The Wally Pipp Parallel
They call it the most famous headache in baseball history. In 1925, New York Yankees first baseman Wally Pipp asked for a day off to deal with a headache. Yankees manager Miller Huggins responded by starting the young Lou Gehrig in Pipp's place. Gehrig wouldn't surrender his post at first base for 14 years across a Hall of Fame career.
The parallels between those Yankees a century ago and the San Antonio Spurs today are getting harder to ignore. Just substitute a sprained ankle for a headache and you're nearly there.
Fox's Trade to San Antonio
A bit more than a year ago, De'Aaron Fox demanded a trade from the Sacramento Kings with one destination in mind: San Antonio. The Spurs, not knowing what the next few months had in store, eagerly obliged.
Fox's preference lowered the trade price substantially. The Spurs gave up a modest return of draft picks, kept their other key young guard in Stephon Castle and figured they had their backcourt for the foreseeable future.
Wembanyama's Injury & The Draft
And then Victor Wembanyama got a blood clot. He missed the rest of the season. The Spurs went in the tank. They jumped from No. 8 to No. 2 in the NBA Draft lottery.
In comes Dylan Harper, and Pipp Watch begins.
Harper's Development
The Spurs developed Harper slowly at first. He was a 20-minute backup for most of the season, but averaged nearly 19 points and six assists per 36 minutes.
When the playoffs arrived, it got harder and harder to keep him off the floor. He was the one who led San Antonio to a crucial, Wembanyama-less road win in Portland in the first round with 27 points on nine-of-12 shooting. He shot nearly 57% in the second against Minnesota.
And then Fox sprained his ankle.
WCF Game 1: Harper's Breakout Performance
If we're sticking with the 1920s Yankee analogies here, Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals will primarily be remembered as the night Wembanyama became something akin to Babe Ruth: a game-breaking, almost mythological figure who shatters most of our preconceived notions about what is even possible in this sport.
But right by Ruth's side was our impending Gehrig. Harper was outstanding: 24 points, 11 rebounds, seven steals and six assists. The Spurs were +14 in his minutes, second on the team behind only Wembanyama's +16.
Basketball Reference charts a statistic called "game score," which was created by John Hollinger to boil down a player's overall production in a single game into a single number. Fox's playoff high, from Game 4 of the Portland series, was 25.8. Harper, perhaps fittingly, eked past him at 25.9 in Game 1 against the Thunder.
Is Harper Ready to Start?
The performance underlines what has become apparent throughout this postseason: Dylan Harper is ready to start. San Antonio, organizationally, pays less attention to things like lineup hierarchies than almost any other team.
Manu Ginobili spent the majority of his Hall of Fame career coming off the bench, after all. Ginobili is the upper limit on how good a player can be while willingly coming off the bench. Harper is headed somewhere more substantial.
Historical Context
By game score, this was the 14th-best playoff game a rookie guard has ever played. The top three all belong to Magic Johnson, so we're starting out in good company.
Most of the others have some meaningful caveat. Six of the next seven came in the first round, and the one that didn't, Tyler Herro's Game 4 of the 2020 Eastern Conference Finals, came in the Orlando bubble.
The No. 11 slot was the best game of Daniel Gibson's career, his out-of-nowhere closeout of the 2007 Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference Finals. The next two came in losses.
And then we have Harper, whose monster performance came on the road against one of the greatest defenses of all time in the conference finals... and technically wasn't even his best game of the playoffs. That Game 3 win in Portland came with a 27.2 game score.
Three players occupy half of the top 20. Magic Johnson appears four times. Michael Jordan appears thrice. And the last three spots all belong to Harper.