SAN ANTONIO — Let the record show: It was Victor Wembanyama who suggested a couple of weeks ago that Spurs teammate Jeremy Sochan dye his hair green. Sochan’s coif has gone through numerous other colors through his two-plus NBA seasons and, what with Christmas on the horizon, green seemed a natural to the 7-foot-4 French star.
Standing nearby, Spurs forward Keldon Johnson heard Wemby’s pastel proposition, chimed in with an enthusiastic endorsement and that was that: Sochan soon became the NBA’s version of Mr. Grinch.
Somewhere, the ghost of Dr. Seuss is smiling.
Sochan is smiling a lot these days, too. Basketball is fun again, and for Sochan that is a momentous change from last season. Then, he let early failure at a new position combined with unfair and unrelenting criticism on social media drag him into a deep hole of self-doubt.
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“This is hard sometimes to talk about,” he recently told Express-News columnist Mike Finger. “But last year was really tough.”
What made it tough was an ill-advised experiment with the 6-foot-8 Sochan playing point guard. The trial failed mightily, and when the Spurs ended it in early December, fans put most of the blame on Sochan. There were intimations on social media that he didn’t get along with Wembanyama, some suggesting he didn’t want to pass him the ball.
None of it was true, but Sochan, still a 20-year-old, read everything on social media sites and pondered his misfortune, real and imagined.
The season ended with Sochan on the bench after a left ankle impingement, suffered in Game 74. Not long after season’s end, he joined a Polish national team that needed to survive a tournament from which two European teams would qualify for the 2024 Summer Olympics. He led the Poles in scoring (36 points) and rebounding (18) in two games in Barcelona, but the team failed to make it to Paris.
It was, however, a respite from the negativity he had felt too often last season. International play over, he enjoyed a productive training camp and preseason with new teammates Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes and began the season solidly in the starting lineup.
Through the Spurs’ first six games, Sochan was nearly as productive at both ends of the court as Wembanyama. He averaged 17.3 points, 8.5 rebounds and shot 50.4 percent, all the while defending one of the opposition’s top scorers.
JEREMY GOES COAST TO COAST! pic.twitter.com/OdE4yVKgBS
— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) December 14, 2024
A fracture in his left thumb, suffered in a loss to the Clippers on Nov. 4, kept Sochan on the injured list for San Antonio’s next 13 games. After he returned, in a Dec. 3 game in Phoenix, it didn’t take long before he renewed an in-game connection with Paul, the master of the position Sochan had failed to connect to the previous season. CP3, “The Point God,” was back in Sochan’s ear whenever the two were on the court together, just as he had been before the injury.
“I keep telling Jeremy he’s probably going to get tired of me talking to him all game long,” Paul had said after a Nov. 2 win over the Timberwolves that preceded Sochan’s thumb fracture. “But I feel like I know a little bit about what works. It’s a lot, and that’s why I keep telling the guys, ‘It’s hard to be good; it’s hard to win.’
“So, it’s going to be asked of a lot of us, but especially Jeremy, guarding the best player, usually, and scoring. It’s hard.”
A nine-time All-Defensive Team selection, Paul, more than most, values what Sochan brings at the defensive end, which is an aggression that occasionally boils over. He defends with an attitude, as in that win over the Wolves, when he and Jaden McDaniels ended up in a scrum on the floor that earned each player a technical foul.
Sochan shrugged off that incident but suggested afterward that McDaniels had taken things personally
“(McDaniels) was the one who reacted to it and was not there fully mentally,” Sochan said. “And, for me, it was staying locked onto the next play, and we had a good defensive stop next play.”
In preparing for the Trail Blazers’ Dec. 13 game against the Spurs, Portland coach Chauncey Billups looked at that confrontation and others by Sochan and wrote a warning on his scouting report about Sochan. Its essence: Don’t let this guy get to you.
“He’s an agitator,” Billups explained to reporters about his Sochan scouting report, before the Spurs claimed a 118-116 win at Moda Center. “And, he’s really good at it.”
Word got to Sochan of Billups’ scouting report warning, and a smile lit up his face.
“It’s pretty cool,” Sochan said. “From a coach that was a defensive player, aggressive on defense as well, and took pride in that, that’s pretty cool. But, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to be me every game. Whatever it says on that scouting report doesn’t matter.”
What matters, Sochan said, is how games change when his agitation flusters his opponent.
“Oh, 100 percent,” Sochan said. “Everyone can tell — my coaches, my teammates. You can definitely tell. You can sense it. There’s been a lot of moments like that. You can see it.
“It’s funny because I don’t really do it on purpose. It comes naturally. It’s not like I’m trying to be a d—head. I’m just me, and some people dislike that, but it is what it is.”
What it appears to be for Sochan in his third NBA season is rediscovery of the joy of being a true power forward and a defender who plays with gusto and aggression.
“I think he’s thriving in it,” Barnes said. “I think it’s hard if you’re not a natural point guard to be put in that situation. I mean, there’s a lot of things going on. But I think this year he’s been great for us when he’s been out there … his ability defensively, rebounding, just occupying space on the offensive floor, whether it’s rolling, whether it’s driving, finishing, things like that.
“So, I think if anyone has appreciated this year more than anyone else, it’s probably Jeremy.”
Sochan, who changed his hair color frequently in his first two Spurs seasons, insists he will continue with Grinch green at least through the Spurs’ scheduled Christmas Day game against the Knicks at Madison Square Garden. His teammates are happy to hear it. They like the look for a practical reason: It’s always easy to find him in any on-court situation, especially on fast breaks.
“Yeah, it’s pretty out there,” Sochan said when asked if he might be easier to spot on the run. “When I look at film you can really see it. So, maybe. I don’t know. I’ll have to ask them.”
Barnes has the answer.
“Green means go,” Barnes said. “He’s already out there.”
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(Photo: Chris Coduto / Getty Images)
