This has gotten out of HAND…

This has gotten out of HAND…

This has gotten completely out of hand. After a rough stretch of games for Spurs shooting guard Devin Vacel, fans have started to turn on him. And with Mitch Johnson’s choice in the rotation getting narrower and narrower as we near the return of Dylan Harper of Stfan Castle and a fully healthy Spurs team, questions have continued to be raised about Devin Basel’s future in San Antonio. But there are some stats that paint a very different picture than the narrative is telling you. We’re going to get into that, plus some other great team stats. And we’re going to start on a positive note here. So before we get into Devon of Cell, which is coming up later, I want to start here by showing you something that I saw on Twitter from Bball Ball Index today. A great follow, a great spot to get all kinds of good NBA stats. And it’s team stat Tuesday, baby. The top 10 teams in finishing talent depth. The Spurs are the top finishing team in the entire NBA. We Harper, Fox, and Castle are all in the 95th percentile or higher in finishing talent. And here is the plot here. We’re first Philly, Portland, Toronto, Miami. Some very interesting names behind us there. But our average ranking is 10.56. You can see these guys here. 1 3 3 5 4. We have so many guys who are right up there in the top percentile of finishers in the NBA. And we just take a look at these numbers, right? This is something that we needed to have happen for San Antonio. And even though we’re coming off a loss to Phoenix and you know everything, you know, it looks bad, whatever the third quarter deficits, I think it’s all going to be fine because again, once these guys are all fully healthy and they can all contribute in their way, we’re going to see a very different Spurs team. And that actually plays off what I’m going to talk about a little later with Deon Vel. So, make sure you stick around. But to start with, Dylan Harper, this to me is one of the biggest X factors for San Antonio. the biggest, dare I say the biggest outside maybe Fox’s chemistry with Wemby, but I know that’s going to get better. Harper’s play and how he will fit in with the team is going to be very important. And again, he is right there in the 95th percentile or higher along with Webby, Fox, and Castle in finishing talent. So, Dylan Harper alone, his ability and to get to the rim, first of all, his incredible footwork, but the threat that he presents going downhill is going to change how defenses address him. again averaging 14 a game on 50% from the field in his limited sample before the calf injury. That’s incredible, right? And that opens so many more avenues for playmaking. And it’s very similar to what De’Aran Fox has done throughout his career. He’s Fox is more maybe a little bit quicker, has a faster first step than Dylan Harper, while Harper’s a bit more of a creative finisher. But these two guys, they have similar talents in getting to the rim and just being a complete danger and menace when you get there that you can kick the ball out and teams are going to have no choice but to decide to either defend the guy who’s almost certainly going to score at the rim or go defend a shooter. Now, the Spurs shooting woes is a separate problem. But so cool to see that these guys plus Stfan Castle all right up there. Castle and Harper have a very similar finishing move set. I find like these kind of slow steps. Harper’s very interesting at creating space by going shifting left and right a lot more Manu in Harper’s game which I love. But it’s also incredible to note that Victor Webbyama is here and I can’t finish this segment without talking about WBY. Again, he’ll be back soon in a couple weeks. 35 minutes a game, 26 points per game. And you know, even though he hasn’t been the most efficient, again, he’s over 50% shooting this year, which is great. Like obviously that’s really good, but we’ve wanted to see maybe that jump shot fall a little more. He’s had some duds of games. My question is again, why don’t we get him the ball on the inside a little more? Because it feels like when he’s posted up, it’s always out in the high post. If we can just get the ball to him a little bit more in the lane, I’m sure the Spurs are going to work to do that. This guy finishes. These four guys are all so good at finishing in traffic that not only does it present a threat at scoring in the paint, it presents a threat to pass out. So, I wanted to show this stat because I think it it paints a very interesting narrative around San Antonio and how we can weaponize this not only to finish but to kick out to guys like Devin Vel. And I want to take a moment here because I do like Deon Vel, but there is a narrative going out around now that uh his days are maybe numbered. And look, I got some support for this. This is not just me saying this because I don’t I don’t know if I agree. But anyway, we’ll get to that in a moment. Like Spurs Legion, again, this is not sending flack to any of these people. Well, don’t go tweeting at them or finding them telling them that they don’t like their opinion. This is just the opinion cuz Vel has, you know, he hasn’t been as good as maybe we wanted. Making 28 million a year just to average 13.7 points in 33 minutes. Doesn’t do nearly enough for a $27 million player. Vel’s last season in a Spurs uniform. He makes too much and doesn’t do enough. And this to me is a little disheartening, right? There’s a lot more tweets just like this, a lot more of this opinion prevailing online. And Kenan was actually talking about Vel uh earlier this week and like there’s a lot of positives with him, right? But ultimately there is an issue when you’re making now 27 million is not what it used to be in in a rising cap world. 