The “young” Spurs are halfway there

To win an NBA championship, a team needs to win 16 playoff games.  The majority of the players on the Spurs entered these playoffs without ever playing in an NBA playoff game, let alone winning one, or 16.  The Spurs coach is also essentially a rookie, with just over one year of being a head coach — and no NBA playoff experience as either head or assistant coach.

However, the Spurs’ best player had faced the pressure of playing in an Olympic gold-medal game, at home, against a USA team filled with former MVPs and numerous previous gold medals. The Spurs’ second best player ran the table during his one college season, winning the six intense March Madness games necessary to win the NCAA championship.  Of course, that is putting the best possible spin on the fact that Victor Wembanyama is only 22, while Stephon Castle is 21. The Spurs third guard, rookie Dylan Harper, is 20, while key bench contributor Carter Bryant, also a rookie, is 20 and looks 16. How young is Bryant?  This is how he described Gregg Popovich:

“It’s funny because you hear the stories about him being tough on guys and, obviously, he’s not my head coach, so I don’t kind of get that same experience,” Bryant said. “But I’m like, ‘What are you talking about?’ This dude is the sweetest, nicest guy. He’s dope.”

Yes, Bryant became the first person in history to describe Pop as “dope”.  Bryant is also one of the few 20-year-olds sent in the game specifically to cover a player as good as Anthony Edwards — and he loves the assignment.

And look at this picture from Game 6 in Minnesota, with the Spurs about to go up 54-27 (yes, 54-27) after Victor made this free throw:

The five Spurs in that photo were on the floor on the road in a crucial playoff game.  Their ages?  20, 20, 21, 22 and 25 (Devin Vassel is the ancient one).  I asked AI if those were the youngest five players to be on the floor together in an NBA playoff game. AI gave me this response:

“Oops, something went wrong.”

Thanks, AI.  I guess you won’t be taking over the world quite yet.  I think I can answer my question: ‘”Yes.”  If anyone can prove me wrong, go for it.

My quick research indicates that the youngest starting unit to win a playoff game may have been this year’s Houston Rockets.  The Rockets starters were Reed Shephard (21), Jabari Smith (23), Amen Thompson (23), Alperen Sengun (23) and Tari Eason (25).  The Spurs group referenced above calls that Rockets team “the old guys”, like that group of older players on the court as you are calling “winners” so you can blow them off the court in the next game. (I am on that old guy team.)

And now the young inexperienced Spurs get just what they wanted on their latest young birthdays: a chance to go to the NBA Finals.  All they need to do is win four games against the best NBA team over the last two seasons, and the best team since the Death Star Warriors.  As young Carter Bryant would say: that would be dope.

Other Thoughts

1. Many others are coming over to my view that the Spurs don’t have too many quality guards — they have the exact right number: three.  As I have pointed out several times, teams need to fill 96 minutes between the two guard spots.  If spread exactly evenly, that would be 32 minutes each — a number which is fairly close to the maximum number of minutes the Spurs best players have played since the middle of the Popovich era. For instance, while the Great Duncan played more minutes early in his career, he did not average more than 34 minutes per game for the twelve seasons beginning with the 2003-04 season. For these playoffs, the Spurs three wondrous guards averaged 33 minutes (De’Aaron Fox), 32 (Castle), and 25 (Harper).  And while the rest of America is discovering how good Harper is, let’s pump the brakes a bit on declaring him the best of the three, though he might be someday (Castle will be tough to overcome).  For one thing, Harper has averaged only 2 assists per game in the playoffs, well below Fox (5.8) and Castle (6.1). Instead, let’s just say that each of them is occasionally the best at any given moment, quarter or game. The Spurs’ second superpower (we know who the first one is) is their ability to have two of these guards on the floor at any given time.

2. These have already been a strange playoffs for Victor. In the first series against the Blazers, he ejected himself by face-planting, leading to a concussion.  Then, the NBA ejected him for the elbow against Naz Reid. As a result of those two incidents, and some funky shooting games (both good and bad), Victor’s scoring over the 11 playoff games looks like a scary EKG: 35, 5, 0 (DNP), 27, 17, 11, 39, 27, 4 (ejected), 27 and 19.  Interesting question:  If Victor had elbowed Reid  late in the fourth quarter of Game 4, instead of early in the second quarter, or if the Spurs had won that game,would the NBA have suspended him for Game 5?  Because he essentially suspended himself by having to leave Game 4 early, and the Spurs lost, I believe the NBA decided that he and the team had already received the proper punishment.

3. My college buddy Jamie emailed me this from his home in Baltimore with the series 2-2: “I am looking forward to your analysis.  The Spurs always look better, and they will probably win, but the T’wolves are fun to watch and easy to cheer for.”  Only someone who has been a Washington Wizards fan would describe the Wolves as “fun to watch”.  As one little factoid (stolen from an excellent Jeremy Lin Instagram post), the Spurs averaged 13 more points off assists per game than the Wolves.  For me, fun to watch involves unselfish players who enjoy setting up a teammate as much as scoring themselves.  To pick a team at random, the 2025-26 Spurs (or the 2014 Beautiful Game Spurs).  One of my favorite moments in Game 6 was when Julian Champagnie, having just buried a three-pointer, got the ball even more wide open the next time down court.  Instead of shooting, he spotted Victor under the rim and fired the ball to him for a dunk. Fun to watch!

4. I generally don’t write much about the Eastern Conference (other than the cheap shot about Jamie’s Wizards in the prior section).  But, holy cow, the New York Knicks just won seven straight playoff games, the last three by over 25 points. My Knick-fan friends are wearing the same clothes every day so as not to jinx the streak. Perhaps the winner of Spurs-Thunder will have more of a test in the Finals than anyone thought a month ago.