This goes WAY deeper than we thought for the Spurs…

This goes WAY deeper than we thought for the Spurs…

This goes even deeper than we thought. With the Spurs off to an insanely hot start at 4-0, the success of the San Antonio Spurs goes far deeper than just the stars at the top like Webby and Castle. But it dives into Dylan Harper and even some underrated names that show up in some incredible lists that reveal the secret as to how the Spurs have started this season on such a high note. And we’re going to get into all of it. these stats plus another very interesting leaderboard coming from hoops hype that highlights that the San Antonio Spurs very clearly have the best young core in the league if we didn’t already know and we’re going to start right there and this right here this RAT that is global rating now I’m going to jump into that and say what is you’re going to say what is global rating and I am so glad you asked and look even if you didn’t ask you are dead to me let’s dive into global rating it’s a stat created by hoops hypes Alberto doa that measures players and teams performance taking into account not only individ individual stats, but also team and competition strength. Now, I’m a huge fan of stats like this that take into account other things outside just the box score. It’s a lot more common in sports like baseball, for example, where they’ve had that advanced analytics revolution, ballpark factors, all this kind of stuff. Not as easy to do in basketball, although I imagine in the near future it could be. But I like when you take into account team and competition strength, cuz you know, the Spurs competition has been a little lower than some other teams, for example. But regardless of that, this right here, what you’re seeing, you might notice it’s a lot of young names. Well, this is actually sorted by highest global rating of any player under 22 in the NBA. And also, Webby is first in the league anyway. Like, he’s not just at the top if it’s under 22. He’s first in the NBA. He’s higher than Giannis. Giannis is second, crazy enough, as is. But also want to point out that the gap between Wemb and VJ Edgecomb, which is just over 15 global rating points, is bigger than the gap between Edgecom and Kong Canadup, who’s here in 10th. So that’s insane on its own. But what impresses me more is that Stefan Passel is third. Third on this list. Higher than guys like Jaylen Duran, Alex Sar, even like Cooper Flag. Way higher than these guys. And even Dylan Harper right up there at number six. I find it cool that Keonte and Kaishan George who I often mix up for each other. I cannot lie. They are both there at number four and five. And I like that cool. But Dylan Harper right behind them is so beyond impressive. And you know, we’ve seen what these guys have been able to do. Victor Webbbyama doing his thing, Mitch Johnson coaching very well, but Stfan Castle, even though he’s had a turnover problem, has been incredible. That deceleration, Dylan Harper’s finishing ability at the rim, has been otherworldly. And like right now, I don’t think you could have asked for a better start. The only thing you could ask for better is maybe again those turnovers to come down a bit for Castle, but he’s still averaging 18 and 12 points, six rebounds, five assists, and his shooting percentage has been decent, right? Like it’s looked pretty good so far. So, when we’re looking at the best young cores in the league, it’s hard to look at the Spurs, look at stats like this, and there’s more that paint this similar picture and say, “Well, it’s hard to say like, oh, well, they’re just not that good.” Like, they’re good, but no, like it is the best young core in the league. And I understand that like Dylan Harper, my boy right here, shout out this sweater link in the description, by the way. I wear this all the time. You guys know that. I tell you all the time, but I genuinely love the merch. But Dylan Harper, like even with Fox coming back soon, who knows when that’ll be. Hopefully within the next week or so, he’s going to get fewer minutes, but he has shown so much poise and ability to really take over those ball handling roles that I don’t really foresee it being too much of a hindrance because Castle has been forced into being a primary playmaker and that has led to him turning the ball over a lot. He has not looked comfortable in that role, right? And despite that, he’s still up here for for global rating. But with Darren Fox coming back, it wouldn’t shock me to see Castle take a lot more of an offball role and then Dylan Harper take up more of those ball handling duties. Even sometimes if they could share the floor like Harper and Fox, I don’t see why not. If we’re doing Harper and Castle, I think there’ll be moments for Harper and the fact that these guys are all in the top six is insane. But that’s just one aspect, right? The question is how are the Spurs 4 and0, right? Like when we see it, big factor is Victor Webbyama. Yeah, like duh, this guy right here and well these two Area 51. But it goes deeper than that. And let me explain to you why. Because there’s so many stats that have been coming out recently about, you know, how good the Spurs are doing, how good they are defensively. Like I just want to paint the picture of what I think some people maybe aren’t even realizing about how like just how good the Spurs are looking on the defensive end. Let’s start here. This is all the NBA teams sorted by defensive rating. The Thunder, who are first in the NBA, are first at a 103.6. Reminder, lower number is better. It’s essentially points given up per 100 possessions is is what it is. The Bulls, who are 3 and 0, which honestly crazy start to the season for them. Thank you for helping facilitate the Dear Fox trade and for taking Zack Collins, but anyway, 104.4. The Spurs, who are also undefeated, 104.8. Now, yes, you could look at this and say, well, yeah, the teams that are doing the best to start the season have the best defensive rating. Okay, well, let’s look at some other charts here, right? What about this one here? Let’s make it bigger again. Opponent second chance points. There are some bad teams ahead of the Spurs. The Mavericks are one and three. The Knicks, they’re not a bad team. Of course, neither are the Bucks, but they’re doing worse than the Spurs. The Spurs are giving up the fourth fewest opponent second chance points in the NBA. Why? In large