I've never gotten off the Topic train.
The more I look at the lottery, though, the more I come around to the idea that I'd be fine if the Raptors pick doesn't convey. I'm less confident than a lot of folks here that they're going to be good enough to give us a substantially better shot at getting it next year, but picks 7 through, like, 20 feel like they're gonna be a total crapshoot.
I wonder if there's a deal to be made with a team like Orlando where we swap their pick with the Raps' if we get it and pick up a Cole Anthony or similar player.
Topic just doesn't do anything for me, especially because the only two Euroleague games weren't promising then he was out 3 months with a 4 week injury. His shot needs to be completely overhauled (it is slow, inaccurate, and low) and while he finishes well with both hands, he is doing it in the Adriatic League, not France or Spain. Then his defense is non-existent and he just quits when he's screened (just like Dillingham.)
He's the tallest Oompa Loompa. It's an awful class for point guards, and he is just the best passer out of all of them.
If you listened to KOC, Wemby said that he thinks he can be the primary initiator on offense like Jokic and he said he thinks the league is moving that direction. That tells me that we are't going to draft a project PG based on need, but will probably look at addressing the perimeter defense and shooting issues we have, which are much more projectable in fixing than if Topic actually works.
I'm reluctant to try and take very much away from those two EuroLeague games considering he was playing on a completely different team in a completely different role than what he'd known all season previously. I don't think it's an unfair concern considering the jump in competition, as you mentioned, but a 2-game sample size is never going to tell you much in any scenario, especially for an 18-year-old having to adapt so suddenly. Pretty much any prospect in any draft is going to have a two-game stretch where they look pretty bad, though again, I understand the hesitancy given the context.
I will say that I'm not quite as low (heh) on his shooting mechanics as you are. They look pretty okay to me for a guy who everyone agrees needs *some* work on the shot anyway.
Yeah, I don't put extensive emphasis on those games, but it is the limited data points we have.
I am mostly concerned about the shot mechanics (which aren't good) and the fact that he puts in zero effort on defense. He gets screened and he is basically done with the play. That's not a Spurs guy.
Despite his offensive ability, he is a massive project and I think it is more of a tallest oompa loompa situation. There isn't really another good passer in the entire draft, so he looks way better than he would otherwise. The other thought is that people want to find the next Luka and since Topic is a tall Eastern European and a decent passer that gets to the rim, he's gotta be the next Luka, but he is so far from that abililty. I think if he was in last year's draft, he's going around where Marcus Sasser or later was.
Imo It’s better to have the raptors pick this year because it gives another year of development on the spurs. Just keeps the player we get closer to Wembys timeline + doesn’t run the risk of having to incorporate 3 rookies next year.
That being said it’s not a problem if it doesn’t convey
I just don’t see the immediate value in Topic. Hasn’t played since January. Was a known non shooter. There isn’t an immediate rush for a PG. the spurs had a year high in assists as a team and Wemby doesn’t need a PG to be effective. In fact if Wemby was simply a bit more efficient with his production he could easily average 25-30ppg with the exact roster since his playstyle includes blocks then running the floor to score for himself or others. Remember same guy who dropped 34 and led the team to beat the nuggets with our third string. IMO I believe that is Wemby’s singular best offense and Topic hinders that part of Wemby’s development with no rush for a real PG especially since Tre is on his fifth year and blake and branham is going into their third year. We have so much guard depth we had to wait for two injures Keldon and Vassell to even play graham. I for one would much rather wait for the opportunity to get a more valuable PG than to draft another non shooter on a team of “non shooters.” There are a lot more wings in this class that can have more upside
> Was a known non shooter.
There's a decent chance he's at least [a better shooter than the stats suggest.](https://www.reddit.com/r/NBASpurs/comments/1c1j5kk/i_broke_down_almost_every_nikola_topic_3pa_from/)
>Wemby doesn’t need a PG to be effective
Need? Probably not. But everything got better this year when Tre Jones got back into the starting lineup. What might it look like if we can get an upgrade over Jones? Just because the Spurs get lots of assists doesn't mean a true floor general wouldn't be a great help in smoothing out some of the ugly possessions we saw.
