By Jeje Gomez, Marilyn Dubinski, Mark Barrington, Bill Huan, Devon Birdsong | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2025-01-21 22:30:00
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
尽管伤病不断，传奇教练缺席，以及一月份的艰难赛程对他们构成考验，这支年轻的马刺队仍然超出了休赛期的预期。
马刺队在赛季中期胜率徘徊在五成左右。你认为 2024/25 赛季的上半程是否成功？
玛丽莲·杜宾斯基(Marilyn Dubinski): 考虑到季前赛的预期（更不用说赛程强度），这绝对是成功的。当时大多数人认为五成胜率已经是他们的极限，但他们却让这一切看起来轻而易举（直到最近）。由于他们一直保持在五成胜率左右，没有出现大的连胜或连败，所以球队的情绪往往取决于他们上一场比赛的输赢，因为在西部如此激烈的竞争中，每一场比赛都可能导致排名的大幅波动。现在，球队的情绪有点低落。有一件事是肯定的：能够再次带着目标关注排名，无疑为这个赛季带来了新的乐趣，这是过去两年所缺少的（尤其对于像我这样在马刺赛季结束后就不再关注 NBA 的人来说）。
马克·巴灵顿(Mark Barrington): 在我看来，球队的表现远远超出了预期，你一定会感到欣喜若狂。与此同时，观看比赛有时也会让人有点沮丧，因为球队有时看起来像是一支势不可挡的劲旅，可以在状态不错的夜晚击败一支强队，然后在第二天晚上又像去年的那支毫无竞争力的球队。你一定会对斯蒂芬·卡斯尔(Stephon Castle)的成长感到兴奋，他在新秀赛季的一半时间里就看起来像一个真正的 NBA 球员，以及文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)的不断扩展的技能，因为他为自己的比赛增添了新的维度。由于克里斯·保罗和哈里森·巴恩斯的加盟，球队在比赛中展现出了更多的纪律性和沉着。球队的弱点是缺乏深度和稳定性。约翰逊教练一直在使用相当短的轮换阵容，首发球员在比赛结束时总是显得疲惫不堪，这似乎对球队终结比赛的能力产生了负面影响。
赫苏斯·戈麦斯(Jesus Gomez): 我原以为他们能赢下 30 场左右的比赛，所以他们在赛季中期取得 19 场胜利的事实意味着他们已经超出了我的预期。伤病和最近的艰难赛程让他们在竞争激烈的西部略有落后，但在经历了残酷的一月之后，他们很可能比我预期的提前一年进入附加赛的争夺范围。事实上，他们做得如此出色，以至于一个在休赛期看来乐观的战绩现在看起来很正常，球迷们想要更多，这是可以理解的。
比尔·黄(Bill Huan): 绝对成功——我愚蠢地在季前赛选择了马刺队低于 36.5 胜场的预测，甚至还像查克斯特一样做了保证！赛季中期胜率达到五成左右是一个巨大的成功，我们看到了全方位的积极发展：文班现在是一个真正的前十球员，卡斯尔作为一名新秀已经产生了真正的影响，而像保罗和巴恩斯这样的老将也带来了积极的影响。在这个赛季，马刺队正在用意外之财打球，所以伙计们，好好享受吧。
德文·伯德桑(Devon Birdsong): 这是一个有趣的问题，因为他们目前的战绩与我的预期差不多（我想我在某个时候发推文说他们能赢 40 场左右），但事情发生的方式完全出乎我的意料。如果在赛季开始前你告诉我，马刺队会在没有关键首发球员的情况下度过很长一段时间，三分球命中率和真实命中率都将排在联盟后三分之一，并且替补席（净效率排名第 25 位）和替补中锋几乎没有任何贡献，我会认为他们的胜率 远低于 五成，但现在我们却看到了这样的结果。我对他们的战绩感到既印象深刻又困惑。我认为现在你必须称之为成功，但我还是不愿完全认可，直到下半赛季结束。
交易截止日即将到来。你预计马刺队会在交易截止日前保持活跃吗？
杜宾斯基: 我认为他们不会积极寻求交易球队阵容中排名前列的球员，但我希望他们会努力提升需要改进的领域，其中最主要的是替补中锋。市场上有很多物美价廉的球员，比如约纳斯·瓦兰丘纳斯或罗伯特·威廉姆斯，甚至雅各布·珀尔特尔也可能出现在市场上。讽刺的是，用珀尔特尔交换扎克·科林斯几乎可以直接完成交易，或者马刺队可以加上像马拉基·布拉纳姆或布雷克·韦斯利这样廉价的球员和/或他们众多选秀权中的一个来匹配薪资。谁会反对呢？（至少在圣安东尼奥是这样。）
巴灵顿: 我认为马刺队本赛季不会有什么大动作，因为他们还没有进入争冠模式。我认为他们满足于在附加赛的边缘徘徊，并期待在休赛期取得重大进步。这并不意味着他们不会在交易截止日寻找便宜货，如果价格合适的话，他们会尝试增加一些阵容深度。玛丽莲的想法是让珀尔特尔回到圣安东尼奥，用科林斯和一个坐在板凳上的马刺替补后卫交换，这听起来不错，但我认为多伦多不会同意，除非马刺队再加一个首轮选秀权和其他一些甜头，而这个价格对莱特(Brian Wright)来说可能太高了，他不会扣动扳机。
