Monday: Starless Again

San Antonio wins without Wemby but will be without 3 of their biggest stars, indefinitely.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Spurs beat the Kings, and they did so without Victor
women Yama, who has calf tightness calf strain.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
That calf strain is going to keep him out for
two or three weeks.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
We've talked about how important it is for the Spurs
to play better defense when Victor's not on the floor. Well,
he's only going to not be on the floor for
games for segments of games. He's going to be out
for games period over the next couple of weeks. And
I haven't dived too deeply into what the schedule looks
like coming up, but I still think the Spurs are

(00:34):
a top six team only if they stay healthy. And
now we also have an issue with Castle leaving the
game yesterday with a hip injury and Harper out and
Harper is still what a week or so away from
coming back at least. And I said this in the beginning,
I don't know what it is with calfs. It used
to be that it was ham strings, and then it

(00:56):
was you know, it was quads and everybody gets strain here.
I mean, ACL is usually a non contact thing, uh,
and maybe so is a calf strain. But as I
said earlier, I think it's whereon concentrating on other areas
not to get hurt, and the calf is taking the
brunt of the forest, and it's what's getting strained, and
it too can sideline you for lengthy periods of time.

(01:19):
And it's not something you normally have to have surgery
for that Doc Garrett's told us in the past, but
it's something that annoys you and you can't push off
and you can't get any leverage. So get well, get healthy,
be back sometime in December, and continue the run if
you can, because the Spurs are definitely gonna not go
anywhere without him.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:37):
By the way, the next two games are still at home.
It's the Grizzlies and the Hawks. But you're right, because
we already saw how the team looked like without Deer
and Fox to come in. Steph Castle, I thought did
way too much of the point, but we were lying
alone doing Harp brought the bench, Dylan Harper goes down Deern,
Fox comes in and then it but we still a
lot too much up from him from that position. But
now we're gonna be without three of our biggest stars,

(01:57):
and stars might be a relative term regardless, I think
Luke Cornett played fine yesterday. They also had Kelly Lenne
come in there play a little we had so hand,
and then Barnes and guys like that have been able
to fill in spots. The team and the defense obviously
looked differently with Womby's on the floor, and you can
rely on guys, and I don't mean this disrespectfully, I
think you can rely on guys like Luke Cornett and

(02:19):
Julian Champenny to pick up this like defensively in Spurts Well,
Wimby does for you on that so out of the
court is so valuable in that aspect, and offensively obviously,
I have guys like Darren Fox who can get you
maybe twenty five give or take a night, right. I
think that though it does add a little too much
pressure to guys who you would think would benefit from
having another guy out there as opposed to having them off.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Well, here's the deal with depth.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
And let's say you're starting five, which has basically been
since everybody's kind of been back with Heart without Harper, right,
has been Fox, bet Sell Castle.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Wimby and then Barnes and Barnes.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Yeah, so now you're taking Wimby out and you're replacing
with Cornett, so that weekends that part of your ban
and even and and Cornett's not Wimby or he wouldn't
be here. Uh, And so even if he gives you,
I'll get to Cornett in a second. And then you
take Castle out and you replace him most likely with.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
You probably put his cell back at the two and
put shamp.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Put Championie at the three.

Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah, so now you've lost a second player on the
rotation of ten or eleven, and so instead of really
being eleven deep, now you're eight deep. And now you
have to play Carter Bryant minutes that maybe he's not
quite ready for, just because you're trying to not wear
out your team in November and December.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
So and here's the thing about guys.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Like Cornette and UH and Carter Bryant for sure, UH
and Kelly Olennok. They're gonna recognize that Victor wim min
Yama is not there and that potentially Steph Castle's not there.
So they're gonna quote unquote step up their game and
they're gonna do it at the highest level they can.
But that level is never sustained. It's usually one or

(03:56):
two games where they play above their pay grade, and
if they played consistently at that above their level pay grade,
they would not be here. They'd be a megastar for
somebody else getting ready to sign a super max contract.
That's the difference between superstars and stars and NBA players.
There's a lot of rank and file in the NBA.
There's four hundred and fifty players, and three hundred and

(04:17):
seventy five of them are not stars or superstars, maybe
four hundred of them or not. There's probably about ten
superstars in the league and about forty or fifty other
what you would call bona fide stars in the league,
and everybody else is just filling up roster spots at
a level to where they can get to a rotation
to where they can help a team win.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
I mean, look at Oklahoma City.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
You know it's going to be Shay and holng, Grin
and Jada, and then you know Cason, Wallace and Dort
are kind of the role players in the starting lineup
or off the bench, and then everybody else has a
specific role. And once you start to take away starters
and you start to make the reserves the starters, you

(04:57):
look at the team. The Spurs have had the last
two or three years, when Jillian Champagne was your star player,
you are not a very good team When Jillian Champagne
is a role player off the Miense too excellent role
player on a really good team that gives you quality minutes.
Everybody's got a routine, a role, a level of greatness

(05:18):
that they perform at each day. And there's only a
handful of guys that you can consider the elite of
the elite, and women Yam and Castle happened to be
two of them.

Speaker 4 (05:27):
And I would agree with that, and to give credit
where credits due.

Speaker 3 (05:30):
You know, guys like Champagne and Kelden and you know
Lennik yesterday, I thought they played well for like you said,
for their role. But you're asking them to do that
in a one game scenario with against the Kings, which
no offense to them that they're having a down year.
Let's just call it what it is, ask them to
go extended minutes against better teams. The Grizzlies are kind
of a you know, well, it's hard to pin them
down with the whole Ja Moran thing.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
The Hawks are better than we expected, at least it
feels like.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
And that you don't really want to rely on these
guys for extentiments too much longer, because one obviously that
obviously that that means that women's gonna be out longer
than expected. And two like that's putting them outside of
their their usual role, their usual comfort level. You don't
really want Olennok and Cornett to play beyond what they
did yesterday. They played both like twenty minutes to each
or something like that. They played well. I give them again,

(06:14):
give them credit, but you don't really want that long.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
Term, all right, Draymond Green not happy with a fan,
but nobody got dejected or thrown out or nothing that
really happened. And then we'll talk about the NBA and
this impending gambling probe that's going

Speaker 2 (06:28):
On the and the average show on the ticket