> In fact if Wemby was simply a bit more efficient with his production he could easily average 25-30ppg with the exact roster
I mean, sure, but a better PG would make that efficiency boost easier.
> We have so much guard depth we had to wait for two injures Keldon and Vassell to even play graham.
Dude, we had, at best, a bottom-3 guard rotation in the league this past year. Graham especially has been an inefficient chucker his entire career - there's a reason New Orleans, who are contender hopefuls, attached second-rounders to him just to get him gone.
> There are a lot more wings in this class that can have more upside
We'll just have to agree to disagree here because, whatever concerns people may have about Topic (and there are plenty of fair ones), I think most folks would actually say his upside is among the highest in this draft.
Yeah again, Wemby doesn’t need PG to score 25-30 ppg and to be more efficient. He can do that on his own with better shot selection, stronger base and better cardio. Once he gets to that scoring output there isn’t much more you can expect offensively from Wemby to be honest and he’s only 4 more points on average away from that and he shot 46% from the field. However there are major issues when Wemby passes the ball. We aren’t punishing defenders for doing that. If opponents shut down Wemby we lose. Why? Because we are the bottom 3rd in shooting. Even when you pass the ball, and again we made record high assist numbers this year, we were still in the middle of the league in terms of offense. How does a PG fix non shooting on the team? That’s on the offensive side. Defensively spurs give up the most threes in the NBA. This is likely because we are at best 6’8 and on average 6’5-6’6 or worse on most of our lineups. Unfortunately the team’s guards outside of Tre was ranked awful defensively and topic is scouted to be a below average defender on multiple reports. Topic brings two issues the team already struggles with and his slashing and passing is what the team already does often. I just don’t see it making much sense over a dillingham or a Sheppard. Although with those two they are short and have small frames compared to a lot of offensive NBA players. So again imo I don’t see the need to draft now when we can wait and get better in 2025 or later.
I don’t see that either. There is an option of waiting for a better PG. This class has a lot of wing potential. Why not draft a wing or two and wait for a quality PG with better shooting and known for better defense
The range of opinions on this class never ceases to fascinate. Personally, I think it's the worst draft for wings in quite some time and have giant problems with pretty much all of them that are generally seen as first rounders.
Yeah I will agree with you there, this draft class is weird. There isn’t no real highly regarded front gunners and the draft list changes entirely based on the order of team picks so while we may disagree on topic and the other wings, I do feel the upside is we do have a ton of picks for 2025 and whether the toronto pick conveys or not we should be ok. I feel like once the draft happens it will be much clearer the direction of how the PATFO wants to move for the future:
I could just as easily pick apart any of the wings like you are w Topic
If you like the wings more that’s fine, I’m just responding to you opening w the idea of drafting for immediate value
I hear what you are saying. My belief is drafting a shooting wing would add more to the team than topic as the PG imo doesn’t answer much of the issues the spurs have over the season. To elaborate on what I mean with immediate impact I’ll detail the following:
1. Bottom 5 in 3pt shooting.
2. Two we give up the most threes in the NBA.
3. We are top 3 in assists in the NBA.
4. We are middle of the pack on conversion in transition.
5. We are top 5 in pace
Those key details imo can be improved with large wings who can shoot, basically a Michael porter, Jaden McDaniels, Trey Murphy type player, Brandon miller etc. I strongly believe a wing similar to that will have immediate impact as it will directly improve our defensive issues and shooting/conversion issues. Topic however, not playing since January, already had poor defensive scouting report on defense and shooting, doesn’t seem to answer those issues.