戈麦斯: 我不这么认为。我觉得他们可能会交易特雷·琼斯，希望换来一个大个子，但我认为他们不会大幅改变他们的阵容或引进任何大牌球员。等到休赛期甚至下一个交易截止日再进行重大调整是合理的，因为伤病太多，无法完全了解现有球队的上限，而且老将的替补表现也足够好，可以继续留在队中。也许一个巨大的机会出现了，或者管理层过去一直渴望得到的人出现了，他们会在本赛季全力以赴，否则，我认为变化将是最小的。
黄: 就我个人而言，我很乐意保持现状：现在还不是梭哈的时候，我们也不应该在球队有机会进入附加赛的情况下出售球员。不幸的是，我不是马刺队的总经理（或者考虑到我的梦幻篮球历史，也许是幸运的……），所以他们所做的可能完全不同。在我看来，最有可能的情况是球队会在边缘进行一些修补。也许他们会增加一名深度球员，或者为了将来的薪资空间做出一些举动，但如果发生一笔大交易，我会感到震惊。
伯德桑: 对我来说，这是一个主要关乎情感和理智的案例。在我内心深处，我希望相信管理层已经看到了球队的努力程度，并愿意在截止日期前给他们一些提升（在合理范围内），以某种方式加强替补阵容。看着文班以外的中锋轮换阵容真是太痛苦了，这似乎是目前最容易也是最便宜的解决办法。然而，我的理智告诉我，马刺队在这里会过于耐心。我认为在某种程度上，他们认为这是一个没有波波维奇的赛季，计划从来就不是积极进取。然而，正如我们本赛季从巴恩斯身上看到的那样，每个赛季总会有人愿意做一些荒谬的事情，而马刺队总是愿意利用这一点。我认为他们在这次交易截止日就像一个眼光敏锐的棒球击球手：他们在寻找保送的机会，但如果有人投出一个吊高的曲线球，他们就会狠狠地击打它。
你预计下半赛季的战绩会与上半赛季相似吗？
杜宾斯基: 我认为会。虽然下半赛季的客场比赛会比上半赛季多很多，但马刺队在这方面正在进步。尽管如此，如前所述，虽然他们已经证明自己足够稳定和坚韧，可以避免大规模的连败（最长的是三连败），但他们也一直不够稳定，也没有任何大的连胜（最长的是四连胜）。如果我不得不猜测的话，他们将继续徘徊在五成胜率左右，能否进入季后赛将取决于他们的胜率在哪一边（以及其他球队的表现）。
巴灵顿: 我天生是个悲观主义者，所以我预计球队在下半赛季会后劲不足，因为客场比赛很多，而且首发球员打了大量的上场时间导致疲劳。我有点担心索汉(Jeremy Sochan)挥之不去的背部问题，如果他继续缺席比赛，球队将会很艰难。我猜他们会在全明星赛前稍微下滑，并在赛季末期有所复苏，因为他们在最后几场比赛中会对阵那些已经锁定季后赛席位的球队。马刺队可能会进入附加赛，但他们的上限可能是一轮游。
戈麦斯: 这将取决于他们是否想继续争取附加赛的席位。我不认为他们会摆烂——那些日子已经过去了。但我可以看到他们调整轮换阵容，给布拉纳姆和韦斯利最后一次机会，并且对伤病过度谨慎，输掉比预期更多的比赛。这是一种可能性。另一种可能性是，他们真的会交易来一个中锋，也许还有另一个替补球员，并在很多其他球队决定放松的时候全力争取附加赛的席位。我不认为马刺队在没有重大调整的情况下能赢下 45 场以上的比赛，但如果他们愿意在今年改进他们的阵容，他们可能会接近这个数字。再说一次，这将取决于他们是否愿意这样做，或者他们可以等到夏天。
黄: 是的！考虑到强队将为排名而战，而弱队开始排出满是“他在为谁打球？”的球员的阵容，这将同时变得更难也更容易。我认为马刺队最终的战绩将略低于 40 胜，并且以几场的差距错过附加赛。这听起来可能令人失望，但考虑到我们大多数人认为他们无法在赛季中期达到五成胜率，这是一个巨大的成功。
伯德桑: 我有一部分想保持悲观，但尽管目前存在障碍，他们的战绩表明这支球队现在有一些韧性。是的，关于他们的情况现在已经很清楚了。是的，他们仍然没有完全弄清楚他们的轮换阵容。但他们也有稳定的老将让他们保持在正确的轨道上，球员们基本上都更健康了，而且文班仍然是文班。另外，你永远不能低估球员的爆发和进步。尤其是卡斯尔，他最近的状态越来越好，在对阵迈阿密热火队之前，他连续两场对阵西部季后赛球队的比赛中表现出色。即使马刺队没有增加任何人，他们仍然可以赢得 40 场比赛。如果他们真的采取行动，我看不出他们如何避免赢得 40 场以上并争取季后赛席位。
点击查看原文：The first half of the Spurs’ 2024/25 season has been a success
The first half of the Spurs’ 2024/25 season has been a success
Despite injuries, the absence of their legendary coach and a tough January schedule that has tested them, the young Spurs are still exceeding offseason expectations.