part due to Wemby. The rebounding, not just Webby, Luke Cornett is a huge factor in this as well. Getting great defensive rebounds. And I I could get into offensive, you know, offensive rebounding stuff like that, which we’ve been good at. But I want to focus on the defense of it. You don’t see the Thunder or Bulls here. The Spurs are right there as well. How about opponent points in the paint? The Spurs are second to only the Boston Celtics who are one and three in giving up opponent points in the paint. Only 39.5. Why? Because no one wants to shoot on Victor Webama. Have you seen these these clips of Wemby’s anti-gravity pushing people away from the paint? How about a final one? How about defensive rebounding percentage? This is a huge one as well. You end the offensive team’s possession. And again, this is not just Webby. It’s Kell Johnson. It’s even Champi who had a bunch of boards in one game. It’s Luke Cornet when he’s been healthy. And it’s only going to get better. 74.1% is a crazy high percentage and we’re third in the league behind only Charlotte and again the New York Knicks. So, not only are the San Antonio Spurs getting a good defensive rating like some of the other top teams like OKC and Chicago, it’s the rebounding, it’s the the big man defense, it’s so much more than just, yeah, we have good perimeter defenders and we have WBY. It it’s the culmination of everything together that is not allowing teams to score in the paint because we’re only second to the Celtics. We’re ending the possessions by getting rebounds almost every single time. Over 70% of the time and we’re just using all of that together to make a good defensive team. But what if I told you it still went even deeper than that? And it had to do with this guy right here, Kell Johnson. If you can’t see the number on the jersey, Kell Johnson, there’s a very interesting aspect with him. Now, we saw him get some nice O boards in the absence of Luke Cornet in last game. He’s been playing a really solid role off the bench. Big body Kell Johnson. He’s been playing some clutch minutes as well with Cornet out. Of course, he might even get it with Cornet back. But let me show you this. This right here is from Stack Defender. Best defensive field goal percentage so far in the 2526 NBA regular season. Now, this is similar to a stat Keenan showed in his video yesterday, but this is pure DFG percentage. Minimum 30 defended shots. Basically, Kellen Johnson is number one in the NBA in defensive field goal percentage of all players that have defended at least 30 shots. Victor Wanyaba is number two. Now, in such a small sample, there’s going to be some maybe not great defenders here. For example, Anthony Simons, but he’s guarding a lot more threes, right? So, that field goal percentage is going to be lower. It’s most impressive when you see bigger guys on this list because you know then a lot of the shots that bigger guys are defending are coming closer to the rim which naturally have a higher field goal percentage. Kell Johnson number one at 29%. But again doesn’t stop there. Victor Wimbeyama 29.7% is second in the league. And even Stfan Castle sneaks into the top 10 at 33.9%. So when I’m going through all these stats, we’re number three in defensive rating. We’re number four in fewest opponent second chance points. We are number two in best uh paint defense in terms of points given up. We’re number three in defensive rebounding percentage. We have three of the top 10 players in the NBA in terms of best defensive field goal percentage. As in the fewest amount of makes you’re giving up against other players. And you look at this team and you’re like, well, yeah, the scoring is good. They’ve had some bad turnovers. They’re still going to learn, but why would this continue? Why would this 4-0 start continue? And again, with a tough schedule coming up, the Heat Knicks, who have been a very high-scoring team, the Suns, even the Lakers. We’ll see if Luca’s back. The Rockets in a in a group stage game for the NBA Cup. There’s a lot of challenges coming up, but when I look at the grand scheme of things, when I dig deeper into the numbers, to me, there is no reason that this success should not continue because we are doing all all the signs are there for this defense to not be a flash in the pan. All of the things that you would want to see, all the the the marks that you’d want to see of a good defense in terms of statistics are there. We got players who individually are playing really good defense on other players. We are not giving up offensive rebounds very much. We are not allowing them to score in the paint. We’re forcing them to the outside. We have the best defensive player in the world and a guy who could very well win MVP in Victor Webmanyama. There is so much going right for the Spurs. It’s deeper than I thought on the surface. And to me, this just indicates that success is bound to continue. But let me know your thoughts. Maybe I’m misinterpreting. Maybe you think something completely different. I think I’m right. But I’d love to hear your thoughts down below cuz that’ll do it for this episode of Spurs Digest. If you enjoyed, leave a like, comment, and hey, subscribe to the channel. We got huge things coming this year. Thank you for tuning in every single day.

The San Antonio Spurs success is warranted, but some deeper analysis into statistics prove that they are poised to continue this incredible run. Josh Gosse breaks it all down on this episode of Spurs Digest.

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0:00 San Antonio Spurs News
0:31 This is the best young core in the NBA
4:02 This goes even deeper than we realized

Spurs Digest is a YouTube Channel that covers all the latest news, trades, reports, and rumors regarding the San Antonio Spurs. We provide comprehensive coverage on topics such as game highlights, player performances, and in-depth analysis of team strategies. Our channel features discussions on key players like Victor Wembanyama, De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassell, Jeremy Sochan, and Chris Paul as well as insights from Head Coach Gregg Popovich and president R.C. Buford. Stay tuned for all the exciting updates and engaging content on everything Spurs!

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Shocking stats show that Spurs’ success is not a flash in the pan

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