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The San Antonio Spurs arguably had the best offseason of any team, winning the NBA Draft Lottery and drafting a generational prospect in Victor Wembanyama. After that, though, their NBA free agency period was relatively quiet, and you can ding the team for not going more to build around their new superstar. Going even further, the one big Spurs free agency mistake this offseason was not finding an above-average point guard to help develop Wembanyama because re-signing Tre Jones isn’t going to cut it.
Why the one big Spurs free agency mistake was not finding a point guard
The Spurs have won the No. 1 pick three times in their history as an NBA franchise — which started with the ABA/NBA merger in 1976 — and no team has done better with their top selections.
In 1987, they got Navy center David Robinson, a top-30 player of all time. In 1997, they got Wake Forest power forward (center?) Tim Duncan, a top-10 player of all time. And now, in 2023, they got 7-foot-5 French wing (center?) Victor Wembanyama, a top-five prospect of all time.
With Robinson, the franchise did an average job putting talent around him. By his rookie season (three years after his draft class due to military service commitments), the team had a young PG in Rod Strickland and a well-known vet in Maurice Cheeks with The Admiral, as well as players like Sean Elliott and Terry Cummings.
Over the next few seasons, the team tried young guards like Avery Johnson and Vinny Del Negro and veteran guards like Vinnie Johnson and Doc Rivers, with varying levels of success, but they never found the right mix.
Then Duncan came along, and the team won a championship in The Big Fundamental’s second season. After that, the Spurs built around Duncan right, bringing in Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili in the draft to pair with the big man.
The learning here is you need to put the right players around your star to build something special. And after just two Summer League games in Las Vegas, it’s relatively clear as to who the right players around Victor Wembanyama are.
Wemby is a 7-foot-5 version of Kevin Durant. He has all the perimeter skills of a big wing, but at 7-foot-5, he dwarfs every other NBA player on the court, and that’s a mind-blowing feat against some of the tallest humans on earth.
As we see more of him, it will become clearer what he needs as far as shooting and defense around him, but for now, an excellent pick-and-roll point guard is what Wembanyama needs to succeed. He is a devastating pick-and-roll and pick-and-pop player who seems to be able to score from that set at any time he wants. Having a great pick-and-roll PG by his side is key to developing this skill set even further.
This is what Wembanyama’s French team, Metropolitans 92, did that the Spurs haven’t in NBA free agency. Wemby played alongside some youngsters, like Washington Wizards’ No. 7 overall pick, Bilal Coulibaly. However, the guards that Mets 92 brought in for Wembanyama were American players who played big-time college ball, in the G League, and even in the NBA. That’s because these players knew how to run pick-and-roll.
In Spurs' free agency, the team made one point guard move, re-signing Tre Jones. That keeps him with Devonte’ Graham as the team’s two PGs. Neither one of these players is an upper-echelon PG in the NBA. Jones has solid assist numbers, averaging 6.6 per game. And Graham has decent pick-and-roll stats. He is T-47 in the league as a pick-and-roll ballhandler with 1.02 points per possession.
Still, the big miss is Spurs' free agency was not signing another point guard or trading for one.
The NBA free agency point guard market was, admittedly weak. And there are still some interesting names on it that the Spurs could still sign. Fred VanVleet, Coby White (restricted), and Gabe Vincent were all names the Spurs could have considered as potential Wembanyama running mates.
If the Spurs decide to make another move in free agency and add a third PG, they could look to add another veteran like George Hill or Kendrick Nunn or take a chance on a youngster like Daishen Ni or Ayo Dosunmu.
Ultimately, the Spurs will likely have to draft a young, dynamic PG to grow with Wemby or make a blockbuster trade for a player like Ja Morant, Tyrese Haliburton, or Trae Young. For now, though, it looks like the team will stick with Tre Jones and Devonte’ Graham, which isn’t a disaster by any means but is the Spurs' biggest free agency mistake in 2023.
