If mild-mannered Fred VanVleet accosting Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan after the final buzzer wasn’t enough of an indicator, yes, rivalries still exist in the NBA.
It’s rare for teams to meet three times (including the preseason) in 10 days outside of a playoff setting, but these early-season Rockets-Spurs matchups have been fascinating.
The teams met Oct. 17 in the preseason finale and split victories Oct. 26 and 28 in San Antonio. They’ll also square off Nov. 6 in Houston. Budding intrastate beef aside — Sochan’s “F— Houston” remarks, subsequent responses from VanVleet, Jabari Smith. Jr, and the Dillon Brooks/Victor Wembanyama/Chris Paul kerfuffle — the past few games have produced intriguing tactical battles.
For example, the Rockets were forced to adjust to Victor Wembanyama post-ups and Chris Paul’s influence, and the Spurs encountered small ball and guard-guard screens as subtle, timely tweaks. These teams will continue to battle — both physically and mentally.
The Athletic’s Kelly Iko and John Hollinger got together to discuss the recent mini-series and look at some early season trends from Houston and San Antonio.
Kelly Iko: John, thanks for doing this.
Let’s start with the Spurs, who sit 1-2 after three games. Any San Antonio-centric discussion starts with Wembanyama. After Monday’s loss, Wembanyama admitted he was under the weather as a result of the conditioning ramping-up process. Do you agree with coach Gregg Popovich’s assessment that it might take about a month for Wembanyama to get into a rhythm after such a long summer of basketball? Do we give any credit to Ime Udoka’s aggressive defensive scheme, or are these early games an extended preseason?
John Hollinger: I think Pop’s comments eased the pressure on Wembanyama a bit, but I also am not sure I agree with them. While every individual body is different, and a couple of other teams have taken it a bit easy on players who performed in the Paris Olympics (the Atlanta Hawks, for instance, have given Bogdan Bogdanović multiple games of rest), there’s zero evidence summer basketball impacts players negatively in October.
The Olympics ended in early August, so the issue for Wembanyama at this point isn’t fatigue. If there is a notable impact, it would be ramping back up. Wembanyama likely throttled down post-Olympics, right when most players are ramping up for the season. Given how careful San Antonio has been with his physical load, that process could be more impactful for him than other Olympians.
As far as how it impacts the season, Wembanyama is the Spurs’ most important player, so a slow start from him likely means a slow start for the team. In the big picture, however, I’m not sure this is a terrible thing. If you gave the Spurs brass truth serum, they’d probably tell you they wouldn’t mind another high lottery pick before making a charge up the standings a year from now.
Iko: Elsewhere, rookie Stephon Castle has benefited from Paul’s presence (I was surprised his minutes didn’t increase with the absence of Tre Jones). We’ll get to his shooting splits in a moment, but as a reserve ballhandler, the Spurs trust him to create for his teammates (13 assists to eight turnovers in his first three games).
Does his lack of shooting concern you? You talked about Castle at length before the draft, and he’s shown some aggressive bursts attacking the rim, but are there any spacing concerns? He typically shares the floor with Sochan and Keldon Johnson, and San Antonio’s offensive rating was a measly 73.3 with those three on the court entering Wednesday.
Hollinger: I had Castle second on my board; yes, this was a weak draft, but his pathway to becoming a plus starter is relatively clean if he can make a few outside shots. As you say, the Spurs are putting the ball in his hands after he spent the whole draft combine telling everyone he was really a point guard. I still probably see him as more of a combo guy long-term, but if he can be a secondary ballhandler who locks up opposing shooting guards, that’s a very valuable player.
In the short term, as you noted, his mix with the Spurs’ other assorted non-shooters creates some spacing and lineup issues, and San Antonio probably needs to live with that if he’s going to get the minutes he needs to develop. It’s not like there’s some knockdown shooter Popovich is hiding on the bench. The Spurs are 26th in 3-point percentage and were 28th last year, and I don’t see why that figure would improve throughout the season. Unfortunately for Castle, that fact exacerbates what was already his biggest weakness. My view on his jumper at UConn was that most of the problems were small, fixable ones involving his balance and pre-shot work. And he only needs to become an average shooter to become a highly impactful player.
