San Antonio Spurs: Revisiting foolish preseason predictions at the midway mark
3. One of the Spurs’ draftees makes the All-Rookie second team
Prediction Counter: 1-for-3 (33.3 percent)
Prediction Comparison: Carmelo Anthony’s 2-foot air-ball.
To quote myself after a batch of awful predictions in 2017: “Don’t mind that wall you just heard being punched.”
If I were throwing darts, I’d have hit a person. We cracked a joke about this in the introduction, but it was in good truth. Spurs fans during those halftime entertainment shows have gotten more floor time than two of the Spurs’ rookies.
And that’s not to be heinous by any stretch; Gregg Popovich-coached teams aren’t of the baptism by fire philosophy. Check the receipts. Over a 23-season stretch, only eight rookies have crossed the 1,000-minute barrier, a number that doubles in Year 2.
In the meantime, we have to channel the Philly in us and trust the process.
This prediction is a stone’s throw and a Brett Favre arm out, but Feb. 6’s trade deadline has the potential to at least make it interesting.
If the Spurs decide that jousting in this pillow fight for the No. 8 seed isn’t something they feel confident in long term, there’s always the option of shifting the focus onto the future.
In writing, I’ve always prided myself on three things: being conversational, saying things other writers aren’t saying and finding informal facts that offset some of those takes. As it relates to the Spurs’ rookies and their chances at making an All-Rookie team over the stretch run, here are a few facts to keep in mind:
The Spurs are down to their final 36 games of the 2019-20 season. In the NBA’s history, no player has ever notched an All-Rookie second team selection without playing at least 41 games. Former Purdue big Carl Landry owns both the record for fewest games (42) and least minutes played (711) to earn an All-Rookie second team nod.
For the first team, only Joel Embiid and Ricky Rubio have done so with fewer games. So there’s that.
To do so, one of them would need to average 19.4 minutes per game over the next 36 games, something even Lonnie Walker IV isn’t doing.
Let that be a rule for this … and life. If Lonnie Walker IV can’t do it, neither can you.
In the meantime, Keldon Johnson and the crew are at the very least giving us a beacon of hope. Johnson’s averaging 20.3 points and 5.8 rebounds per game on 52.9 percent shooting over 27 games. Samanic is throwing in 14.3 points and 7.7 rebounds and Quinndary Weatherspoon is stuffing the stat sheet to the tune of 13.2 points, 4.9 assists, and 3.6 rebounds.
They deserve an article of their own as the young studs continue to navigate through their own postseason race. In the meantime, just like them in a San Antonio Spurs jersey right now, there’s nothing to see here.