Stop Your Blood Clot Crying - The Kid, The Fox, Everybody (Still) Trying, No Lying - The Official 2024-2025 San Antonio Spurs Season Thread

AlbertPullhoez

AlbertPullhoez

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The Spurs’ terrible center-less lineups are hurting Jeremy Sochan’s development​

The Spurs’ small-ball units are not only performing terribly but also potentially hindering the development and contributions of a core young player
The Spurs are once again experimenting with the positional versatility of Jeremy Sochan by tasking him with two completely different roles in the center-less lineups they have been using lately. Sometimes he’s asked to guard the big man and others to stop main perimeter ball handlers without the help of a backline defender.

As with everything he’s asked to do, Sochan puts in the effort to make the most out of the situation, but he’s struggling in both areas. Worse yet, because he has these alternating roles, he’s not able to focus on improving on either.

Sochan has played just 188 minutes without a center next to him this season, according to PBPstats.com, which is too small an amount to draw definitive conclusions using stats but is still a considerable chunk of his under 900 minutes for the season. He’s been doing it more often recently, too. Over the past five games, Sochan has logged 62 minutes without Victor Wembanyama or any other big, and 35 alongside Wemby. The results have not been good. Making matters worse, Sochan’s inefficacy in his new role seems to be limiting his playing time. In the 11 games since returning from injury, he’s averaging 20 minutes a game and played under 15 minutes twice. Not ideal for a presumptive core piece.

The low minutes wouldn’t be a huge issue if Sochan was learning new skills in his new role. After all, if the shot doesn’t improve he could be forced to play small-ball center a lot, so why not throw him into the fire now? The Spurs did it with the point guard experiment and while it’s unclear if it paid off, at least they committed to it. Alas, that’s not what happening here.

A look at Sochan’s matchups in the last few games reveals that he’s spent plenty of time as the main defender on perimeter players on center-less lineups instead of playing a center’s typical defensive role or guarding the matchup that the big man would normally get. It makes sense to have Sochan in the perimeter when he shares the floor with Wembanyama since San Antonio doesn’t have many point-of-attack defenders, but with no center out there, the Spurs are asking Sochan to guard much quicker guys with no way of funneling them towards help. So the coaching staff is arguably not giving him enough reps as a full-time small-ball center, with the defensive responsibilities that come with it, while also asking him to do the job he normally does but under much worse circumstances since there’s no backline defender to help him.

If playing Sochan at center doesn’t seem to be helping his development as a future small-ball option and playing small in general doesn’t help at a team level, why has it been happening? Aside from Bassey’s injury, it’s a personnel issue made worse by rotational imbalances. The Spurs haven’t had a solid backup center all season. Since trading for De’Aaron Fox, they have committed to starting two point guards which, along with Castle’s ascent, has pushed Devin Vassell to a forward spot and taken minutes from that pool. Keldon Johnson and Julian Champagnie have seen their minutes decline and Sochan has been pushed to center (or center-less lineups) to accommodate everyone. So far, it looks like the plan is not working, at least on defense, where the Spurs have ranked 22nd in the league since Sochan’s return and have remained there since the Fox acquisition.

The simplest way to create more balanced lineups while playing young guys at their natural positions is to just start Sochan next to the one Spurs’ big man who can shoot and play a more traditional center like Bassey or Biyombo in the second unit against big teams while Sochan gets minutes as a small-ball center in a more matchup-dependant context. Doing so would necessitate sending Chris Paul to the bench, which could potentially complicate things in the locker room, but should massively help the defense. The Sochan-Wembanyama pairing, after well-documented struggles, figured out how to excel together mostly by switching roles on offense and has outscored opponents. The Paul-Castle duo should do well against second units, and it shouldn’t be too hard to find minutes for Paul and Wemby, San Antonio’s best duo in terms of net rating, to be on the floor together.

Whatever the Spurs decide to do, it will hopefully make them better while also resulting in a more normal developmental environment for Sochan, who has once again been asked to step far away from his comfort zone instead of being allowed to find his own identity.
 
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