The Spurs are hovering around .500 at the midpoint. Do you consider the first half of the 2024/25 season a success?
Marilyn Dubinski: It’s definitely a success when you look back at preseason expectations (not to mention the strength of schedule), and at the time most considered .500 to be their absolute ceiling, and yet they’ve made it look easy (until recently). Because they’ve stayed around .500 without any big winning or losing streaks, the mood often lies with whether they won or lost their last game because every game can cause massive swings in the standings due to how tight the West is, and right now, it’s a little somber. One thing is for sure: being able to watch the standings with a purpose again certainly brings a new layer of enjoyment to the season that was lacking the last two years (especially for someone like me who turns off the NBA once the Spurs’ season is over).
Mark Barrington: In my opinion, the team has exceeded expectations by such a large margin that you have to feel elated. At the same time, it can be a little frustrating to watch, as the team sometimes seems to be gelling into a juggernaut that can roll over a good team on one of their better nights, and then look like like last year’s hapless team on the next night. You have to be excited about the development of Stephon Castle, who looks like a legitimate NBA player just halfway through his rookie season, and the expansion of Victor Wembanyama’s talent set as he adds dimensions to his game. The team is playing with a lot more discipline and poise due to the additions of Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes. The weaknesses are a lack of depth and inconsistency. Coach Johnson has been playing pretty short rotations, and the starters always seem tired at the end of games, which seems to negatively affect the ability of the team to close out strong.
Jesus Gomez: I thought they’d win around 30 games, so the fact that they are 19 at the halfway mark means they have exceeded my expectations. Injuries and the recent tough schedule have set them back a bit in the deep West, but after a brutal January, they will likely be within reach of a play-in spot a year sooner than I expected. They’ve done so well in fact that a record that would have seemed optimistic in the offseason now seems normal and fans want more, which is understandable.
Bill Huan: Absolutely - I foolishly picked the Spurs’ preseason under of 36.5 wins and even gave it a Chuckster-level guarantee! To be around .500 halfway through the season is a roaring success, and we’ve seen positive developments across the board: Wemby is now a bonafide top-10 player, Castle has been legitimately impactful as a rookie, and vets such as CP3 and Harrison Barnes have made positive impacts. This is a season where the Spurs are playing with house money, so enjoy it while it lasts, folks.
Devon Birdsong: It’s an interesting question, because their current record is about what I expected (I think I tweeted something about 40ish wins at some point), but the way that it has happened has completely thwarted my expectations. If you’d told me before the season that the Spurs would spend significant stretches without critical starters, would be in the bottom 3rd in both 3-point Percentage and True Shooting Percentage, and would get next to nothing from their bench (25th in net rating) and backup big men, I’d have assumed they’d be well below .500, yet here we are. I’m somewhere between impressed and baffled that their record is what it is right now. I think you have to call it a success for now, but I’m reluctant to fully endorse that until the 2nd half of the season plays out.
The trade deadline is fast approaching. Do you expect the Spurs to be active leading up to it?
Dubinski: I don’t think they’ll be actively looking to move anyone in the top half of their roster, but my hope is they will be working to upgrade areas of need, backup center being chief among them. There are plenty of good ones out there on the market for relatively cheap, such as Jonas Valanciunas or Robert Williams, and even Jakob Poeltl might be on the market. Ironically, Poeltl for Zach Collins almost works straight up, or the Spurs could tack on someone cheap like Malaki Branham or Blake Wesley and/or one of their many draft picks to make the salaries match. Who would be against that? (In San Antonio, at least.)
