Yesterday's loss to the Pelicans also marked the end of the Spurs' journey this season. From being considered the bottom team by the league at the beginning, to finally eliminating the league façade to break into the playoffs, although there is still a certain gap from the goal of entering the playoffs. But for the Spurs, this season has been the initial target.
The most important thing is that the Spurs have acquired the capital of "looking forward to next season" through trades this season, holding three first-round signings, at least one of which is a lotto signing, as long as the spurs can choose one or two talented interior players from many new players (don't choose a defender again), the Spurs can definitely enter the playoffs again.
Now the Spurs guard line is crowded, and Murray, Vassell and others have become players who can stand alone; the center is Pelter Town guarding the basket, throwing a steady output with one hand. On the other hand, the big forward position that has led the Spurs for decades has not found a suitable player, and in the game, KJ is helpless to go to the big forward to fight with the big man of other teams, even if KJ increases weight to increase confrontation, but the height is still a hard injury, and the weight gain makes his speed decline, if he is placed on the small forward steadily, his impact may further increase the spur's upper limit.
From the perspective of cultivating players, the Spurs can also be regarded as excellent. After all, the young "little brother" Murray has become an All-Star player, KJ has also changed from a pure tank to a "meat and output" in the progress of the season, and Pelter's basket guard has improved again------
It can be said that Spurs have strong players in every position, so the question is, why can't Spurs win the game?
In addition to the talent of the front, the spurs are most urgently lacking a player with super scoring ability, many of the Spurs' losses are due to the lack of effective output in the last moment, in contrast, the league's strong teams, the Warriors have Curry, Tang Shen, the Suns have Booker, the Nets have Irving, Durant ---- almost every strong team has players who can hammer a final decision at key moments. Murray is obviously difficult to assume this responsibility, after all, his performance at key moments is really "obvious to all"!
The Spurs used to think of grooming Lonnie Walker to be the one to do it, but after several seasons, the stability of Walker's output has not been solved, and it is really difficult to convince people. Will the Spurs have a few more seasons to find such a person? In fact, I personally think that Vassell has the talent to serve in this kind of strength.
For Vassell's cultivation, he initially wanted to make him a high-quality 3D like Danny Green. In order to accelerate his growth, in his first season, he did not go to Austin to train like other rookies, but got the opportunity to play at the beginning, and even let his performance make Spurs fans call "true fragrance". Although in the second half of the season, he still did not escape the fate of Spurs rookies sitting on the cold bench. But from his existing performances, he is definitely worth looking forward to.
By the end of the season, although he had shown his progress in the offseason at the beginning of the season, he had also shown. But in the eyes of many fans, he just took a big step in the established direction of 3D players. Until the Spurs' trade with the Celtics in the middle of the season, Xiao Bai's departure gave him more opportunities to show himself. Although his data is not particularly good, his progress is really obvious to all. He started with three-pointers and defense, but this season he started to break through, start shooting two-pointers, start attacking with the ball, and every skill has a good shooting percentage, and he showed his big heart at key moments in many games. Most importantly, he has more room to improve in completing the finish than the rest of the team. And defensive start-up seems to be the only way for many civilian stars.
Maybe next season, he and this Spurs will surprise us a lot.