porter Jr, Franz Wagner, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, and Giannis Antetokounmpo to take at least 1.
An alien doing alien things.
His offensive growth and how he looks to improve and expand on all of this can easily make him an All-NBA caliber in this season. He may not have the team success, but individually, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was still as impactful.
What’s funny, though, is that his defense is why he’s been so impactful already. Per EPM, his defensive impact was +3.1, which is good for seventh in the league. That’s tied second highest to Nikola Jokic when it comes to rookies — somehow Rondae Hollis-Jefferson was first.
This is a tweet about Adebayo, but it still has a lot of defensive stats for Wembanyama and where he ranks amongst other DPOY candidates. To be close in that conversation is insane as a rookie. He’s already one of the best rim protectors in the league — opponents are shooting 53% within 6ft and that’s 11% worse than expected.
If this is the floor for him, I can’t imagine what he’s going to be as a defender once he gets stronger, more disciplined, more physical, and smarter. It’s very likely that he’s going to be the best defender in the world.
Even now, the defense with him on was 114, which would be around 11th. Take him off and it drops to 119, where it’s surrounded by teams like the Pistons, Raptors, Hawks, and the Hornets at 25.
The whole season is about his growth and potential on both ends of the floor.
And one way to make all of that easier is by having veterans next to him. Both moves seem to be very low risk, high reward. It didn’t cost them much to get either of them. They aren’t making this team a play-in team either or take away touches from guys that need to develop. But both can provide the extras to make it a better context for young players to develop in.
We already touched on the effect Jones had on Wembanyama. Paul is likely to have a bigger one. Even with the age being considered, his IQ, how he looks to get others going, and how he’ll orchestrate the offense will still matter.
Paul will not get to the rim anymore — he attempted 13 shots total within 4ft — but he’s still money from everywhere else. He can still navigate a PNR well, get to the paint and get looks out of it, where he shot over 56%.
These are some ranks in passing stats and shot making in PNR between Jones and Paul, per BBall-Index:
There’s still a significant gap in the overall playmaking talent. This is going to help them a lot. This also makes sure that one of Paul and Jones is always with Wembanyama.
Barnes, on the other hand, is bringing some efficient basketball. In the last four years, he has a 62% TS. He’s shooting almost 39% on over 6 3s per 100. He’s in the high 60s finishing around the rim. This is making the spacing much better compared to what they had now.
Then, there’s the rest of the team — a lot of bunch of young players: Jeremy Sochan, Malaki Branham, Blake Wesley. There are players that also are still young in terms of experience: Keldon Johnson, Malachi Flynn, Jones, Devin Vassell. I don’t think there’s a bunch of answers as to what each of those players are.
Their core is still a lot of unknowns and looking to see what they have. That continues to be one of the questions for the Spurs in each season. Who do they even have?
There’s Sochan, who they tried to run more as a point forward. Before January, he was leading them in touches and was second in time of possession. That flipped once the calendar year flipped where he was fourth in touches and drastically dropped his time of possession. The point forward experiment wasn’t all that great. I wonder if they go back to that in bursts.
There’s Vassell, who’s going into his fifth season after a decent improvement last year. One major thing that stands out is his 2pt shooting. Before last season, he was shooting 48% from 2pt, which jumped to 54% this year — he reached average efficiency in TS% for the first time.
Are those improvements as a scorer and shooter there to stay? He has made a jump at the rim and within 16ft that had him shoot over 50% in those areas, compared to the low 40s before.
What do they do with Johnson? He’s going into his sixth season and it feels like he’s just there? Is he a player that is part of the core?
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His impact metrics are all over the place and that’s not a good sign for a young player that has had five seasons already.
And there’s their rookie Castle, who’s a 6ft 6 wing that could handle the ball. Sam Vecenie had him as someone with a high floor and a realistic All-Star ceiling if his jumper comes around. All-Star ceiling paired with Wembanyama feels like a good thing. Those two together will be a big focus this season.
With all of that, can they win more games? They were already winning the minutes with Wembanyama and by a bigger margin with Jones. They already had an above average defense with him too — they were also +7.2 in 651 minutes with Wembanyama, Vassell, Jones from January to March!
Predictions
30-35 wins
Floor(worst case scenario): Near the bottom of the West
Ceiling(best case scenario): Knocking at the play-in
If there’s anything to predict that’s almost a lock to me is Wembanyama becoming an All-Star. That should already be pencilled in. With the impact he has on the defensive end and how he looked offensively in that three month stretch scoring on high volume with efficiency, it’s hard to argue against that.
I like the additions of both Paul and Barnes making them better. Paul with his ball handling, passing, and running the offense. Barnes with providing more shooting and finishing.
Hopefully, there’s also growth in other young players. Maybe they go back to Sochan getting more touches. Maybe Vassell adds more to his game on top of the near elite mid-range shooting. Maybe Castle hits his floor quicker and will be a legit contributor.
Overall, I’m still not buying much into the Spurs making any noise. They will have to double their win total to even have a chance at making the play in and compete with other better teams. Wembanyama is going to be great but I don’t know if he’s there offensively where he can raise the floor for this team that much.
I’m having them around the 11-13th seed with just around 30 wins.