We were told that youth is supposed to shake, rattle, and roll inexperienced players, but that hasn’t been the Spurs’ experience through their seven playoff games. One of the youngest guys on the team, Dylan Harper, has the highest plus/minus on the team (+10.7). Yes, higher than Victor Wembanyama’s also tremendous number (+10.3).
In fact, Harper has the seventh-highest plus/minus of all playoff participants with a minimum of 25 minutes and five games played. He’s doing it in 26 minutes a night, providing one hell of a boost for a team that already has one of the best starting lineups in the postseason.
When Wembanyama was asked about what their Game 2 statement victory said about the narrative that they were too young to win big, he said, “It says that we don’t care.” It was very poignant, and Harper is the perfect representation of the team’s defiance.
The Spurs’ youth has turned into a weapon
San Antonio’s response to Minnesota’s win was as mature as it gets. Veteran ball clubs show up and reassert themselves like that, but the Silver and Black have the benefit of extremely spry legs with peak athleticism to run roughshod over their opponents for 48 minutes. They’re checking all the boxes and conquering each step of adversity they encounter.
Seeing Wemby slam his head on that Frost Bank Center floor, then get ruled out to go through concussion protocol, wasn’t ideal. They then dropped the game and were 1-1 with their next date in Portland. It would have been easy to let things spiral out of control, and when the Trail Blazers took a large lead in the second half of Game 3, it looked like that’s exactly what was about to happen.
However, the ex-Rutgers star had brought a steady hand from the start of the series, and when he sensed his team needed it, he took over. It was his best scoring performance of the playoffs with 27 points, and 22 of them came in the second half.
He’s capable of doing that just about every night, but that’s not his role. He plays his part well, and his willingness to stay inside of it without doing too much is a key reason the Spurs are so dangerous.
These are nuances that usually take young guys years to understand. Everyone wants to be a star. He had immense hype coming out of high school and college. His skill flashes nightly, proving why. It would have been easy to demand a bigger role, but he, like the rest of the young Spurs, isn’t like other young guys. If you don’t understand that by now, you haven’t been paying attention.
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