Iko: Are San Antonio’s overall offensive struggles as simple as chalking it up to Devin Vassell’s absence? I’d like to think his skill set meshes well with Paul and Harrison Barnes. But he’s more than just a knockdown shooter as last season displayed — Vassell is a capable distributor and can score at all three levels — which should come in handy on nights when Wembanyama isn’t on. Julian Champagnie is a fine understudy, but it’s not exactly a like-for-like stopgap.
Hollinger: Vassell’s absence hurts, as they’re trying to shoehorn Champagnie as a floor-spacing wing in his absence. At the same time … this is the NBA. Most nights, at least one rotation player will be out of the lineup. Vassell is a good floor spacer, but he’s not Stephen Curry; the team needs to be resilient enough to survive his absence if it aspires to be anything approaching an average offense.
Iko: I wanted to briefly touch on Paul’s presence before switching gears.
I’m not going to place too much emphasis on the disparity between his 3-point shooting (50 percent) and elsewhere (22 percent) — although it’s quite odd — but what do you make of his overall control of the Spurs’ half-court efficiency? It’s been years since Paul turned the ball over at this high of a rate (his assists are near-identical to his lone season in Golden State as a reserve). My question is, given the positive effect he’s had on Wembanyama, Castle and others, do you see Paul as a season-long stay and maybe longer? Or is this simply a stopgap?
Hollinger: I’m not gonna sweat too much about the short-term stats from three games, two of which were against Houston’s voracious, handsy defense. Bigger picture, however, I thought one of the big benefits of the Paul acquisition was that the Spurs could double-dip with their cap space. They get him as a veteran stabilizer right now, helping to organize this team, get Wembanyama the ball in the right spots, guide the kids with his overall IQ and make up for the fact the overall shooting here is a wee bit iffy. Ideally, he can be for them what Mike Conley was in Minnesota, minus the conference finals run.
But secondarily, having Paul on a one-year deal gives the Spurs a lot of optionality come February. I would suspect, if the offer is good enough from a playoff team, they have to give him his wings, especially if the Spurs aren’t in realistic contention themselves at that point. Paul is 39 on a team whose four most important players are 19, 20, 21 and 24. By the time the Spurs get wherever they’re going, Paul is going to be long gone. The absolute best-case scenario for a long-term future here is signing him to another one-year deal after the season, but somebody else is going to be this team’s point guard with Wembanyama. Maybe it’s Castle, maybe it’s a free agent or trade acquisition or maybe it’s a player from the 2025 draft.
Iko: Let’s move over to Houston, where Jalen Green is rapidly emerging as the Rockets’ go-to guy, while continuing to improve his defensive habits as Udoka noted. He’s also shouldering more playmaking responsibilities, as their screen-heavy scheme looks to free him up at downhill angles for drive-and-kicks or finishes for himself.
Where do you stand on his start? Is it more about the “bet on yourself” type of extension he recently signed? Or is this the fourth-year leap we often hear about when players take their development to the next level? Maybe a combination of both?
Hollinger: Green always could make the game look easy when his jump shot is going, so the question is whether we’re seeing a real shooting jump from him. If a career 33 percent 3-point shooter suddenly starts making five a game at a 40 percent clip, that’s going to be a pretty big deal. That’s especially true for a player like Green who has the burst and leaping ability to get off his shot.
All of this should make him an ideal matching salary for Devin Booker in 18 months (no, no … we kid because we care). The Rockets gave themselves optionality with that extension as much as Green did, but it’s a win for both sides if Green balls out and becomes worth a max extension in two years.
As for Green’s performance, I don’t think the extension has much to do with it — he didn’t even know this was coming for sure until the season was almost on top of us, and one can argue going into a restricted free agency would have been a far greater “bet on yourself” move than waiting until 2027. He’s always had this ability in him if he could shoot more accurately.
