点击查看原文：Scouting San Antonio’s Summer League success
Scouting San Antonio’s Summer League success
Columnist Mike Finger and Spurs beat reporters Jeff McDonald and Tom Orsborn discuss Vicor Wembanyama being cleared for the season and the Spurs’ Summer League success, focusing on the play of Dylan Harper, Carter Bryant and David Jones-Garcia.
Suggested reading:
Victor Wembanyama eyes the future with a balance of urgency and patience
Spurs rookie Carter Bryant confident shooting woes won’t last
Dylan Harper believes Spurs ‘can compete with anyone’ this season
Inspired by late father, David Jones-Garcia makes strong bid for deal with Spurs
Here is the transcript of the podcast:
Announcer: From a highly secure network of top-secret locations across North America, this is the Spurs Insider Summer Frenzy Edition. I am your host Mike Finger, joined as always by our panel of Express News Spurs beat writers Tom Orsborn and Jeff McDonald, along with Sports editor Nick Talbot.
Since we met you last, two weeks ago, there’s been a big free agent signing that was made official. There’s been a big trade. There’s been the debuts of the Spurs’ top two draft picks this summer. There’s been some significant developments with the franchise player.
But Tom, we’ve been doing this podcast for years and years, and the one overarching question that the listeners always have is when are the San Antonio Spurs going to win a championship again? And Tom, it could be this week.
Tom: It could be, Mike. They’re a rollicking, rolling bunch of Summer Leaguers, I tell you. Fueled by a little known David Jones-Garcia who the fans are clamoring to sign up for a long-term contract.
Mike Finger: The local cagers, the local summer cagers, continue to be undefeated in Las Vegas?
Tom: Yeah.
Mike Finger: Could close in, Mike Noise, whose name is spelled correctly, I think, everywhere where he’s mentioned. He’s making everyone forget about Greg Popovich. Greg Popovich didn’t win every game he coached. Mike Noise, unbelievable. David Jones-Garcia and these Spurs are Riley Minix. We’re recording this the morning after one of the shots that will go down in Spurs lore. Along with name your Manu Ginobili shot, Tim Duncan hitting a three in a big playoff game. Riley Minix spinning as the third option, spinning along the baseline and draining a last-second shot to beat the hated Utah Jazz in the Summer League. It’s been a heck of a week, Tom.
Tom: If you didn’t stay up for it, you missed a, you missed a good one. But no, the, you know, all eyes, of course, are on the two lottery picks. Carter Bryant’s defense has been outstanding. His three-point shot, not so much, but it’ll come. They’re not worried about it. Dylan Harper last night, slow start, shook it off, played well down the stretch, had a turnover late but made up for it by forcing overtime. Yeah, but you know, again, David Jones-Garcia from the Dominican Republic has been a joy to watch out here. I mean, he’s, you know, 20 points every game, rolls out of bed and gets 20 points.
Mike Finger: There’s a lot of different ways to look at the. Go ahead, Tom.
Tom: The defenses out here are suspect to say the least, so I mean, but it is fun to see him. He’s a good story and he’s having a great, great Summer League. A great Summer League story.
Mike Finger: Jeff, you covered the San Francisco portion of this basically by yourself, and not just in terms of the media but I tuned into a Summer League game about a week ago from the Chase Center in San Francisco and saw this dude. Basically, there’s nobody in the stands on the weekday games.
Jeff McDonald: A very handsome fellow, correct?
Mike Finger: Very handsome, very, very handsome fellow wearing his typical Kangol-ish type hat there right behind the Spurs bench, just hanging out by himself, looking at his phone probably too often during the game. There’s Jeff McDonald with the front row seat like just basically looked like 2020. In the bubble, there’s nobody there.
Just wanted to check in with your overall impressions, not just of what you saw in San Francisco, but we’ll start with these lottery picks that Tom mentioned, Carter Bryant and Dylan Harper. Have we seen what we expected to see from the two draft picks?
Jeff McDonald: Well, number one, I was unaware because the Spurs have not played in this San Francisco version of the California Classic before. I was unaware that they only sell tickets to fans with weekend games and the last day was a Tuesday. So there, it was just media and team execs and team officials. And maybe some people that just worked in the building comprised the audience there, and so I got to sit wherever I wanted and I chose to sit directly behind the Spurs bench, so of course I could spy on him. That was very fun. That was very fun.
The two lottery picks. Yeah, I think I’m not going to break any news here, but I think too much can be made of Summer League, both positively and negatively. No matter what happens, it doesn’t really matter. I mean, I guess it’s better when guys do good as opposed to bad, but if both those guys had gone, had shown up and just, you know, wet the bed, I wouldn’t be freaking out about it. But they both showed some good things.