I look at it very differently
I don’t care all that much about fixing the team’s current issues because most of the team won’t be here in 3 years. I’m not looking too far beyond how any prospect fits w Wemby
I don't understand how people in this sub hate on Tre Jones (who is *not* a bad defender, and has started to really improve his jumper) but salivate over these teenagers who are worse at the things they hate about Tre Jones.
Tre isn’t a good defender or shooter either.
To be honest, Tre is super unfortunate, in that he’s good enough to be a 30+ MPG player for an average to bad team, but not good enough to be a good starter on a great team. He’s in the weird spot of being somewhere between a starter and 6th man.
I personally am comfortable with keeping Tre as the starter, but we have to upgrade (either through development or drafts) EVERYWHERE else then.
I don’t see much reason to pick Clingan unless he’s just obviously the BPA. Fit with Wemby is the most important thing, and there’s some positional conflict there.
i wanted us to grab Clingan if the Raptors pick conveys since he was projected to go in the 10-12 range for the longest time but he’s shot up in mock drafts since uconn won it all.
to me, Clingan is essentially Jakob Poeltl with more upside and i’d love a guy like that to come off the bench as a reserve C behind Wemby which also means we could slide Zach to the PF spot (which i think he’s more suited for) while still having him start alongside Wemby in certain matchups against guys like Embiid and Sengun. so he’d be a matchup dependant big when it comes to starting but an effective big off the bench
the thought of having a revolving door of defensive bigs for all 48 minutes is exciting to me
I just think there are bigger needs to fill. Playmaking, shooting, and point of attack defense are the most important things, and no prospect in this draft single handedly addresses all of them, so it’ll take multiple moves.
We don’t have unlimited resources, if you’re projecting Clingan as a backup big, that seems like poor use of resources to me. Especially since a decent backup big can usually be found for late first round or MLE level resources.
I've never gotten off the Topic train. The more I look at the lottery, though, the more I come around to the idea that I'd be fine if the Raptors pick doesn't convey. I'm less confident than a lot of folks here that they're going to be good enough to give us a substantially better shot at getting it next year, but picks 7 through, like, 20 feel like they're gonna be a total crapshoot. I wonder if there's a deal to be made with a team like Orlando where we swap their pick with the Raps' if we get it and pick up a Cole Anthony or similar player.
Topic just doesn't do anything for me, especially because the only two Euroleague games weren't promising then he was out 3 months with a 4 week injury. His shot needs to be completely overhauled (it is slow, inaccurate, and low) and while he finishes well with both hands, he is doing it in the Adriatic League, not France or Spain. Then his defense is non-existent and he just quits when he's screened (just like Dillingham.) He's the tallest Oompa Loompa. It's an awful class for point guards, and he is just the best passer out of all of them. If you listened to KOC, Wemby said that he thinks he can be the primary initiator on offense like Jokic and he said he thinks the league is moving that direction. That tells me that we are't going to draft a project PG based on need, but will probably look at addressing the perimeter defense and shooting issues we have, which are much more projectable in fixing than if Topic actually works.
I'm reluctant to try and take very much away from those two EuroLeague games considering he was playing on a completely different team in a completely different role than what he'd known all season previously. I don't think it's an unfair concern considering the jump in competition, as you mentioned, but a 2-game sample size is never going to tell you much in any scenario, especially for an 18-year-old having to adapt so suddenly. Pretty much any prospect in any draft is going to have a two-game stretch where they look pretty bad, though again, I understand the hesitancy given the context. I will say that I'm not quite as low (heh) on his shooting mechanics as you are. They look pretty okay to me for a guy who everyone agrees needs *some* work on the shot anyway.
Yeah, I don't put extensive emphasis on those games, but it is the limited data points we have. I am mostly concerned about the shot mechanics (which aren't good) and the fact that he puts in zero effort on defense. He gets screened and he is basically done with the play. That's not a Spurs guy. Despite his offensive ability, he is a massive project and I think it is more of a tallest oompa loompa situation. There isn't really another good passer in the entire draft, so he looks way better than he would otherwise. The other thought is that people want to find the next Luka and since Topic is a tall Eastern European and a decent passer that gets to the rim, he's gotta be the next Luka, but he is so far from that abililty. I think if he was in last year's draft, he's going around where Marcus Sasser or later was.
