The Spurs just teased something WILD…

The Spurs just teased something wild. This training camp is underway. We’ve been getting clips left, right, and center of what is going down at the practice facility. But we got two big hints, including Wem hooking up with another certain big man that we just acquired and a little teaser of the potential starting five on opening night, including a surprising new name. We got to break all of this down coming up on this episode of Spurs Digest. But hey, before we get into it, guys, we are super super close to 10,000 subscribers. We’re like 100 subs away. Thank you for tuning in every single day. You guys have made this amazing. Let’s jump right into it. Let’s start with the starting five. Now, let me preface this, of course, with this is the lineup that we had anticipated, but there’s a couple of issues with this, right? De’arren Fox got a bit of a hamstring issue, so he’s not going to be ready to go opening night. Dylan Harper might be ready to go opening night, but he’s still kind of practicing on his own with that splint after thumb surgery. So, those two guys might be out of the question for who’d be running at the starting five spot right now. But we got a bit of a hint in this practice. Again, there’s some cool videos coming out from this. This is courtesy of Spurs Twitter. But I want you to take a look at this. Now, actually, before I get into it, knowing that Harper and Fox are probably not in this starting five from practice, pause the video, leave a comment who you think it’ll be. So, we’re going to get into it now. And it is actually Julian Champeni alongside Stefon Castle, Devin Vel, Harrison Barnes, and Victor Wignyama. This is the practice starting five. I found this a little bit interesting because, you know, there’s some names. Again, another one that should be ready to go for the season. He said he’d be good to go for training camp. Not sure if he’s still taking his time here with these drills, but from what we saw, this is the five that they’re running with in practice. And look, the thing is, there’s no certainties about who’s going to be ready for opening night. I think Dylan Harper will be, but the question then remains, will Dylan Harper be able to squeeze into this lineup on opening night, the rookie fresh off surgery? Is that a risk? Castle’s not a risk. Vel’s not a risk. Burns is not. And WMBB is not. And Julian Champeni actually opens the floor quite a bit. And I wanted to bring up this quote, and I saw Paul Garcia tweet this out uh yesterday talking about Julian Champeni because something Champeni said kind of resonates with a lot of people, but it’s something Pop told him. He said, “Someone’s always after my job.” That’s one thing Pop, he said, he Pop said that always sticks with me. When I go out there and play, that’s what I’m constantly thinking about. Someone wants my spot, so I can’t let that happen. And you know what? Fair play to him. This dude has sph started his fair share of games for the San Antonio Spurs and I’m going be honest, he’s been fairly reliable. Now, I have never really seen Julian Champeny as a longer term starter for this team. He’s always taller than I think he is, too. I don’t know why I always peg him in my head at like 6’4, 6’5. He’s 6’8. But look, on his career, 42% from the corner. Last year, 37% from three, not amazing. But in 2223, he was a 40% three-point shooter. Champenny is very streaky. We know that he can be hot and cold. We’ve had a few shooters like that in Spurs history. Danny Green’s one of the ones that comes to mind. But when he’s on, he opens up the roster like almost no one else. So, if you look at this starting five and you imagine, let’s say opening night comes and this is what you want to run. Like, let’s say Harper and Fox are both not ready. I think this is a fairly safe bet because you’re not putting too much pressure on Sohan because if you start Sohan over Barnes, which again could happen, but again, San’s fresh off a calf injury. You could do it, but then the shooting kind of gets gets tight again. could definitely work because Sohan and Wembi actually have a nice little twoman game. We saw that a lot last year. But regardless, this is your best floor spacing starting lineup that you could go with if you ask me. Castlett the one not an amazing shooter. WBY at the five actually is a pretty good shooter. And then Vel, Champenni, Barnes, all I would say average to even above average for Vel at his best and Champenny at his best in their case. So I’m actually really intrigued by this, but I want to hear your thoughts. Do you think this could actually be the starting five on opening night? I am skeptical. I think if Soan’s healthy, you might see a shot of him. But you know, Harper as well, but like I don’t know. Like the more I look at this, the more I think it actually could be real. So, leave your thoughts down below. But that wasn’t the only thing that was teased, right? There’s some more stuff going on here with and it involves Luke Cornet because Luke Cornet, look, I’ve loved everything I’ve heard from him. In fact, he had a great quote, too, saying hitting the ground running and really just pushing ourselves on that side of the