Barrington: I don’t think the Spurs will do anything big this season, because they aren’t yet in a win-now mode. I think they’re content to linger around the play-in range and look for big improvements in the offseason. That doesn’t mean that they won’t do some bargain hunting at the trade deadline and try to pick up some depth if the price is right. Marilyn’s idea of getting Jakob Poeltl back to San Antonio for Collins and a Spurs backup guard who’s stuck to the bench sounds great, but I can’t see Toronto going for that unless the Spurs toss in a first-round pick and some other sweeteners, and that price might be too high for Brian Wright to pull the trigger.
Gomez: I don’t. I feel like they’ll likely move Tre Jones, hopefully for a big man, but I don’t expect them to drastically change their roster or add any big names. It makes sense to just wait until the offseason or even the next trade deadline to make the big moves since there have been too many injuries to know the ceiling of the current team fully and the veteran placeholders have done well enough to remain in place. Maybe a big opportunity presents itself or someone the front office has coveted in the past becomes available and they go all in this season, but otherwise, I’m assuming the changes will be minimal.
Huan: Personally, I’d be more than happy to stand pat: it’s not time to push any chips in yet nor should we sell when the team could make the play-in. Unfortunately, I’m not the Spurs’ GM (or perhaps fortunately given my fantasy basketball history…), so what they do might be entirely different. The most likely scenario, in my opinion, is that the team tinkers around the edges. Perhaps they add a depth player or make a move with salary cap implications for the future, but I’d be shocked if a big deal happens.
Birdsong: This is a major case of the heart vs. the head for me. In my heart of hearts, I want to believe that the front office has seen how hard the team has played and is willing to give them a deadline boost (within reason) to shore up the bench in some way. It’s been painful to watch the big man rotation outside of Wemby, and that seems like both the easiest and cheapest thing to fix right now. However, my head is telling me that the Spurs are going to be overly patient here. I think on some level they’ve considered this a bit of a lost season without Popovich and the plan was never to be aggressive anyway. However, as we’ve seen with Harrison Barnes this season, there’s always someone willing to do something nonsensical each season, and the Spurs are always willing to exploit that. I see them like a discerning baseball hitter this deadline: they’re looking for the walk, but if someone tosses a hanging curveball, they’re going to hammer it.
Do you expect the second half of the season to be similar to the first in terms of record?
Dubinski: I think so. While there will be a lot more road games than the first half of the season, the Spurs are improving in that regard. Still, as previously mentioned, while they have shown they are steady and resilient enough to avoid massive losing streaks (longest being three), they have been inconsistent enough that they don’t have any big winning streaks either (longest is four). If I had to guess, they they’ll continue to hover around .500, and making the postseason will depend on what side they’re on (and what other teams are doing).
Barrington: I’m a pessimist by nature, so I expect the team to run out of gas in the second half of the season with all of the road games and the fatigue caused by the starters playing a ton of minutes. I’m a bit worried by Jeremy Sochan’s lingering back issues, and if he continues to miss games, it’s going to be tough for the team. I’m guessing that they will fade a bit before the All-Star Break and have a bit of a renaissance late in the season as they play teams that have already locked in their playoff slots in the last few games. The Spurs could make it into the play-in, but their ceiling is probably one-and-done.
Gomez: It will depend on whether they want to keep pushing for a play-in spot. I don’t think they’ll tank — those days are behind us. But I could see them tweaking the rotation to give Malaki Branham and Blake Wesley one last chance and being overly cautious with injuries, dropping a few more games than expected. That’s one possibility. The other is they actually make a move for a center and maybe another bench piece and fully go for the play-in at a time in which a lot of other teams decide to take it easy. I don’t think the Spurs can win 45+ games without a major overhaul, but they could get close to it if they are willing to improve their roster this year. Again, it will depend on whether they want to or are fine waiting until the summer.
Huan: Yes! It will get both harder and easier simultaneously, given that the good teams will be fighting for seeding, while the bad ones start rolling out lineups full of “who he play for?” guys. I think the Spurs will end with just under the 40-win mark and miss the play-in by just a few games. That might sound disappointing, but it’s a big success given that most of us didn’t think they’d be close to .500 halfway through the year.
Birdsong: There’s a part of me that wants to be pessimistic, but their record in spite of current obstacles suggests that there’s some fight in this team now. Yes, the book is definitely out on them at this point. Yes, they still haven’t quite figured out their rotations yet. But they’ve also got steady vets keeping them on the right track, players are largely healthier, and Wemby is still Wemby. Plus, you can never discount player breakout and development. Stephon Castle in particular has been turning it on as of late, with back-to-back outstanding performances against Western playoff teams before a quieter game in Miami. Even if the Spurs don’t add anyone, they could still win 40 games. And if they do make a move, I don’t see how they avoid winning 40+ and pushing for the postseason.
By Jeje Gomez, Marilyn Dubinski, Mark Barrington, Bill Huan, Devon Birdsong, via Pounding The Rock