It’s June 26, 2008. The Spurs are coming off a disappointing, injury-riddled loss to the Lakers within the Western Convention Finals, failing to repeat as NBA champions for a fourth time. It’s time to begin contemplating the way forward for a number of positions, together with backup level guard (with an growing older Jacque Vaughan the one returning level guard behind Tony Parker), they usually have the twenty sixth choose within the NBA draft to work with.
The Spurs predictably do what they’d performed for a decade and would proceed to do for an additional: choose an unknown prospect in George Hill out of tiny IUPUI over the likes of extra recognized prospects, akin to Mario Chalmers from faculty powerhouse Kansas (good name, Spurs). Like lots of their late first spherical picks, Hill would find yourself being the steal of the draft and go on to have a profitable NBA profession.
Now, fast-forward to June 2022. The Spurs have three first spherical picks to work with, and as a substitute of making an attempt to refill the depth chart round a championship-winning core, they’re making an attempt to construct a brand new one. After deciding on Jeremy Sochan with their then-highest draft choose since Tim Duncan at ninth total, they flip their consideration to twentieth, the place they choose the Huge Ten Freshman of the Yr, Malaki Branham.
At this level, you may be asking your self what these two occasions should do with one another. They occurred 14 years aside beneath wildly completely different circumstances, with the one frequent denominator being each gamers had been chosen within the 20-30 vary. I’ll let you know: for those who imagine within the chain response — a sequence of occasions the place a response to at least one occasion causes further reactions to happen, and with out one occasion going down, the following can’t — then with out Hill, Malaki Branham isn’t a Spur (at the very least on this universe). Right here’s how.
In 2011, Hill is traded to the Indiana Pacers on draft evening for the rights to Kawhi Leonard. Good occasions are had for six years, together with a championship, however disagreements over an damage result in a commerce demand. (Or at the very least that’s what we’ve been instructed: it’s equally as potential Leonard needed to go to Los Angeles however wanted a cause so he wouldn’t appear like a villain for leaving the seemingly good Spurs in free company.)
In 2018, the commerce is made, and the Spurs purchase DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a 2019 first spherical draft choose (which ended up being Keldon Johnson) from the Toronto Raptors. The Spurs make the postseason yet another time to tie the all-time NBA file for consecutive journeys to the playoffs at 22 seasons, nevertheless it shortly turns into clear that the primary spherical is the ceiling with this squad, and after lacking the 2020 playoffs within the Bubble and solely making the play-in in 2021, the Spurs slowly start coming into rebuild mode.
This begins with DeRozan agreeing to a sign-and-trade between the Spurs and Bulls, the place in return, they obtain Thaddeus Younger, Al-Farouq Aminu and three draft picks. Younger solely lasts with the Spurs till the commerce deadline in 2022, they usually ship him and Drew Eubanks to the Raptors in return for Goran Dragic (who’s waived) and their 2022 first spherical choose, which finally ends up being the one the Spurs use to pick out Branham.
So there you’ve got it. An innocuous occasion that occurred 14 years prior, when Branham was simply an harmless five-year-old seemingly with seemingly no concept he would (and even needed to) grow to be an NBA participant, began a sequence response that led to him turning into a Spur. Up to now, that chain has 5 hyperlinks in Hill, Leonard, DeRozan, Younger and Branham, and may Branham ever be traded and the Spurs obtain a participant or a draft choose that they hold in return, a brand new hyperlink will probably be added to the chain.
None of that is to say the Spurs ought to commerce Branham, at the very least not proper now. After a sluggish begin, he had a formidable rookie season and Summer season League displaying, having seemingly secured a spot within the second unit (and backup starter, when wanted) in simply his second season, which is not any small feat on a Gregg Popovich-led membership. What it does present is how wild and sophisticated his path to turning into a Spur actually is. It’s not typically a participant’s origin on his staff may be traced to date again. (It additionally goes with out saying that there are many different situations the place the Spurs nonetheless draft Branham; that is simply the way it occurred in at the moment’s actuality.)
For Branham’s sake and the Spurs’, hopefully he’s the final hyperlink within the chain, as a result of it is going to imply he succeeded (or it may imply he walks in free company, however that’s a subject for 2026). But when the commerce chain that started with Hill does proceed previous Branham and provides one other hyperlink, it is going to be fascinating to see the place it leads from right here.