floor to really kind of establish ourselves as being a great defensive team. That’s his ideology. and he’s been talking a lot about how he and WBY can coexist, right? And you know, they definitely can coexist. WMY having good rim protecting backups and Cornet and Beyombo is something we have been looking forward to since WBY came into the league because we really haven’t had that level of rim protector and Cornet fits very well and he’s going after that defensive mindset early. Again, reminder, this dude average a block a game in only 18.6 six minutes, but his advanced metrics painted him as one of the best rim protectors in the entire NBA. 7 foot2, he’s 30 years old on a pretty bargain deal, a pretty decent contract. But what we did get teased, I’m going to run this video again. You see WY firing these nice passes to Cutting Castle. We taking these little post fades over Carter Bryant, but it’s this little play right here. We hooking up with Luke Cornett down there. They’ve been playing together a little bit at these practices, and it has us naturally wondering, is this something we could actually see? Well, even Luke Cornet was asked about it, right? And he said he believes that him and Wemby can play alongside each other during a game. This is courtesy of Rebel Dominguez who tweeted this out. Cornet did play with Porzingis and Horford in Boston. He knows how to work with another big man on the court. And Cornet again, he’s pretty mobile. He actually ranked in in terms of all rotation bigs. He was in I think like a an A grade out of all the rotation bigs in the league via Bball index in terms of offball cutting on offense. He’s pretty mobile and he knows how to work without the ball on offense. And of course, you can just stick him at the five and you put WBY at the four and you’re kind of okay because WBMB is mobile enough on defense. But it’s what Luke Cornet also had to say here. There’s a great video. Dan Weiss has it on Twitter. A few people have it, but Luke Cornet was sharing his experience on playing with guys like Porzingis and Horford in Boston, right? He did this a lot. And his big thing that he said was like, listen, when you have those two big guys who are rim protectors, you kind of force the other team to to really not want to come in the paint. You can force them to make other decisions. Yes, it’s going to be Now, he didn’t necessarily say everything I’m saying here. I’m kind of just summarizing what he said, but you know what he’s saying? Like when you have those two guys, it makes it very difficult on the other team. You want to make it hard to score at the rim. In terms of like the offensive stuff, this is just me talking now. You’ll take some getting used to. again in a league that’s getting progressively smaller, progressively faster. Well, I don’t want to say progressively smaller, but I would say the prevalence of small ball is increasing, you know, and you you have guys who are maybe less mobile playing the four and five. That just doesn’t fly as much as it used to. But again, I think Cornet’s more mobile than we think. He is so bought into the defensive identity that the San Antonio Spurs are going for. The idea of him playing with WBY is incredibly fun. This twin tower lineup is actually when I heard that Fox wouldn’t be ready for the start of the season and you know you’re not sure if Harper’s going to start this here when Cornet that kind of play is what I was envisioning maybe as like a Twin Tower starting five and I didn’t think it was likely but I do really enjoy watching these guys practicing together. Cornet being asked about it. Cornet saying that he thinks they could do it and again look with Victor Wanyama there’s no question that this dude is going to be able to space the floor and play the role of a pseudo I guess power forward on offense. WBY is just the hubbier offense. He He’s probably going to carry the ball sometimes. He did it a lot last year. He’s going to have the ball at the free throw line. He’s going to be down in the paint taking these post phase like we saw against Carter Bryant. Like he’s going to be doing all of this stuff. So his role on offense is not that of a prototypical five, which allows Luke Cornet to again move off ball, use that cutting that he has, but also just perk himself down low on occasion. Right? There’s going to be so many lanes opened up by De’aran Fox, Stefon Castle coming downhill as the season’s going on. I think it’s going to work well. So, Cornet and WBY, watching them play together now. Having that planted in my head is just getting me more and more excited for this season. And I hope it’s getting you guys excited, too. Leave a comment down below on what you think the starting five will be opening night. And do you think there’s a world we could see some pretty significant cornet and webby lineups? Love to hear from you. But that’ll do it for this episode of Spurs Digest if you enjoyed. Leave a like, comment, subscribe to the channel. News is coming out every single day now. Season’s right around the corner. Thank you for sticking with us for this whole ride. We got a ton of great stuff moving forward. I’ve been your host Josh Goss and I’ll catch you on the next one.

