Sad stat shines a light on Spurs' offensive struggles

Happy New Year, Spurs fans! We begin another calendar year with love for our home team, the San Antonio Spurs. That love can manifest itself in many different ways, and with the current state of the squad, tough love is going to be required. There have been noticeable strides for the Silver and Black. Those improvements have not gone unnoticed as the team continues to gel and understand their roles, but some things have frustrated fans all year, and a recent stat only exacerbates those feelings.

28 converted alley-oops in 28 games to a 7'4, athletic, long, and eager player who is the focal point of your offense is not acceptable. The team has started to force the ball to Victor in recent games, but the alley-oop attempts are still not where they should be. Nobody should go as far as to say Jeremy Sochan has a grudge against Wembanyama as they are great friends, but only one lob assist from the Polish Prince is glaring when they have played so many minutes together.

The Spurs make the game too hard for themselves

There are detailed nuances to the game of basketball that require a lot of work, understanding, and experience. That needs to be acknowledged and accepted. It is the very reason why young teams, newly formed teams, and poorly constructed teams can have so much trouble winning games. But that knowledge should only serve to encourage the importance of easy baskets, something the Spurs struggle with.

One of the most frustrating parts of this is the obvious unselfishness of the team. San Antonio ranks 4th in the NBA in assists per game with 29.3, but they are 25th in points per game at 111.3. Over two months into the season, they are starting to find Wemby more, but it is fair to question why it has taken so long. The Gregg Popovich of old would call a timeout with a tongue-lashing locked and loaded for his players if they were not feeding Tim Duncan the ball with consistency.

Without a veteran player on the floor to help this team along, it is more important than ever for Coach Pop to stay on top of his players, demanding excellence. He already spoke about demanding more consistency from his guys and since then, there has been an increase in paint touches for Wembanyama. That's awesome, no doubt. Now let's get someone other than Tre Jones to throw an accurate pass up top for some easy alley-oop buckets. Please, and thank you.