This is legitimately TERRIFYING for the rest of the league... Here's why

This is legitimately terrifying for the rest of the league is not only did Dylan Harper show out offensively and Carter Bryant show out defensively, but the level of their dominance combined with what the Spurs are lined up to do next season makes this straight up the most terrifying team to play against. If you're an offensive player heading into next season, we have to break down exactly the stuff Carter Bryant did, what Dylan Harper was doing on the defensive side of the ball that hasn't been getting as much attention as it should, the Spurs depth chart, and just why this team looks legitimately scary heading into next year we got a lot of stuff to break down on this episode of Spurs Digest but hey quick reminder guys we are getting very very very close to our goal of 9,000 we're less than 200 subs away you guys have been supporting like crazy I'm seeing all the love in the comment section sincerely from the bottom of my heart thank you so much for tuning in and we're just going to get straight into it here and I want to start with Dylan Harper's defense and Eric Salinas has really loved what I what I'm seeing from Dylan defensively he's going to be a positive asset on that end as well and you know before I dive into the whole spurs depth chart because there's a lot of stuff i gotta get into in a bit i want to take a little focus on Dylan Harper and his outstanding performance on defense because look we played the offensive clips yesterday obviously the big block was one of the main highlights of the entire game of the entire day of summer league of all of summer league so far of the entire year no maybe that's a bit pushing it a bit but for me it kind of was Dylan Harper watching him has been an absolute joy but i wanted to put a focus on the defensive side of the ball now i grabbed a couple highlights here this is the possession where him and Carter Bryant both went together for that full 24 seconds along with this insane block because look guard defense is something the Spurs are very well versed in right now right and Dylan Harper being able to lock up this much changes a lot because look we know Stephon Castle's level of defense is absolutely incredible right we also tend to forget sometimes that Devin Vassell was touted as an incredible defender coming into the NBA out of college like he looked really really good and if you go back and you watch Devin Vassell defensively the dude still has a ton of hustle he still makes a ton of great defensive plays he's maybe his foot speed wasn't really there this year which was a big problem but I'm convinced that a fully healthy Devin Vassell is gonna look really really really good on defense and when you look at this depth chart again I'm gonna I'm gonna save the whole team thing for a little bit later because I want to really dive into that because I have a couple other points to make on that front. But if we're just straight up talking guard defense, Darren Fox, I believe, led the league in steals one year. Now, I know that doesn't mean he's a great on-ball defender, but he can force turnovers. That's one thing he's really good at. He is incredibly quick. He reads passing lanes pretty well and is able to do that at least. Like, you know, point of attack defense is not necessarily, you know, highest tier, but he's more than serviceable on the defensive end. Dylan Harper, again, we watched these highlights, right? getting past these guys in the half court not even just the half court in the full court like Dylan Harper can do this and especially coming into the league this year if you have him full court pressing you can have Stephon Castle doing this as well how are other teams going to have the energy to come down and score an offense if you're doing that every single possession because you can afford to because of the guard depth that San Antonio has even a guy like Jordan McLaughlin is like a good energy guy right all these guys can come at you come at you come at you jump the passing lane any single second champagne is like you know maybe not touted super super highly for his defense but it's still not bad either so when i'm talking about guard depth and defense this to me because we focus so much on the forwards right the carter bryant Jeremy Sohan Victor Wembanyama and i'll get into them in a minute for sure but especially if devon Vassell is going to get guard minutes this year Stephon Castle DeAaron Fox Dylan Harper that is dangerous right it's making the pick and rolled a lot harder to navigate for the other team which is one of the most common plays in basketball obviously but the pick and roll has been used and used and used so much every single good team pretty much uses a lot of pick and roll and if you're a team that's one switchable two very quick three very good at pressuring the ball not only in the half court but in the full court you're gonna make navigating these pick and rolls incredibly difficult and that's what i really really like about this spurs team right now and already the communication from Carter Bryant and Dylan Harper, but I'm gonna get into that more now when I talk a bit about Carter Bryant because I saw this from one mid basketball they said Carter Bryant looks like he's guarding all five guys at the same time because he has his fingerprints all over the game on the defensive end and look that's absolutely true ah that other stat I'm going to save for a bit because Carter Bryant's defense look we'll just let these rolls sit back bask in the glory that is Carter Bryant's defense I don't actually have the clip go all the way to where he forces a turnover because we've seen it but I want to get as much as I can in here like I understand the offensive side of the ball looks rough for Carter Bryant right now but the defense again the switch ability that he has the smarts here to double to like to know how much time's left on the shot clock when to pinch down when to double off when to make these reads and when we watch him navigate pick and rolls even here like he didn't even go through it that was more on Cooper flag for not going all the way through but Carter Bryant knows exactly when to switch that play with Dylan Harper as well this one here right at the end of the play it cuts off but you can see Dylan Harper's locking up Carter Bryant's man comes down sets the screen they immediately switch and Carter Bryant jumps it perfectly and that's what makes him feel like he's guarding all five guys at once because Carter Bryant doesn't just need to play the defense like man to man oh I understand look oh yeah I'm athletic I make good plays his reads are insane but his communication there were people saying there were clips of Carter Bryant on the sideline shouting out defensive rotations telling people where to go in summer league right this dude's like 18 years old he is absolutely ridiculous right is he 19 it doesn't matter he's still a teenager right this guy's