By Devon Birdsong | Pounding The Rock (PtR), 2025-03-17 02:30:20
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。
发展、风度和性情
在体育世界里，发展是一个多么乐观的词汇。
在这个领域里，它是一种几乎被认为是理所当然的积极性；发展在很大程度上是有益的——在成长和变得更好的过程中向前迈进的一步。
当然，这只是众多定义中的一种变体，其中大多数定义并非明确的积极。从语言学角度来说，发展这个词仅仅标示着一种变化或事件。最终，正如在生活中一样，我们把我们对词语本身及其主体的信念带入语言——定义通常相对于心态而言，并且以这种方式我们表达了我们如何过滤我们对现实的感知传递给他人。
从这个意义上说，发展是一种试金石。像昨晚这样的胜利在一个失利的赛季中并没有真正告诉我们任何东西。伤病并不适合以这种方式进行评估。
马刺战胜了一支情况更糟糕的球队（而且他们也失去了他们最好的球员），这并没有真正定义一个赛季或推进一个更大的叙事。马刺目前正在叙事之外运作，生活在发展的朦胧炼狱之中。
我们如何看待他们的赛季最终是我们自己的表达。
当然，我们可以判断灾难性伤病之前的那部分赛季，但之后的大部分内容都取决于我们处理对不公平的失望情绪的能力。
一个完整赛季的进展基本上受到了阻碍——我们真正衡量它的能力受到了损害，这是不公平的。我们在交易截止日后对 文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama) 和 德埃伦·福克斯(De’Aaron Fox) 的组合的了解窗口有限，这是不公平的。我们不得不看着球队在一位如此缺乏经验的教练的指导下苦苦挣扎，他从未在任何重要的比赛级别中担任过球队的主教练，这是不公平的。
然而，我们对这种不公平的反应方式最终定义了我们自己和赛季本身。一连串无情的消极情绪最终说明了我们自己更多。同样，一种毫不妥协的玫瑰色视角也是如此。
两者都没有定义我们与现实特别接触。
维克多·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama) 上升的第二个赛季被一次随机的血栓破坏了，这公平吗？绝对不公平。
然而，预后绝对是积极的。我们肯定会在下个赛季再次看到维克多出现在球场上，而且他的职业生涯没有受到威胁或损害（不考虑首先选中文班亚马的幸运）。
米奇·约翰逊(Mitch Johnson) 在最高水平的篮球战略和协调方面，作为一个几乎完全没有经验的主教练，做得和他预期的一样好吗？我认为这样说是公平的。
然而，存在一个令人不安的现实，那就是当涉及到这支球队在有史以来最成功的NBA教练缺席时（即使在文班亚马受伤之前）的运作方式时，还有很多事情没有完成。这两个简历之间会有一个下降是一个现实，表达这一点或者质疑为什么马刺没有一个更有资格的替补在场边等待并不是无礼的。
仅仅以发展为名就把担忧抛在一边，并不比仅仅因为这支球队几乎肯定会错过季后赛就坚称没有发生任何积极的发展更脱离实际。
我们发现自己，像往常一样，在寻找我们在体育之外的世界中渴望的平衡。我们想要相信一个永无止境的卡米洛特。我们恐惧地呐喊，担心我们会错过整个夏日乐土。
我们将希望寄托在可能永远不会实现的潜力上。我们贬低缺乏卓越天赋的球员的进步。我们把整个人类体验搞得一团糟，然后又搞砸了一些。
与此同时，球像沙漏中的沙子一样穿过篮筐。
这就是发展的意义所在——它令人发狂。它不遵循任何进步规律。
我们很容易忘记，开罐器是在罐头发明近50年后发明的。螺丝刀直到螺丝发明很久之后才被发明出来。方向盘是在第一辆汽车（以及多次致命事故）后8年发明的。
很难责怪人们对人类技术进步的热情，或者对没有适当的补充机制而对未来感到沮丧和愤世嫉俗的人们。
正如很难责怪那些对战胜一支实力不足的垫底球队的微弱胜利感到不那么热情的人，或者责怪那些在年轻的辅助球员和马刺替补席的表现中找到希望的人，马刺替补席的表现看起来是他们很久以来最好的表现。
我们需要他们两个，因为我们是愚蠢、愚蠢的人，观看一场愚蠢、愚蠢的比赛。
我们愚蠢的小意见对我们来说很珍贵，它们本该如此。因为归根结底，发展是我们真正拥有的全部。
要点
- 粉丝们（以及我自己）对 德文·瓦塞尔(Devin Vassell) 本赛季不稳定的表现大做文章，但必须指出的是，他现在正处于一个非常高效的爆发期，3月份的场均数据为20/5/3/2，投篮命中率接近40/50/90，这是他本赛季迄今为止最好的一个月。这是否是永久回归他上赛季状态，以及这是否能够在下赛季文班亚马和福克斯加入后保持下去，这确实是一个问题。但就目前而言，瓦塞尔绝对不辜负他的合同，并且是一支陷入困境的马刺队找到获胜方式的重要组成部分。如果这个版本出现在下个赛季，并在选秀和自由球员市场上有所补充，他将完美地补充这支球队的建设方式。是的，我知道这段话有很多“如果”，但我认为我们现在让他拥有这一切吧。对于所有参与者来说，这都是一个足够艰难的赛季。
- 斯蒂芬·卡斯尔(Stephon Castle) 也继续让我感到困惑，因为他设法在投篮不稳的情况下做出强有力的贡献。在福克斯缺席的情况下，他是圣安东尼奥阵中实际上的最佳球员，在制造犯规方面，让圣安东尼奥看到了自帕克和吉诺比利时代以来他们拥有的最好的突破（和制造犯规）后场。我完全期望 克里斯·保罗(Chris Paul) 会在下个赛季离开或者接受替补角色，所以我们可能会看到卡斯尔和福克斯的长期组合，他们看起来是天生的互补（前提是卡斯尔在休赛期努力提高他的跳投）。后场的未来感觉比 德里克·怀特(Derrick White) 和 德章泰·穆雷(Dejounte Murray) 的早期时代更加光明。
