The San Antonio Spurs are one of the most well-established organizations in the history of the NBA. The team is notable for riding out their roster as much as they can and avoid pulling the trigger on trades that disturb their main nucleus. This practice however has not prevented the franchise from being involved in some crazy trade rumors.
In this article, we'll list the top three trade rumors in Spurs history.
Tony Parker to Trail Blazers
At the end of the 2010-2011 season, there were some discussions of Tony Parker being sent off to the Portland Trail Blazers. According to Alex Kennedy of HoopsWorld, the Spurs and the Blazers had a deal that would send Parker and the Spurs' No. 29 pick to the Blazers for Nicolas Batum, Andre Miller, and the No. 21 pick. However, the trade fell off when the Spurs demanded to throw in Richard Jefferson. Jefferson was currently on a four-year, $39 million contract, so it's no surprise that the Blazers didn't go through with the trade.
Nevertheless, if that trade happened, the Spurs would've most likely have kept George Hill as their new starting point guard and never traded for Kawhi Leonard. Additionally, there's also a real possibility that the Spurs would've never won the 2014 NBA championship.
Paul George to Spurs
When Paul George requested a trade from the Indiana Pacers, the Spurs were among the top teams in contention to land him. Furthermore, George preferred to be traded to the Spurs so that he can team up with Kawhi.
“I wanted to be traded to San Antonio,” George told ESPN. “We wanted to go to San Antonio first, and we didn't make that happen.”
Leonard also tried pushing the Spurs to trade for him.
“I was trying to get San Antonio to get him over to us, Kawhi told ESPN. You know how things work with trades, he ended up to the Thunder. But that's probably when the initial idea started when he wanted to get out of Indiana.”
According to Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN, the Spurs didn't have enough assets to pull off the trade. George ended up getting traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis.
Nevertheless, Kawhi and George eventually teamed up together two years later on the Los Angeles Clippers.
Tim Duncan to Celtics
Despite having the highest odds of landing the top pick in the 1997 NBA Draft, the Boston Celtics ended up losing the top overall pick to the Spurs. However, the Celtics didn't totally strikeout, as they wounded up with the No. 3 and No. 6 picks.
M.L. Carr, who was the Celtics' general manager in 1997, reportedly offered their No. 3 and No. 6 pick for the Spurs' No. 1 pick, so they can select Tim Duncan. However, Gregg Popovich, who was also the president of basketball operations at the time, denied the trade without ease.
“I went to Popovich, and he felt sorry that I even had to ask,” M.L. Carr told Yahoo Sports. “Because I knew right then, to get Tim Duncan away from San Antonio, we'd have to give them the Prudential Center, all the money on the Mass Pike, and you'd have to give them all of the North End. And it still probably wouldn't have been enough to give it up.”
Nevertheless, Popovich ended up making the right decision, as Duncan helped lead the Spurs to five NBA titles.
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