There is something Interesting here...

There is something interesting here as the San Antonio Spurs inch closer and closer to the 2026 season. The wing depth that we have, who is going to start, who is not, how is the rotation going to be? There was a recent article highlighting what that possibly could be and the schedule has came out for the San Antonio Spurs and it looks like we're traveling more miles than almost every single team in the NBA. We're going to dive into all of that here on Spurs Digest with your host Kenan Warner. Guys, good to see you guys. Good to be back here. It's been a while since I've been in videos. Josh has been holding it down, appreciate Josh being able to do that, but I love talking to Spurs. I know it's a dead point right now, but let's get into it because I'm excited to talk about what we got to talk about today. The first thing we've got to talk about, the Spurs have a lot of wings. How will they play each of them? And I mean, in this article that Jacob Douglas wrote, it's a Spurs coming into 2025, 2026, boatload of depth. We had some depth last year, obviously, the sixth man of the year, Dylan Harper coming off the bench and others. Obviously, we saw that in the rotation in the NBA Finals, a little less depth than we really felt we had. The Knicks out-depthed us in that kind of sense, I'm not even sure if that's the word, but we're rolling with it. But we got Tobias Harris, Harris III Jr., Quaint, and draft those two, then the ascension of Carter Bryant that we're assuming happens in a year or two jump. There's just more and more depth on this roster. So how are we going to combat that? What are we going to do? What's the rotation going to be for Mitch Johnson in the San Antonio Spurs? How each player factors in probably will be largely matchup dependent and based on how the team performs to start the season. Absolutely. Potential starters for the team, this article is Devin Vassell, Julian Champagny, and Tobias Harris. Two of those three will be starting because you've got De'Aaron Fox will be starting his games this season, Stephon Castle will be, of course, and of course, Victor Wiminyama. So two of those three players will be starting. I think Devin Vassell, to me, is a surefire starter. I don't see why you would really sit him. He is someone who has been a consistent player, consistent defender, athletic, good rebounder for a guard, and a consistent shooter on the outside for the San Antonio Spurs. He can score, get downhill, get to the paint, plus also shoot from their perimeter. Julian Champagny gives you more of a defensive pop and more of a traditional three-point shooting look right here for the Spurs in the starting five. So it's do you value spacing the floor? Do you value the ability to catch and shoot at a high level? And obviously, we've seen him go for double-digit threes in games, so we know how hot he really can get from the perimeter. Or do you value someone like Tobias Harris, who's a little bit better off of the bounce? He is a little bit better of an offensive player, more versatile than Julian Champagny, and then defensively, not as good of a defender, but he is somebody who can play defense, I think, within a team concept. It really comes down to me, to how good Stephane Cassell and De'Aaron Fox can be offensively. If you feel that at the two and at the one, those two can generate a lot of one-on-one actions, one-on-one offense, obviously the pick-and-roll with Victor Wiminyama as well and his ascension offensively, I think that you start Julian Champagny because it gives you a different look and a different view comparatively to starting Tobias Harris, somebody who is going to not mimic, but be of a little bit of the same when it comes to Vassell can shoot well, so get it off the bounce. Hopefully Cassell's shot continues to get better, we get that off the bounce as well, and hopefully De'Aaron Fox can be consistent with the shot that he has. So I would lean Julian Champagny, stick with the camaraderie, stick with what we had last year, have Tobias Harris come off the bench with Dylan Harper, so now you're like, oh, we can't even take a breath because they have multiple players off the bench who can go and get their own shot. Obviously it's not just a 5-in, 5-out, you're going to have multiple people in. And then in terms of the bench rotation, Keldon Johnson, Carter Bryant, and Harrison Barnes, and then you're also going to have to add one of those three that were in the starting lineup thought, and I think that's going to be Tobias Harris, so you have Tobias Harris, Keldon Johnson, Carter Bryant, Harrison Barnes, a lot of depth, and a lot of guys who not are going to do the same things but should be playing within the same minutes in the same lineups. I mean, obviously you're putting Harrison Barnes in with a couple other bigs, a couple other guards. Same with Carter Bryant. He can kind of play the 2, though, and Necessary could even play a 4 in a small ball lineup because he has the strength and the athleticism to do so. Same with Keldon, you're only going to really play him at the 3 or the 4, so it's going to be interesting to see how this bench rotation goes, and one of these guys will be an odd man out. I don't know. I don't think Harrison Barnes plays many minutes. I think he might get 8 to 10 minutes a game, roughly. Keldon's minutes could decrease if the ascension of Carter Bryant is real and true, as I think it can be, and I think it will be going into this year. And then, obviously, Tobias Harris being