27 million is a lot more palatable. Like 27 million of today is like the 20 million of a just a couple of years ago. So for me I think the production is decently in line with the money. There is a good amount of term coming up but right now he just hasn’t been able to find a groove. And really since he came back last year from his foot injury, he hasn’t been able to really get back into that groove of shooting that well from three or from mid. And like the mid-range is okay, but he hasn’t been able to finish. He’s had some turnovers, only 1.3 per game ultimately. But like look, 14 points on 41% shooting, 36 from three. It’s not really what you come to expect from a 27 million player, especially since the Spurs wing defense this year has been suspect at best. But I want to highlight one thing because when Devin Vel is on and his shot is going in, he has stretches like he’s hot and cold. This isn’t even just stretch of games to stretch of games. Sometimes he goes like up and down within the same game. He can miss three straight threes but then knock in two or three in a row in clutch moments. And that’s partially why he actually has the other like of people who have a decent sample. Dylan Harper is number one in per 100 possession plus minus. But look on the far right, Devin Vel outside of Dylan Harper for all players that have played a decent amount of minutes. Like there’s other guys with smaller samples like Byombo and David Jones Garcia who have insane numbers because they’re just skewed because of small sample. But of the regular rotation guys, Devin Vel has the highest onoff plus minus per 100 possessions on the team outside again Dylan Harper who only has a 140 minute sample. Vel you can see of all these guys, he also has the most minutes played. like he has been the most consistent guy on the floor because of WebM’s injury, because of Fox’s injury, because of Cornet, because of Harper. Like he has been our player who’s played the most minutes this year at three different positions. He’s actually logged 20% of his minutes at point guard, which I don’t even necessarily agree with. I I’m curious which minutes those were, but regardless, we’ve had some weird point guard stuff going on. But the oncourt plus minus per 100 possessions is also plus 8.9. Once again, only second to Dylan Harper. So Devin Vel when he’s on the court for San Antonio, we are winning the game. We go on positive runs when Vel is out there more so than any other player. And again, you can look at some of these other guys. Harrison Barnes, the team is a little bit better with him off the floor. Now again, in a small sample, even the 16 game sample is not very big. There’s prone for the stats to be a little wishy-washy, but like when you compare them again with the rest of the team, it’s not like we’re taking one player comparing to the rest of the league and ignoring context. No, this is all the same team. Like even guys like you see Victor Winyama. Yeah, he’s obviously got an incredible encore plus minus 8.8 the onoff 6.7. So the team 6.7 points per 100 possessions. Their plus minus is 6.7 per 100 when he’s on better than when he’s off. So like Kell Johnson is kind of not so great, right? When he is on versus when he’s off, the team’s not doing as good. Fox is still a smaller sample. But the thing is Devin Vel it paints a clear picture that when he’s on the team does great. when he is off, the team does not do as well. You know why? In my opinion, it’s the shooting value. A lot of that is the shooting value. And you can look at Champenny as well. A guy that objectively has been decent, not that amazing. His onc court plus minus per 100 is great. 7.7 4.8 plus minus onoff, right? But guys like Castle and Fox who are really, really good players. The guard spot, not as good shooters. Fox is a little bit better. Not as high numbers. So to me, again, I think the Spurs shooting is maybe overblown. And I think we’ll come back to earth, especially once we get some of our guys healthy with with Harper, Fox, and Castle all healthy. With We Wii, the Spurs open threes are going to go up. You’re naturally going to have guys collapsing on our star players more, leaving to more open looks. Right now, Vel’s forcing a lot, but with a team that doesn’t have that much spacing, he doesn’t have much of a choice, but clearly when he is on the floor, he’s making a positive impact. So, to me, I understand the production objectively is not there for a $27 million player. This is we wanted to see a little bit more, but I’m just saying let’s take a minute, settle in, and see what he can do because some of the underlying metrics are absolutely there. And I’m still a believer. I’m excited to see what’s going to go on. And I want to hear your thoughts down below because that’ll do it for this episode. Thank you for tuning in every single day. Leave your thoughts on Deon Vel, Dylan Harper, so much more down below. I’ve been your host Josh Goss and I’ll catch you in the next

Devin Vassell has been a polarizing subject for Spurs fans, especially with his poor play recently, but underlying metrics paint a very different picture. Josh Gosse breaks it all down on this episode of Spurs Digest.

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