- 另一方面，这感觉是 布雷克·韦斯利(Blake Wesley) 的终结，以及 马拉基·布兰纳姆(Malaki Branham) 的延伸。两者都是同一届选秀班的成员，除非PATFO决定他们看到了大多数人没有看到的东西，否则似乎都无法真正保住在替补阵容中的位置。马刺总是可能会保留一个，以努力降低合同成本，具体取决于替补后卫的市场，但根据上赛季该级别的自由球员成本，大量的选秀权以及新的CBA上限规则，新面孔似乎更有可能。
为您演奏 – 今晚的主题曲：
Pet Shop Boys 的 Memory of the Future
点击查看原文：What we learned from the Spurs win over the Pelicans
What we learned from the Spurs win over the Pelicans
Development, demeanor, and disposition
Development is such an optimistic word in the world of sports.
Within that sphere it’s a positivity that’s almost taken for granted; that development is largely a productive thing – a forward step in the process of growing and changing for the better.
This is, of course, only one variation within a whole host of definitions, most of which are not explicitly positive. Linguistically speaking, the word development merely demarcates a change or an event. Ultimately, as in life, we bring to language our convictions about the words themselves and their subjects — definition is most often relative to mindset, and in this fashion we express the manner in which we filter our perceptions of reality to others.
In this way, development is a kind of litmus test. A win like last night’s really tells us nothing within the context of a lost season. Injury doesn’t lend itself to assessment in that way.
A Spurs win against an even worse-off team (who were also without their best player) doesn’t really define a season or advance a larger narrative. The Spurs are operating outside of narrative for the moment, living within the hazy purgatory of development.
What we make of their season is ultimately an expression of ourselves.
Certainly, we can judge that portion of the season that came before cataclysmic injury, but most of what comes afterward is subject to our ability to process the disappointment specific to unfairness.
It’s unfair that the progress of an entire season has essentially been thwarted – that our ability to truly measure it has been compromised. It’s unfair that we had a limited window into the post-trade-deadline combination of Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox. It’s unfair that we’ve had to watch the roster labor under the tutelage of a coach so inexperienced that he’s never been the head coach of a roster at any significant level of competition.
