Last-Minute News, Rumors, Reports before Spurs Season Opener

It's about to go down. The Spurs season opener is coming up tonight versus the OKC Thunder, and we have some huge updates from both sides, from injuries to lineup decisions, the contract extensions to a whole lot more Dylan Harper, De'Aaron Fox, a lot of quotes, so much to break down to prepare you for this season opener. We are so excited to get into this season. Finally, it's felt like the longest off season of my life. I don't know if it's just me, maybe not, but at the same time, like you were saying earlier, it feels like the finals were just yesterday. i'm so excited for this and if you guys are to leave a like we'd love to hit 300 likes on this video getting ready for this game i don't know maybe it's a lot but you know i'm just so excited to be back in action finally finally back to these daily videos the spurs play tonight it feels almost surreal to say it really does i am super excited about this yes get the 300 there would be very much appreciated but i'm so excited to get to this because we finally get to talk about the basketball it's not the oh will this happen oh that you know we get to see what's going to happen and i'm really excited to get to it i'm just want to talk about it yeah well let's just dive right in spurs and thunder open the season tuesday tonight in san antonio and look there are a lot of little updates that we got to throw in here and we talked about this in yesterday's video the tobias harris situation he will not be ready for opening night he's ramping up he's progressing he still needs some more progressing on the court that's one update so the starters keenan i know we want to talk about this a little bit later we got some other quotes but it is looking like this three guard lineup is going to be a thing and taking a look at the OKC lineup like I don't know how things are going to line up for them against us it's going to be an interesting chess match and I think that's going to be one of the main themes of this game how does Mitch Johnson manage the minutes especially with maybe not so great guard depth on the bench for the Spurs against a team in OKC that kind of knows what they're doing yes they 100% know what they're doing and the last time we saw them they didn't have the requisite amount weapons that they do now they're going to be much healthier than they were in game seven of the western conference finals so what are we going to do to combat the oklahoma city thunder i'm interested to see how many minutes what's the stagger of harper fox and castle are you going to play maybe because i know castle typically was an eight minute guy you had fox is like a six minute guy when we would play like three or four early and then play three or four i'm just interested to see how he staggers the lineup especially because when Devin Vassell is going to be your four I know this is small ball world and with Wemby he's a great eraser but when he's your four that can make things difficult rebounding wise especially if you get to pull Wemby around away from the basket so I'm really excited but we do have really good rebounding guards so if we had to combat that this would be the type of team you'd want it and also Champagny who can play like three different positions oh yeah I just meant starting I just meant starting oh no I know Yeah, fair enough. We have so many good rebounders. And that's what's going to help propel the Spurs to a lot of wins this year. Rebounding and shooting, which is another big theme. But 55 wins, I don't think it's crazy. $25 nets you $34 on Kalshi. This video is brought to you by Kalshi, where you're trading against other users, not the house like traditional sportsbooks. You're buying yes or no contracts on real-life events like the weather, like politics, like your San Antonio Spurs in sports. $25 nets you almost $70 if the Spurs have the best regular season record. So if you're interested in trying out Kalshi, use the link in the pinned comment or description down below. Use code DIGESTNBA when you trade $25 to get $55 put in your account instantly. Thank you to Kalshi for sponsoring this video. And I like that you mentioned Castle. I want to read out some comments that some people often leave on these videos. We do read them. We got Shaq Harper's pretty brilliant, but he doesn't want to be blinded by it either. Castle is consistent, effective, and reliable like a soccer midfielder. Even Victor can be inconsistent with some great games, but others that aren't as good. I love the hype on Stephon Castle because I think there are going to be a lot of looks between him and a certain other Thunder guard that also has a lot to prove heading into this game in case of Wallace just extended and on a massive extension he's expected to be in their starting five jumping from what 7.9 million i think up to this five-year 139 million dollar contract pretty crazy but you can see yeah they locked him in they got their starting five under contract for several years they might have to shed guys like Caruso and Hartenstein in the future but they'll figure it out for now i think this is going to be one of these fun matchups because there's going to be a big storyline around him i think there are a lot of comparables to a guy like Castle even though Castle is a lot better it's just one of the many lines that i'm going to be focusing on heavy in this game coming up today one thousand percent first thing i just want to say is man contracts have changed 28 to 30 million for the sixth best player in your fifth or sixth best player in your team arguably when you go through i mean he could be a buyer whatever the case may be the matchup between them because they do a lot of similar things for the team it's going to be oh you're going to take the best perimeter matchup defensively Castle is more of a playmaker but Kaysen has become a guy who they can rely on a little bit in the offensive game there as well whether it's stretching the ball from the three or getting downhill to the basket so I'm it's interesting to see who can really enforce their will on the game defensively first and then offensively who can be more efficient on the other side because you're going against either in Kaysen's case he might be guarding Stephon but he also might be guarding Harper and Fox and on the other side Castle we know is going to see a lot of time on Shea and what can he do to stymie Shea possession by possession which we saw a lot of in the Western Conference Finals he did a really good job Shea had a really good game seven but you're gonna have that from superstars yeah you absolutely are and i i think yeah for sure Castle is going to be the primary defender on Shea