either the 6th or the 7th man off of the bench, obviously probably the 7th because Dylan Harper is going to be getting many minutes off of the bench, so really interesting to see how these minutes do parse. Do you play 22 for Keldon, 20 for Carter, 10 for Barnes, or something along those lines? Or maybe there's going to be some DNPs for Harrison Barnes. Is Carter Bryant going to creep up to those 27 minutes? It really will be matchup dependent. If we're playing a team that needs a little bit more physicality, a little bit more interior play, you might see Keldon play more. A team with a little bit better perimeter presence, you might see Carter Bryant more. But I'm really interested to see what goes on there. Let me know in the comments what you think. Who do you think is going to be starting in this lineup? Do you think it will be Tobias Harris or Julian Champagny? Because I'm pretty positive Devin Vassell is going to be the starter here. But the other thing that we have, the Spurs, traveling the most miles, second most miles rather, out of everybody, other than the Pelicans. Projected about, I'm going to just say 54 plus thousand miles this season, second most And really, that has to do with the overseas basketball that they're going to be playing. The Spurs and the Pelicans are going overseas. The Pelicans actually have the most miles traveled, really, with their trip. Manchester, England, part of continued international push. But overall, this travel actually would be roughly middle of the pack, if we weren't going overseas. What does this mean for the Spurs, though? I think this is more so less about the travel and more about how the schedule is going to line up for the Spurs. There's a lot of travel, and the travel that they do have, I feel the NBA schedule makers didn't do the best job at putting everything next to each other. The Spurs have a lot of, we're going here, we're going here, we're going here. Obviously, Cleveland, then Toronto, then going down to San Antonio, then going to New Orleans, then going to Milwaukee, then going to Brooklyn. Obviously, Brooklyn, New York makes sense, Atlanta makes sense, sorry, home, not rather than Atlanta, but home, then Memphis, then Charlotte, then Washington, then Minnesota. It just feels like there's a lot of games, and obviously, you have 30 teams who all have to play 82 games. You have to work in the in-season tournament, work in that possible break, the all-star break. You've got to get all this stuff there. There's a lot there, marquee games and making sure all of the teams there, you're trying not to give everybody back-to-backs and all those kind of things. I do think there are stretches like this where it makes it difficult. Obviously, the classic road trip, go from Dallas to OKC to Orlando to Miami to Memphis to Minnesota, that's going to be another tough stretch. Then there's another stretch late in the season. Go to OKC, go to Houston, then to Brooklyn, to Dallas, to Philly, Boston, Indiana, Detroit. You just stay on the road for a long period of time, so the Spurs are going to have a lot of road games bunched together. I think that's going to be interesting to see how we do, and how we do on rest. Last year, the San Antonio Spurs on back-to-backs were 12-3. That's a young team that's able to get up for those moments, not having to sit out a lot of players, and the fact that we did have good depth throughout the season. You could throw a Jordan McLaughlin in there if you wanted to play De'Aaron Fox a little bit less minutes, or Dylan Harper. Obviously, you could just get an uptick in minutes for that game, Carter Bryant, those kind of guys there, if necessary. On one-day rest, very good. Thing that stuck out to me, though, was on two-day rest, we were 9-7. Maybe we get out of rhythm a little bit. Only shot 45% from the floor in those games, comparatively, to 49-49, 57-51 on the four-and-six-day rest and things of that nature. It was really interesting to see that on two-day rest, the San Antonio Spurs were not at their best. It's going to be interesting to see if they can correct that this year, getting into more of a rhythm, staying in that offensive focus, not getting caught up in whatever city that you're going to. Maybe young people, the nightlife, but you don't really get that with San Antonio. You never know what's going on with that two-day rest, but maybe it's just a little lack of rhythm, lack of sleep, lack of routine, something along those lines. But I do think it's going to be interesting how the San Antonio Spurs play this season, especially with traveling a bunch, but this is one of the marquee teams. They have one of the best rosters, if not the best roster, in all of the NBA. They're going to be fine. a playoff team and a contender, a team that's really going to continue to ascend, especially because all of their young stars really only have the chance to get better, you would assume, with their work ethic, with their talent, with the skill that they already possess, in the fact that they're just learning more and more about the league. But let me know what you think about the schedule. What is your favorite part? Maybe what is your least favorite part of it? Do you think that we're on the road a little bit too much in tight stretches, or do you think the schedule makers are doing their job just fine? But let me know in the comments there. This has been Spurs Digest with your host, Kenan Warner. I appreciate all of you guys. Good to be back to see all of you, and I'll be seeing you guys again very soon.