So for all the love that’s been shown to Wemby, the Athletic’s John Hollinger ranks the Spurs as coming out 14th in the West. thoughts?
His full list for the bottom half of the west:
9. New Orleans
10. OKC
11. Sacramento
12. Utah
13. Houston
14. San Antonio
15. Portland
​
[https://theathletic.com/4964033/2023/10/16/nba-west-predictions-mavericks-kings-hollinger/](https://theathletic.com/4964033/2023/10/16/nba-west-predictions-mavericks-kings-hollinger/)
by wemBanana
5 Comments
That is absolutely fair IMO, and why I think I was the one here to take the unders in a thread a few weeks ago.
Everyone bar Portland and possibly Utah (if they decide to tank) has more incentive than us to try and win games – and that will probably account for something like 5 wins difference at a minimum, plus us being more likely to pull the pin earlier in the season than other teams that end up out of the play-in race.
West is pretty freaking stacked. Any time your in a rebuild pundits need to see it first.
I also think in general it’s going to be pretty close top to bottom. At least starting out their won’t be any any easy wins. Maybe later in the season you might have teams start tanking.
But yeah I think it’s a coin flip in-terms if our grouping. Clearly closer to a play in than being at the top. But who knows. If this team can get to top 15 defensively and learn how to close out close games that could easily be the difference between the 14th spot and the 9ths spot or something.
But teams I’m skeptical of where I think there might be an opening- New Orleans, okc, Houston, Sacramento, and Memphis. That’s really our bubble and if that’s the window for us to make some noise.
The West is extremely tough. The margin of error is very small. Most teams are 1 star injury away from dropping all the way to the bottom 3.
With Wemby, I think SA is a fringe play-in team. Without him, SA is still better than Houston.
The lack of a true pg/playmaker will have us commit a lot of turnovers against a good defensive team, but i’m confident the team will do well against other middling and lottery bound teams if they stay healthy