The San Antonio Spurs have shown some interesting things at training camp including a starting 5 featuring a surprising name, and a tease of some twin towers. Josh Gosse breaks it all down on this episode of Spurs Digest.

—
Get 10% off of the BEST Spurs merch we’ve ever worn HERE 👇:
https://diehardaddicts.com/discount/Digest

0:00 San Antonio Spurs News
0:36 SURPRISE starter?
4:02 They teased something WILD

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!

Have you ever wanted to break into sports media as a write or content creator? Apply to join the Digest Media team today here: https://digestmedia.ca/join-us/

for_digest_redistribution

—

Unchanged

—

NBA Trade Rumors, NBA Free Agency, NBA Draft, NBA Finals Preview, Fantasy Basketball Advice, NBA Betting Odds, NBA Jersey Review, Player Performance Breakdown, Sports Analytics, NBA Highlights, NBA News Update, NBA Stats, NBA Roster Moves, NBA Predictions

21 comments

  1. That starting 5 is safe. Julian is consistent and has a solid all-around game. Barnes is the savvy old vet and has a reliable outside shot. I could see it being the starting 5 on opening night, but camp just started and there will be a lot of competition in this camp. This may just be a, “OK guys, here’s a starting lineup. Prove me wrong.”

  5. Against the Mavs, I think you want Sochan in the lineup to clamp up Flagg. Can't give him an ounce of confidence otherwise you're at the mercy of whatever an unscouted player can do

  9. Kornet is such an efficient big, that he may have much more value on the SECOND unit; while Wemby sits. Because, remember, when Wemby was not on the floor last year, the second unit defense was terrible. I think they acquired Kornet to help correct that.

  10. Some great comments. Assuming Harper and Fox are out, I would combine two of the comments to conclude that, against the Mavs, we start Kornet C, Wemby PF, Sochan SF, Vassell SG and Castle PG. The 2nd string backups would be Olynyk C, Barnes PF, Keldon SF, Champagnie SG, and Jones-Garcia PG. The first unit is noted for defense while the 2nd unit is likely to be more offensive. I wouldn't mind seeing a starting 5 of Kornet, Wemby, Castle, Vassell, and Jones-Garcia. That means a probable matchup of last year's ROY against this year's anticipated ROY. Either starting lineup could provide an opening day nightmare of a matchup for Flagg.

  11. If healthy, then Wemby-Sochan-Barnes-Castle-Fox is the starting unit. But with wussy Mitch as HC, the only SIX (6) bright spots I see this season are 1) trading Vassell and his bloated contract; 2) Wemby winning DPOY and in the WemVP conversation; 3) an unstoppable Wemby-Fox PNR that gets both their second All Star nods; 4) Sochan and Castle developing an outside shot; 5) Harper winning Sixth Man of the Year award (and ROY if Flagg doesn't play 65 games); and 6) Carter Bryant being a 3&D star and replacing starter Harrison Barnes sometime w/in the year.

  13. TMG would like to be excited about the Spurs. But ever since wussy Mitch was named to replace alpha male CIA Popovich, I just do not see what there is to be excited about except the possibility of Sean Sweeney replacing MJ next season.

    The glory days of Pop-RC Buford are gone. I predict play-in and lottery in 2026.

  17. I watched somewhere that this practice lineup had been used for games last year and was of the one best defensive/offensively in the league, until the injuries

  18. I wouldn't start kornet he has to come in with 2nd unit that was our biggest problem last year when Wemby sits we are last in NBA in almost everything I think kornet will be a good rim protector and good enough to get 10-12pts and Wemby will get to be fresh every time he on the court now which will make him more efficient especially once his half court game gets better.

Leave a Reply