Jeremy Sochan’s fall from NBA lottery pick and champion to the G League

When the Spurs first drafted Jeremy Sochan out of Baylor with the 9th overall pick in 2022, I remember probably being more thrilled with the pick than warranted. I hardly knew anything about him, but I did know he had size and was not a guard, and that’s all I wanted. If you ignore 2019 (when the Spurs drafted a bust power forward in Luka Samanic and a truly “small” forward in Keldon Johnson) and 2015 (when they drafted and stashed center Nikola Milutinov), you otherwise had to go all the way back to 2014 and Kyle Anderson to find the last time they drafted a player who was not a guard or small wing in the first round. (And even then, Anderson was more of a guard in a forward’s body.)

As good as some of those picks were — steals with Dejounte Murray and Derrick White late in the first round, Devin Vassell as their first lottery pick since Tim Duncan — others were merely okay or even complete busts that failed to address what was constantly an area of weakness during the post-Kawhi Leonard era: size at the forward positions. They finally changed up their drafting pattern when they took Sochan, and he seemed like a great fit with the club, both by filling a position of need and bringing a sense of humor during a couple of rough “tanking” seasons.

Advertisement

He had a good rookie season with the Spurs, making the All-Rookie 2nd Team and proving to be one of the better perimeter defenders in the league. He also had a knack for defending the rim and grabbing rebounds despite being slightly undersized when playing center. Across his first three seasons, he averaged a consistent 11+ points and 6+ rebounds on solid shooting numbers — inside the arc. A good comparison for him would be Malik Rose (the Spurs’ undersized backup big man from their first two championship teams) but therein lies the problem. Rose was ideal for that role in the 2000’s, but a power forward/undersized center without a three-point shot just doesn’t fit today’s game, and that’s where Sochan found himself.

After winning the lottery and drafting Victor Wembanyama in 2023, experimentation began to figure out how to best utilize them together….

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/jeremy-sochan-fall-nba-lottery-193008664.html

Author :

Publish date : 2026-11-04 19:30:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.