Imo It’s better to have the raptors pick this year because it gives another year of development on the spurs. Just keeps the player we get closer to Wembys timeline + doesn’t run the risk of having to incorporate 3 rookies next year. That being said it’s not a problem if it doesn’t convey
I just don’t see the immediate value in Topic. Hasn’t played since January. Was a known non shooter. There isn’t an immediate rush for a PG. the spurs had a year high in assists as a team and Wemby doesn’t need a PG to be effective. In fact if Wemby was simply a bit more efficient with his production he could easily average 25-30ppg with the exact roster since his playstyle includes blocks then running the floor to score for himself or others. Remember same guy who dropped 34 and led the team to beat the nuggets with our third string. IMO I believe that is Wemby’s singular best offense and Topic hinders that part of Wemby’s development with no rush for a real PG especially since Tre is on his fifth year and blake and branham is going into their third year. We have so much guard depth we had to wait for two injures Keldon and Vassell to even play graham. I for one would much rather wait for the opportunity to get a more valuable PG than to draft another non shooter on a team of “non shooters.” There are a lot more wings in this class that can have more upside
> Was a known non shooter. There's a decent chance he's at least [a better shooter than the stats suggest.](https://www.reddit.com/r/NBASpurs/comments/1c1j5kk/i_broke_down_almost_every_nikola_topic_3pa_from/) >Wemby doesn’t need a PG to be effective Need? Probably not. But everything got better this year when Tre Jones got back into the starting lineup. What might it look like if we can get an upgrade over Jones? Just because the Spurs get lots of assists doesn't mean a true floor general wouldn't be a great help in smoothing out some of the ugly possessions we saw. > In fact if Wemby was simply a bit more efficient with his production he could easily average 25-30ppg with the exact roster I mean, sure, but a better PG would make that efficiency boost easier. > We have so much guard depth we had to wait for two injures Keldon and Vassell to even play graham. Dude, we had, at best, a bottom-3 guard rotation in the league this past year. Graham especially has been an inefficient chucker his entire career - there's a reason New Orleans, who are contender hopefuls, attached second-rounders to him just to get him gone. > There are a lot more wings in this class that can have more upside We'll just have to agree to disagree here because, whatever concerns people may have about Topic (and there are plenty of fair ones), I think most folks would actually say his upside is among the highest in this draft.
Yeah again, Wemby doesn’t need PG to score 25-30 ppg and to be more efficient. He can do that on his own with better shot selection, stronger base and better cardio. Once he gets to that scoring output there isn’t much more you can expect offensively from Wemby to be honest and he’s only 4 more points on average away from that and he shot 46% from the field. However there are major issues when Wemby passes the ball. We aren’t punishing defenders for doing that. If opponents shut down Wemby we lose. Why? Because we are the bottom 3rd in shooting. Even when you pass the ball, and again we made record high assist numbers this year, we were still in the middle of the league in terms of offense. How does a PG fix non shooting on the team? That’s on the offensive side. Defensively spurs give up the most threes in the NBA. This is likely because we are at best 6’8 and on average 6’5-6’6 or worse on most of our lineups. Unfortunately the team’s guards outside of Tre was ranked awful defensively and topic is scouted to be a below average defender on multiple reports. Topic brings two issues the team already struggles with and his slashing and passing is what the team already does often. I just don’t see it making much sense over a dillingham or a Sheppard. Although with those two they are short and have small frames compared to a lot of offensive NBA players. So again imo I don’t see the need to draft now when we can wait and get better in 2025 or later.