if we can help it and maybe you put Fox on the guy the case and Wallace who again admittedly had fantastic defensive numbers last year um you know the defensive rating was incredible 103.8 98th percentile in the NBA but the scoring just wasn't there especially compared to a guy like Stephon Castle was like you often see a lot having a bit more of that offensive load and doesn't quite get the defensive stats not that steal necessarily matters but still it is really interesting but one of the biggest things that we absolutely have to talk about and one of these big ones that everyone's going to be focusing on is Wemby versus Chet not on the injury report for the Thunder just the unfortunate torn Achilles for Owa and then of course you have Nikola Jokic and I think Thomas Sobber who are out and the Spurs is just Tobias Harris and I guess Jaden McDaniels but anyway that we kind of knew look we know what Chet brings but Wemby versus Chet look at Chet I mean look he has some good stats no doubt up in the 90 plus percentile 100th percentile in opponent field goal percentage when he defends 40 really good 99th percentile and blocks plus minus in defensive rating the last two more team stats but ultimately keenan is very obvious that when you look at Wemby versus Chet, one player definitely dominates the other, especially when you look at the playoffs. Wemby's last stretch of games against the OKC Thunder. He scored more against them in his meetings last year than he did on the season as a whole, and there's no doubt about it. The rebounds and blocks were about the same, but he scored and he was very efficient. A couple 40 bombs. I'm so excited to see how Wemby goes up against Chet in this game because, you know, Chet has something to prove, but I think that's the thing. the thunder are coming into this game with so much to prove against san antonio who knocked them out last year, but i think the spurs are going to have to come out hot and quick if they really really want to just set the tone early going to get up by 20 in the first quarter and just let this thing cool off down the stretch you know though then again 20 point leads are kind of kind of get me stressed out yeah 1000 if they do get up 20 it'd be really interesting to see how they stop the runs that go on because obviously their nba teams especially with a good team like the thunder they're going to go on runs how do you stop those runs we weren't able to do that at peak times last year what can we do this year but the wemby and chet matchup that's going to be a matchup to obviously watch because it's the matchup to watch Chet is great against about everybody else and then it's against wemby where he just doesn't play at the same level he sometimes can stretch the floor i just looked last year like he got punked i mean devin vassell in game six and blocking him and looking at chet like you are a baby so it's kind of like those things it's like oh my goodness you're going to do that and kind of chet got punked so it's going to be interesting to see how he comes out in this game but wemby if we remember game one last year when the spurs he wanted to come out and make a statement it was against Dallas and he had the step back fade away three and the dunks and it was like okay the league's over he went from like sixth in MVP to the MVP favorite in odds in one game so it will Wemby want to come out and make a statement I think he will after what people have been saying about this offseason I know he hasn't wanted to really talk with the media but we'll see how he comes out and how he plays in this game I think you're going to see a highly motivated and focused Victor Wembanyama especially in that first quarter to show like hey guys I know all the mess was going on here I'm still here to say yeah and one thing we all want to see from him is to drive into the paint more and like he stayed on the perimeter in some games but then it also turned into a dunk fest and some others in the preseason so i'm excited to see what he does plus if there's any center that you're gonna want him to be physical against or you're expecting him to be physical against it's Chet he's gonna do everything he can to just body Chet he hates Chet it's just it is the case but it is going to be MVP versus MVP level guy Wemby of course going up against Shai who you know has some MVPs in his own right when he doesn't quite have it yet but i think that's absolutely coming so leave your thoughts down below who will win tonight a for the spurs b for the thunder we want to see your votes down there and i want to just give a couple shout outs uh to some comments before we end this video off because we love doing that we love when you guys comment on these videos right this second Castle was asking who was kind of better Castle Harper at this one more important by mid-season at the latest Harper by a notable margin Area 51 will always be huge but Wemby Harper will be the one-two punch that knocks out teams left and right thank you Aussie and we also have this one here And Corey, when it's all said and done, when all three players are retired, I honestly think Dylan will be the best out of all the players on the team. I said it. Dylan greater than Vic. Steph greater than Dylan? I think you mean Dylan greater than Vic greater than Steph, unless you're saying Steph's going to be the best. Vic greater than NBA? Now I'm confused. Either way, there's a lot of hype heading into this season. Look, we barely even talked about Dylan Harper. We know his shooting has improved over this offseason. Him versus Shea, like, there's so many angles we could take in it, but I think we just got to relax, get ready for the game tonight, and i'm so excited i'm super excited i'm in the camp that i think harper is going to get to that level but hey he wants to be the best castle wants to be the best we'll see how they really progress over this season i think that we have a lot in store and i'm really interested to see this three-guard lineup i want to know what mitch is going to do because this is a big season for mitch too so i'm excited to see what happens for the san antonio spurs overall me too mitch johnson And, hey, he's going to have a lot to prove. I think there are some fans who still don't fully trust him. But, hey, Greg Popovich is still hanging around practice. He was talking to Wemby today. So you still have that effect lingering around, and we all love that. But, listen, that will do it for this episode. Thank you all so much for tuning in every single day. First game tonight. Make sure you're tuning in right after for a post game. We appreciate every single one of you. I'm Josh Goss, my co-host Keenan Warner. We'll catch you all in the next one.