What's real? Examining 8 unexpected starts
The San Antonio Spurs, Philadelphia 76ers, Orlando Magic, and more
As of this writing on Tuesday morning, every team has played between three and four games. Which, in the macro sense, means almost nothing, but in the micro sense means everything!
I’m sifting through the chamomile leaves, trying to find meaning in injury-marred, schedule-dependent, and shooting-driven outcomes. Obviously, it’s too early to make sweeping declarations about a team’s fortunes one way or another, but there are always early-season surprises worth investigating.
Let’s look at some teams that have exceeded or fallen short of expectations so far.
The Good
There are only four undefeated teams left in the league, speaking to the fantastic night-to-night parity we’re currently enjoying. Of those four teams, only the Oklahoma City Thunder aren’t a surprise. There’s also another team widely expected to be the dregs of the league who needs a shout out, too.
San Antonio Spurs
The Spurs, led by Victor Wembanyama, are the biggest story of this young season, knocking off Dallas, New Orleans, Brooklyn, and Toronto. Not exactly a grueling lineup, but only the Pelicans game (which went to overtime) was particularly close. You can only beat the teams in front of you, and the Spurs have discarded their foes like last week’s moldy leftovers.
The fellas at
(who recently joined Substack! Go check it out!) clued me into this cool stat: Only seven teams have more blocks than Victor Wembanyama does by himself (19). Wemby is also leading the league by a hair in dunks per game (4.5), and he’s averaging more dunks than three-point attempts (2.8). For comparison, last year, Wembanyama averaged just 2.0 dunks versus a whopping 8.8 triples!The floaty, perimeter-focused Wembanyama is gone, replaced by a snarling, bruising, dunking demon. He’s been impossibly good on both ends. He’s clearly stronger, which has led to loud confidence (he’s talking way more trash this year!). But the team’s success has been about more than just their cosmic talent in the middle. Everyone else is playing at or above expectations, too.
Rookie Dylan Harper has almost immediately found his groove. He eats up space when given a runway, and his athleticism is buoyed by downright eerie finishing craft:
Stephon Castle’s defense has gotten even better. He still hasn’t found his long-ball, but he’s shooting a higher percentage on twos (66%) than even Wembanyama. The spacing constraints don’t matter quite as much if Castle is such an unstoppable force getting to the bucket.
Devin Vassell is canning 43% of his triples on solid volume. The other vets, like Julian Champagnie, Luke Kornet, and Harrison Barnes, have all filled their roles ably. I’ve been hard on the Spurs’ roster construction to this point; if everyone keeps playing like this, I will be wrong.
San Antonio’s schedule gets a little harder soon, which should give us a better idea of where they level out. I’m particularly excited to see how they fare against the Houston Rockets on Friday, November 7th.
Here’s the question, though. If they look this good without De’Aaron Fox, what will they look like with him? Can they reach another level, or will Fox muddy up the rotations? I’m leaning toward the former. We’ve reached the point where Wembanyama, like the greatest of greats, lifts everyone around him.
Right now, San Antonio looks like a team that should have home-court advantage in the first round.