The Athletic: What's working for the Spurs and what are they missing?

Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs haven’t lost since the opening week of the season.

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The San Antonio Spurs’ winning streak reached 10 games Wednesday in Chicago. It’s been a perfect response to a tough opening week.

What have they learned about themselves in that time? Here are the five things that stand out for the hottest team in the NBA.

The Wemby system

A cohesive identity is flowing through Victor Wembanyama more robustly than ever. The growth starts with Wembanyama becoming more reliable and having a clearer vision for how he wants to play.

Last season felt like a lot of improvisation off whatever Wembanyama was going to do. His teammates often talked about how they watched to see what he was thinking, then reacted. That led to some half-court stagnation that became a frequent issue in the postseason.

That is long gone, at least for now, as they work through an easy schedule. Tougher defenses will disrupt the flow, but the visible difference in the offense is how seamless the actions around Wembanyama look. The team operates with more connection and precision than before. Cuts are better timed to sync with Wembanyama’s reads, the guards are getting better angles to throw him lobs and he is working off two feet more effectively.

They look much more like the optimized Spurs and mostly need to shoot better for everything to come together. It’s a good start.

Three-guard lineup works

The starting lineup, with guards De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper, has a plus-30.3 net rating in 10 games entering Friday, seventh in the league among all high-usage lineups. Their raw plus-minus of plus-68 is miles ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers top lineup, which is second at plus-42. The eye test backs it up: When this group is on the floor, they own the defensive end and force teams to throw as many bodies as they can at Wembanyama.

It’s a big enough sample size to conclude it works, but not sufficient to know how it will hold up in the playoffs. The quality defenses they’ve faced, which haven’t been many, have done a good job walling the paint and choosing shooters. They have yielded many open 3s to Castle, who has been decent enough on those looks to make this experiment viable. The defense is getting what it wants plenty of the time, and the Spurs are working with it just fine.

The lineup shoots poorly, but it doesn’t give up anything defensively inside the arc. Opponents are shooting just 32.4 percent on 2s, a comically low number. The pick-and-roll defense has been strong, the guards are handling isolation well and Wembanyama has been a force in the paint. There’s room for improvement, especially as Castle gets comfortable with his shot distribution.

Mitch’s minutes

Coach Mitch Johnson explained Wednesday in Chicago that the changes to lineups and substitution patterns over the opening weeks of the season weren’t a response to the opponent; they were about finding the right rotation. Shaping the minutes became tricky when Harper moved to the starting lineup because the team relied on his explosive scoring when he entered the game in the middle of the first and third quarters. He was the temperature shift that kept the offense consistent all game. Now they have to balance point guards so they can try to keep two on the floor at all times.

That’s led to Fox getting an early first sub so he can quickly rest and become the second-unit leader around the four-minute mark in the first quarter. Then he stays in the game in the second/fourth quarter so Castle can get an extended rest. The pattern consistently gives Fox shorter, more frequent breaks while asking Castle to play longer shifts at a high intensity.

The second unit is settling into Fox, Julian Champagnie, Keldon Johnson, Luke Kornet and Harper/Castle. Carter Bryant and Harrison Barnes tend to mix in for early second-/fourth-quarter stints when Wembanyama returns, allowing Harper and Castle to rest while Fox and Wembanyama hammer their short-roll game.

This recipe is working well. It’s sustainable. It’ll get better when Tobias Harris returns. As of now, the Spurs have a clear rotation earlier than expected. Speaking of Harris …

Harris’ home

If it wasn’t clear why the Spurs signed Harris this summer, watching the second-unit struggles in the opening weeks should make it clear. The Spurs clearly need another dynamic scorer, someone who can operate in different modalities and finish from various angles, a creation hub who gives the team a break from relying on its point guards or provides another post option, as it really only has one.

The post is a route they explore mostly with Wembanyama and, occasionally, Castle. Harper and Fox can play with their back to the basket but mostly as a shield dribble or hold-up play while they reroute their attack. When you can stick someone like Harris in the high post and shift the gravity of a play around that point, it’s different. The other wings are straight downhill drivers with a fairly structured style of attack. Harris has a natural flow to his game that brings unpredictability to the second-unit offense. It will make a difference.

No finals hangover

This team is still the same. That’s a legitimate feat.

The Spurs rode their fantastic chemistry to the NBA Finals last season, the type of wave that often crashes and never returns. But the locker room dynamics still function just about the same. They are having fun, being honest, cracking inside jokes, all the usual. Johnson’s voice still registers on the Richter scale and gets a laugh. Harris organized a team burger run after the game in Chicago and got on everyone’s case to get dressed and make it so they could celebrate the winning streak together. They made sure to tease him back.

The leadership hierarchy still feels similar. The verbiage about Wembanyama hasn’t changed. Barnes is still the sage vet. The social dynamics on and off the court make it look like the playoff run didn’t catalyze an ego imbalance.

The locker room feels fun and light, what you’d expect during a 10-game winning streak from a team rowing in the same direction. When things got tough last year, the energy in the locker room rarely changed. It didn’t really change after the opening two losses.

Wembanyama said Wednesday that he didn’t feel any hangover.

“I would’ve expected it,” he said. “But I didn’t feel it.”

That certainly didn’t seem to be the case in the preseason or against Oklahoma City in the opener, but they have clearly figured things out. They have a coherent identity, and only a few players are really in rhythm. There is plenty more upside. Their framework seems to be in place, so it’s more a matter of execution now.

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Jared Weiss

is a staff writer covering the San Antonio Spurs and Victor Wembanyama for The Athletic. He has covered the Celtics since 2011, co-founding CLNS Media Network while in college before covering the team for SB Nation’s CelticsBlog and USA Today. Before coming to The Athletic, Weiss spent a decade working for the government, primarily as a compliance bank regulator. You can follow Jared Weiss on X

@JaredWeissNBA

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