It Would Be Fun to Win: Spurs Time

High-achievers are different. It makes people uncomfortable to be around them. It is abnormal to want to achieve so much stuff. It feels foreign. Why? Let’s just chill, bro. You are doing too much, bro.

You ever been with someone on a workout and they want to do a little extra running, lifting or something? How about someone at work who comes in a little earlier to “work on some other stuff” before their regular work day? How about people who add extra reading to their week? What about people who would read the text book for fun?

The fun part about the Mike Jordan documentary a couple of years ago was hearing the stories about Jordan’s singular killer-instinct. The sneaky, scary thing is that people with killer instincts were saying this about him. Compared to other crazies, Mike Jordan was an even crazier version. So it goes.

The Spurs have Wembanyama, an otherwordly basketball specimen who loves getting better at basketball and is very interested in doing extra things to get better and to win. The front-office flanked him with a regular-sized human who has a similar drive for winning at-all-costs. One has won just about everything but the big prize, and the other has not, but wants to do so. One has 20 years of hoop knowledge at the highest level and the other just the two, but with ridiculous potential.

Those are long-term things brewing. It is planting of seeds in the spring time and hoping for a bountiful harvest. What will we eat, today? Well in the interim, Chris Paul can make it easier for Wembanyama to score buckets. Chris Paul makes everyone better, and gets easy shots for every big man but when there is a big man that can create his own shot? Well I figure that’s an easy 6-8 points added per game.

Watching CP3 masterfully put up an easy one for Wemby to throw down is exciting. Paul is a famously demanding teammates who expects guys to know what to do and to get in the right spots. Playing for a coach who is just as demanding is helpful, in that it is one thing to hear Pop telling you to do a better job, and quite another for CP3 to show you how to do a better job.

There is a limited upside to this whole thing, as Paul is 39 years old. As a current 30+ guy I can tell you that playing sports was easier when I was in my 20s compared to now. The NBA is for young legs, and everyone has diminishing returns. The squad has enough youth to do a lot of running, while Paul has the brain to make it all work. That is the formula we are working with here.

It has been a while since Spurs fans tasted playoff strategy and so I will remind you that a calming influence that values possessions is key for post-season success. Wembanyama talked about the focus of this season on getting things right the first time, and not having second or third chances to make up for things. That they are talking about it is telling. This team is a ways away from NBA title contention, but they might be ready to make a little noise.

In short, Chris Paul makes it easier to score for a guy who already can score. The knock-on effect is that it will be even easier to score for everyone else. Chris Paul will help the Spurs by showing what winning basketball requires. It will speed up everyone’s learning curve. How do we keep him healthy? How do we keep him on the floor for all of this to take place? Well that is a problem for another day.

It won’t be easy for the guys on the squad who don’t like to be pushed. The organization spent last season figuring out what they could put around Wembanyama on and off the court. This is part of that evolution. High achievers want to be around other like-minded people.

We will learn more about Stephon Castle, and figure out the development of all the supporting pieces. The overall defense and scoring needs help. The Spurs have question marks throughout the roster. There is youth, sure, and that gets all the fandom excited. The thing to remember is that every NBA-quality dude can get buckets. It is table stakes. The real question has always been Can you score in the flow of an offense designed around someone else? That is a very different question. Can you not touch the ball for 20 minutes, then hit a catch-and-shoot jumper with 5 seconds on the clock? Can you attack a closeout and score at the rim when the defense is rotating? Can you find put-backs and tap-ins even though you prefer to have one-v-one clear-outs?

Maybe you can do all that but you are a sieve on the other side, missing reads, not getting rebounds, and getting cooked on cuts. So for every point you add, you are allowing two. The game is at its highest. The Spurs are so young and have so much to learn. The value Paul (and Barnes) bring is to seal up leaky moments defensively, and finding easy wins on the other side. If the squad can get to playoff hoops, then they’ll see how the scores can really change and get some real knowledge. That, for me, is the next step in this project.