Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images Not enough attention is being paid to how good Devin Vassell was last season Imagine a player averaging 20 points, 4.7 assists, and 4 rebounds per game on 47.4 FG%, 37.4 3P%, and 80 FT%, while also adding in 1.2 steals and 0.4 blocks. For reference, only 25 players averaged 20, 4, and 4 last season, and 10 of those landed on an All-NBA team. Here’s the full list of players who hit those marks — needless to say, those statistics seem to set a good bar to determine how good a player is. Kyle Kuzma is the lowest ranked player in The Ringer’s recently released Top 100 Player Rankings, and he wasn’t ranked in ESPN’s. What if somebody told you the player you imagined was Devin Vassell over the 46 games he played after Keldon Johnson moved to the bench? Feels like people might not be talking about how good he actually was last season, right? Especially when you compare him to a player like Jalen Williams from the Oklahoma City Thunder, who The Ringer has ranked at 35 and ESPN has ranked at 44. Those same outlets have Vassell at 71 and unranked, respectively (the only other player ESPN has in their top 100 besides Victor Wembanyama is Chris Paul at 99). Obviously, players who contribute to a contending team are going to have their stock boosted as compared to one playing for a bottom-dweller. But when that’s all people want to use to differentiate players, that’s when we end up having Chet Holmgren is better than Wemby conversations. Team situation, expectation, and goals all play their part in these discussions, so should we hold it against Vassell that the Spurs were a -10 with Wemby off the court? That’s why we need to dive into the numbers a bit more. Something to note before we continue: We’ll be using the aforementioned Jalen Williams in comparison to Vassell. This isn’t to say he’s not properly ranked because J-Dub is an awesome, awesome player and deserves his flowers. This is merely pointing out how Vassell is closer to him than he is to CJ McCollum (one of the 25 players in the above graphic and who is ranked 76 by The Ringer and 84 by ESPN). Taking a look at their basic stats for the full season, since we only used Vassell’s numbers from after Keldon went to the bench 28 games into the season, we see that J-Dub holds the advantage across the board. He squeaks by in the counting stats, but really holds the edge in terms of advanced stats and shooting efficiency. Not shown here is that J-Dub led 19.1 to 15.7 in PER, 62.1 to 57.8 in true shooting percentage, and 2.3 to 0 in box plus/minus. Again, all this shows that J-Dub is awesome and is highly ranked for a reason. This is why it’s important to look at Vassell coming into the year as the player he was after Keldon went to the bench. It’s also important to look at whom these two shared the court with. The most used 5-man lineup with J-Dub in it had him with Josh Giddey, Lu Dort, Chet, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander for almost 800 minutes across 63 games (12.7 minutes per game). Those five were a +10 per 100 possessions in that time. Of the 10 most used lineups with J-Dub, he shared the court with either Chet or Shai in all 10 – all three were in half of these lineups. When you look at the most used 5-man lineups Vassell was a part of, you see a stark contrast. The most used lineup for Vassell was what ended up being the starters: Vassell with Julian Champagnie, Tre Jones, Jeremy Sochan, and Wemby. Those five played a whopping 391 minutes together across 37 games (10.9 minutes per game). In those minutes, the Spurs actually had a positive net rating of +4.1 per 100 possessions. The next most used lineup with Vassell swapped Champagnie for Keldon, and in their 141 minutes over 39 games, the Spurs were a +20.5 per 100 possessions. Experimentation, minutes restrictions, and overall lack of depth are reasons for the Spurs poor record and Vassell’s advanced numbers not looking better. With the overall lack of talent and shooting on the roster (the Thunder shot 38.9% on 34.2 three-point attempts per game to the Spurs’ 34.7% on 36.4 attempts), Vassell had his work cut out for him night after night. Using bball-index.com, we can create a leaderboard to look into who had the best shot quality in different instances. In the below table, we have the following statistics for the 305 players with at least 751 minutes played last season: Overall Shot Quality, 3PT Shot Quality, One on One Shot Quality, Rim Shot Quality, Self-Created Shot Quality, Half Court Shot Quality, PnR Ball Handler Shot Quality, Spot Up Shot Quality, Off-Ball Shot Quality, and Isolation Shot Quality. Here are Vassell’s rankings for each: Overall Shot Quality: 282 (tied with Luka Dončić) 3PT Shot Quality: 270 (tied with Tyrese Maxey) One on One Shot Quality: 225 (tied with Jae Crowder) Rim Shot Quality: 184 (tied with Chris Paul) Self-Created Shot Quality: 287 (tied with Zion Williamson and Jeff Green) Half Court Shot Quality: 284 (tied with Brandon Miller) PnR Ball Handler Shot Quality: 125 (tied with 46 others) Spot Up Shot Quality: 246 (tied with 21 others) Off-Ball Shot Quality: 277 Isolation Shot Quality: 233 (tied with 10 others) This isn’t necessarily indicative of Vassell’s ability, or inability, to create a good look for himself given these numbers don’t give us in-game context. Knowing who was guarding him, who was on the court, and what the defense looked like behind his defender all impact Vassell’s shot quality. What these numbers do tell us, however, is that we should be impressed by the 19.5 ppg Vassell averaged on his shooting splits given his shot quality being this poor. In case you’re curious about where J-Dub ranks in those same shot quality categories, here you go: Overall Shot Quality: 215 3PT Shot Quality: 121 One on One Shot Quality: 130 Rim Shot Quality: 147 Self-Created Shot Quality: 217 Half Court Shot Quality: 226 PnR Ball Handler Shot Quality: 172 Spot Up Shot Quality: 160 Off-Ball Shot Quality: 37 Isolation Shot Quality: 120 Where J-Dub really sets himself apart from others is on the defensive side. While Vassell isn’t a slouch on that end, he wasn’t tasked with matchups as difficult as J-Dub. Not only that, but with his size, strength, and athleticism, J-Dub guards a larger variety of positions. Maybe we’ll see Vassell shine more defensively with the additions the Spurs made this offseason and a slightly lighter load on offense. For now, there’s not really much of a conversation to be had between these two on defense. That brings us back to offense and what we might see from Vassell this season. Having more guys who can handle the ball and get the team into sets will take the ball out of his hands a bit. That’s not a bad thing. He’ll be able to come off screens more often, be used as a spot-up shooter, and slash his way into the paint against a rotating defense. And when he is tasked with creating offense, opponents shouldn’t feel as comfortable sagging off his teammates. Just think about all the attention that Wemby is going to get every time down the court – year two Wemby’s presence alone will open up more space for Vassell to work. When you add everything together, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Vassell average around 23+ per game. Before you freak out thinking that’s a wild take, there were five teams who had two players average at least 23 ppg (seven if you want to include Joel Embiid and Julius Randle, who played less than 50 games each). Remember that Vassell averaged 20 points over his last 46 games? Funny enough, Wemby, too, played 46 games from the same starting point through the end of the season. In those games, he was putting up 23 ppg. There’s plenty of room for both Vassell and Wemby to improve their scoring output due to increased shooting efficiency from getting easier buckets than last season. Not to mention the possibility of them getting to the free throw line more. With the Spurs likely to win a decent chunk of games more than last year and Vassell playing a big part of that happening, there will be a brighter spotlight shining on him. And by the end of the year, NBA fans and media across the country will be talking about just how good he is. Perhaps we even see him rocket up some of these ranking lists.