It’s time for Basketball: Spurs at Raptors

Welcome to the Game Thread. Veterans of the Game Thread know how we do things around here, but for all you newbies we have a few rules. Our community guidelines apply and basically say be cool, no personal attacks, don’t troll and don’t swear too much.

Let’s look at some numbers here: The Spurs are on game 2 of the current nine-game Rodeo Road Trip, and they’ve lost nine consecutive games coming into tonight. If they lose tonight, it will be their second double-digit losing streak of this season, the other one being an 11 game slide from November 14 to December 4 bookended by losses to the Warriors and Suns. If they lost tonight, they will be in a virtual tie with the Detroit Pistons for the second worst record in the NBA, unless the Rockets beat the Kings, then there will be a three way tie for the worst record in the league. It would be the 41st loss for the Spurs, which would guarantee a finish without a winning record (really a foregone conclusion).

But the most important number of all is related to something that will happen on May 16, 2023, when the Spurs will own a large collection of ping pong balls and hope one of them translates into the first, second, or third pick, and being in the bottom three guarantees them a 14% chance of the first overall pick, projected to be generational French phenom Victor Wembanyama.

But there are still games to play, starting with tonight. Let’s be honest, after Monday night’s late collapse against the Bulls, nobody is predicting a Silver and Black win tonight. You could be forgiven for looking forward to Friday’s Cellar Bowl against the Pistons, but the Spurs have had some surprising performances against good teams, sprinkled in with a collection of truly dreary losses. Let’s see if the Spur can sneak up on the unsuspecting Canadians tonight, who can be too nice for their own good. This is a good matchup for Jakob Poeltl, if he’s still with the team by the time it is played.

Game Prediction:

In a rare in-game trade, Jakob Poeltl and Fred VanVleet will be swapped for each other at halftime and swap jerseys, with both of them looking ridiculous in the second half due to their ill-fitting uniforms.

One final word:

Go Spurs GOOOOOO!!

San Antonio Spurs at Toronto Raptors
February 8, 2023 | 6:30 PM CT
Streaming: NBA League Pass
TV: Bally Sports SW SA

Reminder: It is against site policy to post links to illegal streams in the comments, but it is not against site policy to exchange email addresses, for instance.