San Antonio Spurs: 3 potential breakout candidates for 2019-20
Lonnie Walker IV
What would a breakout season for Lonnie Walker IV entail?
- Become a rotation fixture: average > 15.0 minutes per game
- Establish a bonafide position (ideally shooting guard)
- Score, score, and score (7-10 points per game)
The much safer choice here is Trey Lyles, for a few reasons. Lyles, at 6’10”, faces much less competition at his position for minutes and has split time unevenly as both a power forward (83 percent of the time) and center (17 percent).
Furthermore, numerous sources appear to agree that playing time could be difficult for Walker to find. ESPN’s official depth chart has the sophomore guard slotted as a third shooting guard in the rotation behind both Derrick White and Bryn Forbes. Meanwhile, on The Athletic’s mock lineup Walker was only responsible for five of the Spurs’ 240 allocated minutes.
The logic supporting Lyles checks out. But, there’s just something about Walker — who nearly averaged more points per game (30.0) than minutes played (32.5) in the 2019 Summer League exhibitions just a month ago — that makes you believe he’s going to simply leapfrog — see his 40-inch vertical — his way into the rotation.
A few of Walker’s glaring positives serve as potential drawbacks. The former Miami Hurricane will be entering training camp with presumed confidence stemming from his play in the Summer League.
The athleticism jumps off the screen, literally. In Summer League, Walker showed his offensive capabilities as an off-ball cutter isolation scorer and everything in between. But that much we already knew. What’s yet to be determined is Walker’s actual position.
In his 118 minutes of play last season, the Spurs experimented with their rookie specimen. Walker played about 42 percent of his time at the point guard spot, 45 percent at the shooting guard spot, and even 14 percent at the small forward.
The theory of positionless basketball continues to pick up steam, and rightfully so. Players are much more on-board with the idea of being multifaceted than in decades past. But, the idea of putting a 6’4” combo guard on a lengthy small forward spells doom, perhaps on both sides of the floor.
In essence, excitement for Walker’s breakout varies from fan to fan. It depends largely on how much you value sample size, and how important empty gym workouts are to you. He’s been in the gym, and hard at work, as evidenced by his 3-point training.
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Walker rarely shared the floor with any of the Spurs’ alpha dogs, but NBA.com’s lineup statistics seemed to point to Walker being best suited at the shooting guard spot. Sample size matters: In the half-quarter in which the Spurs went with Walker alongside Patty Mills, Marco Belinelli, Davis Bertans, and Aldridge, they had a net rating of 28.7.
This at least creates an idea of what Walker is up against. His best and most reasonable avenue for playing time will be to beat out Forbes for that backup guard spot. Should that be the case, Walker’s dynamite scoring gives him a chance to be the go-to bench scorer on any given night.
Baby steps, though, are required. Walker’s two-game sample in the Summer League did its job in alleviating some of the concerns about his unsteady jump shot.
During his time at the University of Miami, Walker shot just 34.6 percent from deep and averaged just 1.00 points per possession on catch-and-shoot opportunities. In the Summer League, he wasn’t gun shy about eliminating that speculation. He hit on 3-of-7 from deep, with each shot coming in a different variation.
All in all, it’s difficult to remember a time in which the Spurs have had this much depth and talent at the guard position. Minute constraints could lead to each guard getting in each other’s way, in terms of fully breaking out. Yet, looking at the big picture, the Spurs figure to be in good hands, no matter what guards they have on the floor.