Spurs offseason grades

 What are the Spurs doing?  To grade a teams moves you have to understand their attempted timeline.  Its not hard to look at a teardown and know they are looking 2-5 years out and its not hard to look at a team like the Bulls this offseason and know they are trying to go as deep as they can this season but the Spurs aren’t following any template as far as I can tell.


They have gone ‘young’, losing all their 30+ veterans over the past year, but they didn’t go young the way teams normally do, by unloading vets for future picks.  They managed 1 in the DDR S&T but considering Gay, Mills, DDR and LMA are gone now that isn’t much value and isn’t much rebuild equity.  They also didn’t stay young, the DDR trade brought back Thad (33) and Aminu (31), they signed McDermott (30), Forbes (28) and Collins (23).  The Collins move is the only ‘rebuilding through youth’ move and its not a pretty one, signing a frequently injured center who hasn’t shown anything impressive to even a modest sized 3 year deal is not a natural plus move.  It has some chance to work out but it also has a higher chance to be a full roster spot and an eventual waive/stretch with no return.


What is really difficult is the drafting of Primo while signing McDermott, their roster is young as in ‘not old’ but not young as in ‘The Cavs have 7 guys 24 and under’ young.  Primo is the youngest kid in the draft class which doesn’t hurt him in my eyes, its the kind of draft pick you make when you need upside but don’t project to have a top 5 pick any time soon.  That does sort of fit SAS but it also doesn’t.  Primo is 8 years younger than White, 7 than Poeltl and 6 than Murray and he is a project.  He absolutely could be a steal for this draft in 3-4 years, but in year 1 or 2 its hard to see.  


What is the big deal here?  Murray is young, so what is Primo is super young?  Well Murray will be hitting his 3rd contract before Primo is done with his 1st, same with Poeltl and White’s will start in the same year as Primo’s 2nd deal.  3rd contract means unrestricted free agency and players can leave and those guys are your current core along with maybe Keldon and Vassell, while Dougie is 30 and won’t be much use at 34.  McDermott is a clear ‘win as much as we can with this group’ play, which makes holding onto Thad make sense which means another likely season of not actually flipping solid vets for future assets.  Its the long, slow middle road.  The Spurs have been masters at finding and cultivating talent without top 10 selections but they were only relevant as long as they had a #1 future HOFer (or two!) on their roster.  It’s the Tim Duncan playbook without Tim Duncan.  


Grades:  


  1.  Trading DDR for Aminu, Young and a future 1st.  Grade:C+/B-.  A very good move for what DDR is and what leverage they had.  The future 1st can’t convey until 2025 and is never less than top 8 protected which makes it a moderate pick in value.  With only 3 years to potentially convey it could easily turn into a 2nd.  Young could probably bring back a couple of 2nds or a 1st if you are taking a bad contract at the deadline as he was very valuable with the Bulls and half the league knows it and Aminu is easily tradeable if he has a healthy/bounce back year and could contribute to a contending rotation.  Of course you have to trade them to actually get that value.

  2. Signing McDermott, 3 years $41 million.  Grade C-.  Makes them better this year, and fits well with Murray/Poeltl as a spacer while they cover his defensive issues.  Alternatively Lauri Markkanen could have done that for $4 million more while being 24 with upside and not 30 with downside.  Squeezing out a few wins the next two years while losing a few wins in 3-5 years is a plus move for playoff teams and a minus move for fringe playoff teams and not playoff teams.  

  3. Signing Zach Collins, 3 years $22 million.  Grade C.  Collins was a project when he was drafted 4 years ago, 2 years ago he was still a project, since then he has been injured playing 11 total games and 290 mins.  Its hard to give this anything but a C, giving 5% of your cap space and roster spots to a reclamation project is about right I just don’t think this particular project is the one you want.  Unlike guys such as Rudy Gay Collins still hand’t figured out NBA productivity when he started missing time, you need him to return to health and also take a big step forward or two developmentally to make this pay off.  If he returns to health and stinks its nothing, and if he returns to health and takes 2-3 years to actually deliver on his promise then its something but not much.  Healthy and productive by year 2 is needed to make this a plus contract.

  4. Drafting Josh Primo.  Grade C+.  Taking a very young guy who would be a much higher pick if he went back to school and took a leap is a good move for this type of team, but carries a bunch of risk and typically takes an extra year + to bear fruit.  

Overall grade C+, with the opportunity to push it to a B- if Thad and or Aminu gets moved for a decent future asset.  


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