Spurs Fan Vote Reveals MVP, Future Stars and the Team's Most Chaotic Personalities
NBA awards season is here, and we wanted to hear from YOU, San Antonio Spurs fans.
Who is your team's MVP? What about its next first-time All-Star? Which player is on the best contract? How about the worst?
Which player is most likely to have a burner account? Who's the best athlete? And, perhaps most importantly, if you had to choose one player to team up with during a Zombie apocalypse, who's your guy?
You helped us make sense of the Spurs' breakthrough season by casting a ballot for each of these awards—and more!
Who Is the Most Valuable Player?
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Winner: Victor Wembanyama
Victor Wembanyama played the best defense on the planet this season, and he's averaging 24.8 points on 62.4 percent true shooting. If he were only doing one of those things, he'd still probably be the Spurs' MVP. Because he did both, there's really no room for any other name on the ballot but his.
Stephon Castle, De'Aaron Fox and Devin Vassell were just here to fill out the other voting spots. Wemby had no real competition.
Who Is Most Underrated?
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Winner: Julian Champagnie
Wembanyama's rise gave the Spurs a high enough profile so their secondary players had pretty good exposure. Most casual observers know about Stephon Castle's relentless defense and athleticism. Even Dylan Harper's finishing craft and feel are well understood.
Unless you catch certain small segments of the right Spurs games, you might not be familiar with Carter Bryant's boundless defensive potential or Julian Champagnie's quietly reliable three-point shooting.
Voters determined Champagnie was San Antonio's most overlooked weapon, a good call in light of his excellent three-point shooting and reliable defense.
Who Is the Best Athlete?
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Winner: Stephon Castle
Castle is exceptionally powerful as a driver, and he'll throw down a casual in-game windmill when given the opportunity. You'd have a hard time finding someone with more explosive raw athleticism.
Bryant is similarly quick off the floor and, at least on D, plays with similar force.
Wembanyama got a little credit for uncommon touch and skill in a frame as large as his If you expand the definition of athleticism to include coordination-to-size ratios, he deserved to be a consideration.
Ultimately, this went to Castle in a landslide.
Who Is Most Likely To Be a 1st-Time All-Star In the Next 5 Years?
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Winner: Stephon Castle
It's a testament to the Spurs' depth around Wembanyama that several of its young players have real shots to make an All-Star team in the near future.
That list needed to start with Castle, who walked away with a whopping 86.0 percent of the vote, but it also includes Harper and Vassell, the old man of the group in his age-25 season.
Bryant would need a massive offensive leap to get serious consideration, but he already has immense upside as a defender.
Who Has the Best Contract?
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Winner: Julian Champagnie
If strictly judging by a dollars-to-production ratio, Wemby's rookie-scale deal is a gross underpay. Legit MVP candidates tend to make more than $13.4 million, and fans nearly chose him with 40.0 percent of the vote.
Among players who weren't on minimums or set-in-stone pay scales, the two years and $6 million left on Champagnie's deal were close enough to highway robbery to get him the win.
He edged out Wemby with 45.0 percent of fan votes.
Who Has the Worst Contract?
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Winner: De'Aaron Fox
The Spurs probably couldn't have guessed that both Castle and Harper would have star upside, giving them a cost-controlled backcourt for the foreseeable future. If they'd known those two had such potential, the Spurs never would have handed Fox a four-year, $229 million extension.
That's max money for someone who, in two years, might be San Antonio's third guard.
Fox is a very good player, but he's not worth that salary—particularly on this team.
Fans agreed, giving him 48.0 percent of the vote to beat out Kelly Olynyk at 35.0 percent.
Who Is the Best Trash-Talker?
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Winner: Keldon Johnson
If only considering games against Chet Holmgren where meaningful stares count as trash talk, this award could have gone to Wemby. He loves to punish his counterpart in OKC, but Wembanyama doesn't get too verbose against the rest of the league.
Keldon Johnson will let opponents know when he's properly bulldozed them on a drive. That was enough to get him the win here, even though one time Harrison Barnes forgot to say "please" and "thank you" when the ref handed him the ball to inbound. For one of the politest players in recent memory, that counts the same as like 15 expletives.
Who Is Most Likely To Have a Burner Account?
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Winner: Luke Kornet
The Spurs really don't seem like much of a burner team. Wembanyama made his MVP case out in the open, and just about everyone else also let their play do the talking—occasional post-dunk flex by Castle notwithstanding.
Kornet would be the funniest burner owner, and it's not particularly close. Anyone who once claimed to be a team expert on "emotional availability" has a lot of comedic content just waiting to get out into the world.
Voters picked up on that.
Who Are You Taking With You Into the Zombie Apocalypse?
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Winner: Keldon Johnson
Barnes has seen it all in his NBA career, so you know he'd keep a cool head following the apocalypse. Clear thinking and perspective are pretty important when you're trying to survive in tough conditions.
Wembanyama was a tempting choice, but voters probably wondered whether the sheer amount of surface area on his frame meant he'd be more likely to get bitten than most.
Castle's athleticism would be a real advantage, but Johnson's ruggedness and physicality won the day.
Who Is Most Likely To Be Playing Overseas In 2 Seasons?
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Winner: Bismack Biyombo
Barnes and Olynyk are both entering free agency, but they have enough left to stick in the NBA. That means the search for overseas options needed to go deeper down the bench to players like Bismack Biyombo, Jordan McLaughlin, Lindy Waters III and Mason Plumlee.
All four of those guys are on minimum deals and could find better options outside the NBA this summer. Fans decided Biyombo was the one who'd most likely need to pack his bags.
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