The next thing I want to see, however, is some more efficiency inside the paint. Green’s 3-point percentage may not last in these upper reaches for long, so he’s going to need to get his shooting inside the arc out of the 40s if he aspires to be a top-two option for an elite team.
Iko: Green has spoken privately about improving his midrange production, citing his balance. Can Steven Adams help in this department? We saw his spirited debut against San Antonio on Monday and he made his presence felt on his first possession, freeing up Green’s driving lane. Is there still enough juice left in the tank for Adams to play a positive role?
And speaking of role, I was under the impression rookie Reed Sheppard’s shooting would afford him a sizable one in Udoka’s rotation, but his minutes have steadily declined since the season opener. Is that more about this current crop of rookies being less depended on than previous classes, or is it something else?
Hollinger: We know Adams at full strength is both a monstrous screener and an effective elbow playmaker — maybe not on Alperen Şengün’s level, but certainly above par for a backup center. The parts we don’t know yet are a) how he will hold up physically and b) whether he’ll still be here a year from now. Given that Adams’ game wasn’t built on supreme quickness and burst, it seems he can still be an effective player post-knee injury. More generally, he can help the Rockets play big with the second group and not feel forced into playing Smith or Jock Landale at backup center.
Regarding Sheppard, we’ve seen all the rookies get squeezed this year, partly because it wasn’t a strong draft and partly because many of them are entering crowded situations. The Charlotte Hornets DNP’d sixth overall pick Tidjane Salaun in the opener in Houston, and eighth choice Rob Dillingham still hasn’t seen the floor for Minnesota entering Wednesday night’s games.
In Sheppard’s specific situation, who are they taking off the floor to get him more run? VanVleet and Green are fixtures, Amen Thompson has a lot of the initiation duty with the second unit (although maybe he shouldn’t the way things have gone so far), and wings such as Tari Eason and Cam Whitmore have been too good to keep off the floor. To put Sheppard’s situation in perspective, consider that Aaron Holiday was perfectly fine as the backup point guard last season and hasn’t seen the floor at all in this one.
Inevitably, as with some of the young Spurs above, injuries and other situations will open minutes, and Sheppard will get more time to prove he’s worthy of a bigger role. But the Rockets have been trending toward this situation for a while, where they have a lot of talented young players with lottery pedigrees but only so much playing time to dole out every night. It’s a good problem to have, but at full strength, somebody gets squeezed.
Iko: Even Şengün has been glued to the bench at times early this season. Speaking of him, do you think he can add the 3-point shot to his arsenal? His form is slow but looks smooth with a high release point (shooting 50 percent so far on low volume). We’ve already seen Udoka hammer the screening emphasis on Şengün, but what does Year 4 look like for the Turkish big from your vantage point?
Hollinger: All I want to see is “flamingo” 3-point attempts. At least give me that.
Şengün did a good job last year rope-a-doping defenders into going for his 3-point shot fake even though he wasn’t really a threat from there, but if he’s going to be the focal point of the offense, there are times when he’ll need to be a threat in pick-and-pops or in kickouts so others can eat in the paint. (Think of how Green, Whitmore or Thompson might thrive at the rim, for instance, if Şengün can pull his man away from it.)
I’m not going to let a 4-of-8 start from 3 suddenly cause me to re-evaluate a 29 percent career marksman, but the good news is he’s steadily moved out his range over his first three seasons. He’s extended his range of comfort at the defensive end as well. He’ll never be an All-Defense rim protector or a Curry-esque bomber, but he needs to do enough in those respects that it doesn’t detract from his other strengths.
I’m not sure Year 4 is the one in which Şengün becomes enough of a threat that teams try to take away his 3. But you can see a roadmap to him getting there. Just like Nikola Jokić in Denver, it’s never going to be the core part of his arsenal, but it needs to be a specialist club in his bag, the sand wedge to complement his low-post irons.
(Top photo: Ronald Cortes / Getty Images)
