Whereas on the lookout for an previous article of mine to ship to a pal, I ran throughout a put up from August 2021 entitled A have a look at the 2024-2025 Spurs: A little bit of hope for the long run. The Spurs had simply completed a 33-39 season during which they wound up tenth within the Western Convention. Their finest gamers had been Derrick White, Dejounte Murray and Jakob Poeltl, a far cry from the Large Three of Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili that introduced a lot pleasure and pleasure. Put merely, issues had been wanting somewhat blah, with the 2014 Stunning Sport Spurs championship fading away in our rear view mirrors, getting fainter and fainter by the yr.
Nonetheless, an August 2021 article from The Athletic author John Hollinger triggered each some hope and my article. Hollinger’s article regarded ahead to what’s now the current 2024-2025 season and identified that the normal powers can be saddled with growing old superstars making enormous {dollars} within the 2024-2025 season:
Think about, if you’ll, the 2024-25 NBA season:
A 37-year-old Steph Curry is suited up for Golden State, making $55.8M, and nonetheless having a yr left on his deal.
A 33-year-old Paul George is a Clipper, making $49 million. Lining up subsequent to him, a 32-year-old Kawhi Leonard additionally making $49 million; by then there’s likelihood he could have inked a five-year extension that pays him 8 p.c raises till age 35.
In Portland (OK, possibly not in Portland, however humor me), a 34-year-old Damian Lillard is raking in $49 million.
In Milwaukee, a 34-year-old Jrue Vacation is making $38 million with incentives that might take him to $40 million.
In Miami, a 35-year-old, balky-kneed Jimmy Butler can be making $48 million … and nonetheless having a yr left on his deal.
The Lakers might very nicely be paying a 40-year-old LeBron James north of $50 million that season. L.A. may also sit up for a 2022-23 marketing campaign the place a 38-year-old James makes $45 million and a 34-year-old Russell Westbrook makes $47 million.
And in Brooklyn, a 36-year-old Kevin Durant is flattening $51 million; if and when James Harden and Kyrie Irving lengthen their offers, they’ll absorb about $100 million extra between them. These three can be a mixed 104 years previous and their contracts alone could also be sufficient to place Brooklyn within the luxurious tax.
Hollinger couldn’t have recognized that solely three of the ten stars in his 2021 abstract would nonetheless be with the groups he listed in 2024-2025. He additionally couldn’t have recognized that the 2 oldest gamers on the listing, Curry and LeBron, would nonetheless be at or close to the highest of their video games — with their groups glad to be paying them $50 million every. Many of the different gamers listed, whereas not on the identical groups as in the summertime of 2021, stay comparatively efficient gamers (ignoring in fact Kyrie Irving’s latest ACL harm).
However the true level of his article was to concentrate on groups who, in the summertime of 2021, nicely located to achieve 2024-2025 and past. His projection was based mostly on each younger gamers already on the groups and who additionally had draft capital to accumulate different younger gamers. Whereas this put up will concentrate on the Spurs a part of Hollinger’s projections, and my feedback on these projections, Hollinger listed 4 different groups who he projected to succeed:
An important many groups have set themselves as much as be in a pronounced decline part by mid-decade, whereas only a small handful — Memphis, Oklahoma Metropolis, Orlando, San Antonio and Toronto — appear to have their eyes on any achievement past the instant right here and now.
Hollinger clearly hit on three of the 4 non-Spurs groups on his listing. OKC is now a juggernaut and doubtless the most effective group within the NBA, Memphis is a step behind however high 4 within the very aggressive West, whereas Orlando has nice younger expertise that simply must learn to shoot the basketball (admittedly an necessary talent for the sport). He solely missed on Toronto, which appears to be like like a group headed again to the lottery, although the bar to keep away from the lottery within the East may be very low: The Bulls are 27–38 and comfortably within the Play-in Match, 4.5 video games forward of the Raptors. The Bulls can be behind the Spurs within the West.
In my feedback on the Hollinger article, with the admittedly absurd assumption that the Spurs would retain everybody on the roster as of August 2021, I listed the Spurs gamers with their age beginning the 2024-2025 season:
Listed below are the 2024-2025 San Antonio Spurs in alphabetical order, with the age listed as of the beginning of that future season:
Zach Collins (26)
Drew Eubanks (27)
Keldon Johnson (24)
Tre Jones (24)
Jock Landale (28)
Dejounte Murray (27)
Jakob Poeltl (28)
Joshua Primo (21)
Luka Samanic (24)
Devin Vassell (23)
Lonnie Walker IV (25)
Derrick White (30)
Joe Wieskamp (24)
Solely hard-core Spurs followers will bear in mind all of these gamers, although it was not that way back. Solely two of these gamers stay with the group – Keldon Johnson and Devin Vassell. Of the others, I made one wildly optimistic remark: “Joshua Primo can be solely 21 and probably on his solution to stardom.” Though I didn’t touch upon him in that specific put up, a few of us additionally had excessive hopes that Lonnie Walker IV would turn out to be a wonderful participant. Sadly, Lonnie’s flashes of brilliance remained mere flashes. Derrick White has accomplished the most effective of the crew, changing into an integral piece on a championship group and a participant who would assist any group. Good for you, Derrick.
However one a part of my optimistic projections from 2021 has come true, greater than Spurs followers might have hoped. I wrote:
Whereas that may be optimistic, if not unrealistic, do not forget that the Spurs have retained all their future picks plus some extras. The gamers that come out of these upcoming draft picks aren’t included on this evaluation. In different phrases, whereas the Spurs won’t maintain all of those gamers listed beneath, this listing doesn’t embody any of the long run Spurs draft picks. It additionally doesn’t embody any free brokers that the Spurs may add.
A kind of free brokers added to the group is De’Aaron Fox, who’s each younger and really proficient. The draft picks embody Stephon Fortress, Jeremy Sochan and a younger man from France who was solely 17 when Hollinger and I had been making our projections. So sure, the optimism I felt in August 2021 turned out to be justified, even when it included some luck within the lottery. Good issues occur to good folks, and the Spurs have at all times been “good folks”.