And yet, it’s the way that we react to this unfairness that ultimately defines both us and the season itself. A stream of unrelenting negativity ultimately says more about us than anything. So too does an uncompromisingly rose-colored view.
Neither defines us as being particularly in touch with reality.
Is it unfair that Victor Wembayama’s ascending second season was spoiled by a random blood clot? Absolutely.
And yet, the prognosis is definitively positive. There’s been a certainty that we’ll see Victor on the court again next season and that his career has not been endangered or compromised (disregarding the good fortune of having landed Wembayama in the first place).
Has Mitch Johnson done about as well as one could expect of an almost completely inexperienced head coach at the highest level of basketball strategy and coordination? I think that would be fair to say.
And yet, there’s a nagging reality that much was left on the table when it came to how this team operated in the absence of the winningest NBA coach of all time, even prior to Wembanyama’s injury. It’s a reality that there would be a drop-off between those two resumes, and it’s not churlish to express that, nor to question why the Spurs didn’t have a more qualified backup waiting in the wings.
To simply throw concerns aside in the name of development is no less out of touch than to insist that no positive developments have occurred just because this team will almost certainly miss the postseason.
We find ourselves, as always, in search of the balance that we crave in the world outside of sports. We want to believe in an endless Camelot. We rail in fear that we’ll miss the Summer Lands altogether.
We pin our hopes on potential that may never come to fruition. We denigrate the forward progress of players who lack transcendent talent. We make a mess of this whole human experience, and then some.
All the while the ball goes through the hoop like sand through the hourglass.
And that’s the thing about development – it’s maddening. It obeys no laws of progress.
It’s easy to forget that the can opener was invented almost 50 years after the can. That the screwdriver wasn’t invented until long after after the screw. That the steering wheel was invented 8 years after the first automobile (and a number of lethal crashes).
It’s hard to blame people for having been enthusiastic about those progressions in human technology, or those who were frustrated and cynical about their future without the proper complementary mechanisms in place.
Just as it’s hard to blame those for feeling less than enthusiastic about a narrow win over a depleted bottom-dweller, or to blame those finding hope in the performance of young supporting players and a Spurs bench that looked their best in what feels like ages.
We need them both, because we’re silly, silly people, watching a silly, silly game.
And our silly little opinions are dear to us, as they should be. Because at the end of the day, development is all we really have.
Takeaways
- Much has been made of Devin Vassell’s uneven performance this season by fans (as well as myself), but it has to be noted that he’s on one heck of an efficient heater right now, averaging 20/5/3/2 on a shooting split just shy of 40/50/90 for the month of March, so far easily the best month of his season. There’s a real question as to whether or not this is a permanent return to his form from last season, and if this can be sustained with the addition of Wembanyama and Fox next season. But for now, Vassell is absolutely living up to his contract, and is a big part of a beleaguered Spurs squad finding ways to win. If this version shows up next season, with additions in the draft and free agency, he’ll be a perfect complement to the way this team is being built. Yes, I’m aware that there are a lot of ‘ifs’ in that paragraph, but I say we let him have this one for now. It’s been a rough enough season for everyone involved.
- Stephon Castle also continues to confound me in the ways that he manages to strongly contribute in spite of a shaky jumper. Without Fox he’s the de-facto best active Spur when it comes to drawing fouls, giving the San Antonio a glimpse into the best driving (and foul-drawing) back-court they’ve had since the days of Parker and Ginobili. I fully expect Chris Paul will either move on or accept a bench role next season, so we’ll probably get an extended look at Castle and Fox, who seem like natural complements (provided Castle works on that jumper in the off-season). The future of the back-court feels brighter than it has since the early days of Derrick White and Dejounte Murray.
- On the other hand, this feels like the end for Blake Wesley and Malaki Branham by extension. Both part of the same draft class, neither seems truly capable of holding on to a role in the bench unit, unless PATFO have decided they see something most don’t. There’s always a possibility the Spurs keep one in an effort to keep contract costs down, depending on the market for bench guards, but based on last season’s free agency costs at that bracket, a bevy of draft picks, and the vice-like new CBA cap rules, new faces seem more likely.
Playing You Out – The Theme Song of the Evening:
Memory of the Future by Pet Shop Boys
By Devon Birdsong, via Pounding The Rock