Which players on the Spurs roster will be a part of their regular rotation, and what will their roles be?
STARTERS
PG Tre Jones
SG Devin Vassell
SF Doug McDermott
PF Keldon Johnson
C Jakob Poeltl
BENCH ROTATION
Zach Collins
Joshua Primo
Josh Richardson
Jeremy Sochan
DEEP BENCH – VETERANS
Keita Bates-Diop
Isaiah Roby
Joe Wieskamp
DEEP BENCH – DEVELOPING YOUTH
Dominick Barlow
Malachi Branham
Jordan Hall
Romeo Langford
Blake Wesley
LIKELY TO BE WAIVED
Gorgui Dieng
Alize Johnson
Tommy Kuhsee
POSITION BATTLES
Right now the favorites to man the 2 and 3 spots are third-year swingman Devin Vassell and one of the few veterans on the roster, Doug McDermott. But there are several young swingmen on the roster who will all have the opportunity to show what they can do, possibly even in some spot starts to see if they can handle that role full-time. Three rookies (Jeremy Sochan, Malachi Branham, and Blake Wesley) and three young unproven veterans (Romeo Langford, Joshua Primo, and Joe Wieskamp) will be competing with each other for minutes. Winning games is not part of the Spurs agenda this year, so these guys will gain experience playing quality minutes in a variety of game situations and will be able to work through their mistakes. Also, there’s no true point guard on the roster to backup Tre Jones, so the guards with playmaking skills like Primo and Wesley will also earn minutes there. None of these guys, however, are likely to become what Dejounte Murray was, at least not for a few years.
PLAYERS TO WATCH
Sochan missed the NBA Summer League after testing positive for COVID-19; because of that and the fact that he’s playing for a Spurs team that is projected to be one of the worst teams in the league, his name hasn’t been thrown around much in national conversations since the draft. Sochan could end up having an excellent rookie season filling up different areas of the box score and taking on the difficult defensive matchups and could still fly underneath the national radar. With his versatile skills and team-oriented style of play it wouldn’t be a surprise for him to end up receiving major minutes.
On the other end of the spectrum is Langford; this might be his last opportunity to show that he can produce consistently and that he belongs on an NBA roster. He’ll need to show significant improvement on his jump shot if he wants to get on the court and stay there; for his career he’s only converted 30% of his three pointers and 47% of his shots inside the arc, although there was some improvement last year.