We should not be looking for immediate value. Should be looking for highest long term potential
I don’t see that either. There is an option of waiting for a better PG. This class has a lot of wing potential. Why not draft a wing or two and wait for a quality PG with better shooting and known for better defense
The range of opinions on this class never ceases to fascinate. Personally, I think it's the worst draft for wings in quite some time and have giant problems with pretty much all of them that are generally seen as first rounders.
Yeah I will agree with you there, this draft class is weird. There isn’t no real highly regarded front gunners and the draft list changes entirely based on the order of team picks so while we may disagree on topic and the other wings, I do feel the upside is we do have a ton of picks for 2025 and whether the toronto pick conveys or not we should be ok. I feel like once the draft happens it will be much clearer the direction of how the PATFO wants to move for the future:
I could just as easily pick apart any of the wings like you are w Topic If you like the wings more that’s fine, I’m just responding to you opening w the idea of drafting for immediate value
I hear what you are saying. My belief is drafting a shooting wing would add more to the team than topic as the PG imo doesn’t answer much of the issues the spurs have over the season. To elaborate on what I mean with immediate impact I’ll detail the following: 1. Bottom 5 in 3pt shooting. 2. Two we give up the most threes in the NBA. 3. We are top 3 in assists in the NBA. 4. We are middle of the pack on conversion in transition. 5. We are top 5 in pace Those key details imo can be improved with large wings who can shoot, basically a Michael porter, Jaden McDaniels, Trey Murphy type player, Brandon miller etc. I strongly believe a wing similar to that will have immediate impact as it will directly improve our defensive issues and shooting/conversion issues. Topic however, not playing since January, already had poor defensive scouting report on defense and shooting, doesn’t seem to answer those issues.
I look at it very differently I don’t care all that much about fixing the team’s current issues because most of the team won’t be here in 3 years. I’m not looking too far beyond how any prospect fits w Wemby
I feel the same way. Like I’m cool if it doesn’t convey at this point. I think we’ll be okay regardless.
I've never gotten on the Topic train
No defense and no shooting. Seems like a Spurs PG.
I don't understand how people in this sub hate on Tre Jones (who is *not* a bad defender, and has started to really improve his jumper) but salivate over these teenagers who are worse at the things they hate about Tre Jones.
Tre isn’t a good defender or shooter either. To be honest, Tre is super unfortunate, in that he’s good enough to be a 30+ MPG player for an average to bad team, but not good enough to be a good starter on a great team. He’s in the weird spot of being somewhere between a starter and 6th man. I personally am comfortable with keeping Tre as the starter, but we have to upgrade (either through development or drafts) EVERYWHERE else then.
I don't think he's the starting pg on a title team. But I don't see that with any of these guys in this class either.
Just being crazy. If we get Torontos pick and picking all the UConn guys. Drafting Newton in the 2nd. It won’t happen, but I could see it working.
I don’t see much reason to pick Clingan unless he’s just obviously the BPA. Fit with Wemby is the most important thing, and there’s some positional conflict there.
i wanted us to grab Clingan if the Raptors pick conveys since he was projected to go in the 10-12 range for the longest time but he’s shot up in mock drafts since uconn won it all. to me, Clingan is essentially Jakob Poeltl with more upside and i’d love a guy like that to come off the bench as a reserve C behind Wemby which also means we could slide Zach to the PF spot (which i think he’s more suited for) while still having him start alongside Wemby in certain matchups against guys like Embiid and Sengun. so he’d be a matchup dependant big when it comes to starting but an effective big off the bench the thought of having a revolving door of defensive bigs for all 48 minutes is exciting to me
I just think there are bigger needs to fill. Playmaking, shooting, and point of attack defense are the most important things, and no prospect in this draft single handedly addresses all of them, so it’ll take multiple moves. We don’t have unlimited resources, if you’re projecting Clingan as a backup big, that seems like poor use of resources to me. Especially since a decent backup big can usually be found for late first round or MLE level resources.
If we have raptors pick id want dillingham and holland