{"id":712658,"date":"2026-04-17T19:37:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T19:37:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712658\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T19:37:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T19:37:06","slug":"unproven-rookie-guard-named-san-antonio-spurs-playoff-x-factor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/712658\/","title":{"rendered":"Unproven rookie guard named San Antonio Spurs’ playoff X-factor"},"content":{"rendered":"

If the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> are going to go on a deep playoff run, they’ll need contributions from up and down the roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Obviously, MVP candidate Victor Wembanyama will do a lot of the heavy lifting for San Antonio, but he’ll need help. That’s where rookie guard Dylan Harper comes in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dylan Harper named Spurs’ playoff X-factor\u00a0<\/p>\n

After promising first regular season, Harper will need to step his game up for postseason play, and the degree to which he is able to do so could go a long way towards determining how far the Spurs will be able to advance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a result, Harper was recently named San Antonio’s playoff X-factor by Kevin O’Connor of Yahoo Sports<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Well, as of late Harper is elite at shooting. Over his last 32 games, he shot 45.6% from 3, and granted it was on a low volume, it\u2019s an incredibly impressive development for him. His shot looks fluid, and he\u2019s even shooting a better percentage from the line and from midrange too,” O’Connor wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“So all indicators are looking positive for Harper, which is what makes him the X-factor: Wemby was a 29-minute-per-game guy during the season. He didn’t play over 40 minutes once. Who’s going to help fill the gaps when Wemby is on the bench? A lot of the time, it\u2019s going to have to be Harper. And he looks capable.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The word “unproven” being in the headline of this article isn’t meant on a diss on Harper at all. It’s simply a fact. As a rookie, Harper has never played in a playoff game before, so by definition he’s unproven.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, he’ll have an excellent opportunity to prove himself in the coming weeks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This story will be updated.\u00a0<\/p>\n

More NBA news:\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the San Antonio Spurs are going to go on a deep playoff run, they’ll need contributions from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6,969,474,4075,4074,534],"class_list":{"0":"post-712658","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio-spurs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-san-antonio","11":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","12":"tag-sanantonio","13":"tag-sanantoniospurs","14":"tag-spurs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116421738057332659","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712658"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712658\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}