Which team has the most experience in developing new talents since the beginning of the new century? I guess there will only be two options for this answer: the Thunder and the Spurs. The Thunder have produced three MVP-caliber players in the new century, and now the team's troika: Alexander, Jalen and Chet, have also been cultivated by them. Although they have yet to win the O'Brien Cup, it does not affect their outstanding achievements in developing new talents.
And the Spurs' cultivation ability is beyond doubt, although they never had a lottery in the first 15 years, but they trained Leonard, who was the 15th pick, into a two-time FMVP winner, and the two "reverse eyes" White and Murray are also the mainstays of their respective teams!
And what we want to talk about today is another representative work of the Spurs to cultivate a new talent, who is the first lottery show of the Spurs in the post-Duncan era: Devin · Vassell. This player, who was originally positioned as "3D", has now become the Spurs' most important ball-handler and outside scorer step by step!
Among the rookies in the class of 2020 are two long-standing outside defensive slats, Okro (drafted by the Cavaliers) and Vassell, with the former being more dynamically gifted and the latter having an exceptionally good hand. After Okro was drafted, the Spurs drafted Vassell.
According to the scouting report, Vassell's future direction is none other than Spurs predecessor Danny · Green. At that time, Spurs fans were very dissatisfied, and they were expecting a player with a core style of play, not a 3-and-D "tool man". But he never thought that the Spurs could still use their magic to help Vassell have a gorgeous transformation.
Vassell didn't get many opportunities in his rookie season, averaging only 5.5 points per game, and because of his ability to fight, he actually had a limited impact on the court, which was not as good as Keldon in his rookie season.
However, the Spurs then let Vassell execute the weight gain plan, and at the same time let Vassell start to hone his ball-handling skills, and with a good teacher like DeRozan on the team, Vassell's improvement on the offensive end was very significant! In the second year of his career, he averaged 12.3 points per game, and in the third year, he averaged 18.5 points per game! What's more, Vassell's three-point shooting is getting better and better, shooting just 34.7 percent from the field in his rookie season and rising to 38.7 percent in his third year!
And last season, the Spurs formalized the inside and outside duo of Vassell and Wembanyama, and the team even went so far as to put Keldon on the bench to give Vassell more of the ball on the outside. Vassell also lived up to expectations, averaging 23.3 points per game in the first 29 games of last season, becoming the team's leading scorer at the time, a 17.8 points increase from his rookie season!
Nowadays, Spurs fans like to call Vassell "Wakobi", but in fact, Vassell is more like the starting version of Ginobili in the team! Vassell is only 23 years old now, and the Spurs signed an early contract extension with him last year to be very high-quality, Vassell is certainly the future core of the Spurs, and we look forward to more surprises from Vassell in the new season!