SAN ANTONIO — The Vegas oddsmakers don’t expect the Spurs to tally many in the win column – again – this year.
Now, they’re not always right... just most of the time. Can the Spurs beat the 28.5 projected win total? I’ll answer that later…
There was an air of confidence that you could sense at Spurs Media Day on Monday—one that you probably, truthfully, didn’t particularly sense the last several seasons.
They expect to win. They wanna be in the "right" left side of the win column this year. Although, there was one peculiar moment on Monday that I loved: Young star Devin Vassell pointed out, and fairly, that he didn’t conform with all the Spurs fans who were rooting for losses last year.
Granted, that’s from his very competitive standpoint. And that’s also more than fair. He wasn’t wrong, but (and you know where this is headed) he’s very happy, with hindsight I’m sure, that Lady Basketball Luck bounced the Spurs way in winning the NBA Lottery and landing Victor Wembanyama.
Just listening to Devin and Keldon Johnson and Zach Collins, you could hear that they expect to have expectations. They’re tired of no national TV games. They’ve had enough of nobody outside of the Alamo City chatting them up. They’re ready for change in that department, and the arrival of the best generational prospect since Lebron James should expedite that process.
Now, I don’t think anybody is foolish enough to jump out there and say San Antonio will be in the NBA Finals this year. The Western Conference is still loaded, but the Silver & Black are no doubt closing that gap. They have the goods to start making noise, and next summer they have solid cold hard cash somewhere in the neighborhood of $50 million to do business with top free agents.
Let’s be honest about last season. Coach Pop said as much on Monday that last year was about development. This year, he's changed his tune.
"Development is great, and all those guys needed it and they've made some big jumps, even though there weren't a ton of wins. Even in the losses there were some great moments and some real competitiveness on the part of a lot of those guys," Popovich said. "And of course when you add a player with Victor's abilities, your prospects look better. This year with development, I think one of the important factors to enhance that development is winning. Winning is as important this year as learning was in the past."
There you have it. The winningest head coach in league history said it.
Time will tell what that means, but this roster is built to start moving forward whereas last year’s was built to stay in place, which is what happened. But the prize for whatever you wanna call last season is as close to priceless as the Spurs organization could have hoped for.
The Spurs had talent before Wemby. I love Devin. I love Keldon. I love Sochan. And we’re gonna hopefully love Wemby. They have pieces that can start causing in-game grief for opponents.
And back to that Vegas season win total prediction? The oddsmakers are good at what they do, but gimme the over all day long.