knowledge on the defensive end that those instincts that IQ is stuff that you often only see from like these you know all defense level guys these guys that make the all defensive team and so when you combine Dylan Harper you combine Carter Bryant we talked about the defense from Bryant oh how good it was yesterday but this is bringing it all together and again you look back at this team and you look at what you have on the floor it's absolutely insane I'll dive into that last stat in a minute but I just want to dive into the mentalities of Carter Bryant and Dylan Harper really quick before I do because I do have that stat on team defense last year and how I think it'll change but Dylan Harper himself was like look you look at the roster top to bottom I think we can compete with anyone in the league we're having that mindset Cornette and Kelly are two great pickups we're just going to keep stacking days and you know for him to have that mindset right after that win I mean great obviously like he but he's very right like he looks at this team Dylan Harper who looks so smooth who looked absolutely filthy in transition had that insane block that great man-to-man defense this guy's our backup right he's our backup he's going to be our third guy handling the ball right because Stefan Kastle I assume is going to still get a lot of minutes handling the ball especially as Dylan Harper's young and I wouldn't expect anything else this attitude's amazing and again it's not like we need him to come in and be the best player but he went toe in toe with Cooper Flagg obviously Flagg had an incredible game I'm not going to sit here and claim Harper was clearly the superior player because I think that would that would be misleading I don't think that's that's genuine but still crazy to have this Carter Bryant too talking about guarding Cooper Flagg I just try to keep level head try to keep an even mentality towards everything but I mean he's a hell of a player you want to compete against the best in the world so him being number one in the draft is an opportunity to measure up and compete and that's what I love these guys are locked in Harper's like I know we can compete against anyone Carter Bryant is I can measure up and compete it's all about competition and when you look at this team again top to bottom I look at like not only just the starting five but like this is basically a great wall because you have Wemby and Cornett no matter what guards you have on the floor to guard that point of attack defense you have two elite rim protectors down there and I can classify Cornett as an elite rim protector he protects the rim even on three-point shots so to me he's another rim protector take it up with me I don't care it doesn't matter when Wemby and Cornett are there to block shots when you're talking about maybe switching screens you can have Sohan guarding whoever right Wemby's fine at switching screens you might do some drop coverage you might do some stuff but like a lot of our guards are still good at navigating screens so it's gonna make it harder right and then no even though you have Wemby and Cornett behind you like you have to get through everyone else first you try and do a 1-4 pick and roll like I said Jeremy Sohan Kelvin Johnson Carter Bryant whoever it is they are getting around that screen they're switching they're hedging and they are swarming you no matter what because of their athleticism their pure defensive instincts these guys know how to do it and then whoever's guarding the ball whether it's Fox, Castle, Harper, even Vassell these guys are going to make it incredibly tough to get up the floor so for a whole team to do this throughout a whole game this is going to exhaust the other team and not only will it lead to great defensive possessions it'll lead to the other team being more tired on defense and I wanted to bring this up because I was I don't want to say I was surprised because obviously we missed a lot of time from or Wendy missed a lot of time Fox missed a lot of time but you look at the defensive rating last year there were only five teams in the league worse than the Spurs in terms of defensive rating right we had the Jazz Pelicans Wizards Suns and Sixers now part of that is because of the fast pace that San Antonio plays and I don't necessarily expect that to change very much especially with a lot of our guards who thrive in transition like Dylan Harper like De'Aaron Fox these guys are menaces specifically in transition they're great in other aspects but like we saw from Harper we've seen it for years with Fox I don't anticipate the game slowing down very much especially with the way Mitch Johnson likes to run the offense but you know the defensive rating too like that's a lot of that's because when we missed a lot of time that's just points against per 100 possessions and I'm looking at this and I'm seriously saying like you don't you don't have any guys that miss a ton of time that defensive rating is going to drop so much and drop is a good thing obviously for defensive rating because you're giving up fewer points that thing's going to drop and drop and drop because even just like a 2.3 4 point drop is going to shoot you way higher up in the rankings for defensive rating and that's not the only thing to measure when you're talking about defense but the fact that we have so many guys that can pressure the ball so many guys that can make high IQ plays to make the other team question their decision making the more turnovers that we force the way better this team is going to be shooting is going to be a problem but I genuinely think that the transition points that the San Antonio Spurs will generate this year with their smothering defense especially as other teams are going to get used to what we actually can do the transition points are going to come fast they're going to come furious and that's what's going to separate our offense as well, the half court offense is going to be there, we have incredible talent obviously we have Wemby who's going to be one of the best players on the planet, we have De'Aaron Fox who's great at generating offense, we have other supporting guys right but that transition game, I'm scared for other teams man, this is a terrifying team to look at, I'm super excited to see what's coming this year, leave your thoughts on all this down below, the defense wins championships, maybe we've heard it time and time again, I think we're about ready to get back to the beautiful game, but listen, that'll do it for this episode of Spurs Digest, maybe I'm setting my goals too high, maybe I'm setting them just right, you let me know down in the comment section below, and while you're down there make sure you hit that subscribe button 70 you still haven't done it, we're getting close to our 10,000 goal before the start of next season, and I know if you guys continue to show up every single day, we'll hit that sooner rather than later. I'm your host, Josh Goss, and I'll catch y'all in the next one.