Carter, the part that I saw, I did not see Dylan Harper play in in person. I’ve watched, I’ve been watching on television from Vegas, but Dylan did not play in San Francisco. But I did get a couple games of Carter Bryant and his head was swimming those first two games. There’s no doubt about it and going back to what I mentioned earlier, sitting right behind the bench that game, you could really see it. You could hear the coaches talking about it, you know, like, oh, Carter’s got to learn the plays, man, and stuff like that. And that’s to be expected for a guy that, you know, 10 days earlier was walking the stage in Brooklyn and getting drafted. The turnaround between when those guys get drafted and when they’re asked to play in a game for a new team is kind of crazy. So anytime any of those guys does anything positively, I’m like, wow, that’s pretty good because I would be terrible in that situation. But Carter’s defense has been the thing that we’ve seen. And we saw it particularly that game against Dallas, the the, I guess it’s the second one the Spurs played in Vegas, where he had to guard Cooper Flag a lot and you could really see him his value there.
He’s going to have to, you know, polish up that offensive game. I don’t think anybody would argue with that to get NBA minutes. You see people overreact to, oh, he’s such a great defender and I can’t wait to see him and Sohan and Steph Castle and Victor, all in one defensive line. It’s going to be a while for that in the NBA. I think Carter Bryant is still a guy that’s going to spend a good portion of his rookie season in the G League, kind of working on a lot of the things we talked about, just shoring up that that offensive game.
And then Dylan Harper’s debut in Vegas, I think he’s pretty much been what you want and what you expected, and you can see why he was the number one pick. Just really crafty, really able to get to his spots offensively. People didn’t talk about enough, but they talked about a little coming to the draft about his his defensive skills and we’ve seen a little bit of that in Vegas. He’s he’s got some defensive he he he pays attention on the defensive end a lot. You’ve seen some blocks and some he’s not just a one-way player. So I think both debuts, I mean, I don’t think either of them had just completely set the world on fire, but I think they give you positive things to look at and they’re about what you’d expect from the Summer League.
Mike Finger: I’m not sure we, I was thinking watching Dylan Harper play, I’m not sure the Spurs have had a guard, a lead guard quite like him in a long time.
Tom: Yes.
Mike Finger: Like that is a, it’s a whole different dynamic and size-wise, you know, Dejounte Murray was a, was a bigger guard. De’Aaron Fox wasn’t small. But he’s not Tony Parker, he’s not De’Aaron Fox. He’s a different type of guy and it’s really sort of fun to watch. Like Jeff said, the way he can get to his spots and the way he gets when Tony was a great paint finisher, one of the greatest actually, during his peak of, and he just had this knack. He was a little guy who could get to the rim and finish down there and score a bunch of paint points. Dylan Harper does it in a different way where he’s just bigger and that brings a dimension that I think could be really cool on this team. Even if he’s playing with De’Aaron Fox, I think you see, like Jeff said, you see exactly why Dylan Harper was the number two overall pick. It’s not a matter of being dominant in Summer League. In many ways, Summer League is made for guys and not to dump on David Jones-Garcia, but Summer League is made for the David Jones-Garcias of the world to, you know, if you have a little bit of experience and you’re not overwhelmed and you’ve been playing at this level for a while, you’re going to have the opportunity to do some things that maybe Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant aren’t ready to do yet.
I mean, you go over the history. What was Tim Duncan’s first Summer League game? Pretty forgettable. Victor Wembanyama’s first Summer League game? Pretty forgettable. And they ended up being unanimous Rookie of the Year winners. So, yeah, and it, Tom had a great story on David in the newspaper last week. He’s inspirational, you know, the guy who plugs away and comes from the Dominican Republic and it’d be great if he ends up getting a two-way spot. I’m not sure it’s guaranteed that he gets a two-way spot just because Summer League is, Summer League is so different. And yeah, he looked great in Summer League, but Summer League is really not a good facsimile of NBA basketball.
Riley Minix, the same way, like you, you look at him and he’s got decent size and he can make a shot and he’d be a solid possibility for a two-way spot. But to overreact to Summer League is something we’re not going to do on the Spurs Insider podcast this week, maybe in future weeks.
Jeff McDonald: I was legitimately worried we were going to get on here and I was going to have to talk you guys down off of the David Jones-Garcia hype train. Because it’s, it’s, it’s, that’s all people are talking about. Sign this guy immediately. What are we doing? Don’t let him get away.
Tom: Like Mike said, they’ve got, you know, it’s no guarantee he’s going to get a two-way. They’ve got plenty of guards. They’re going to look around, see if they can find some bigs. And he may not want to play here. It may, it’s not, it may not be the best situation for him. So, yeah.
Mike Finger: You guys have been up close and personal like just and this isn’t the overwhelming factor when you sign a guy, but like him standing next to say Dylan Harper. Dylan Harper is, he looks like a power forward next to him, right? Am I, am I?
Jeff McDonald: You want to give David Jones a two-way, I’m fine with that. You could even talk to me about, hey, you’ve got two more spots to fill on your regular roster. You have one that’s mandatory. You have to sign another guy. If you want to give him some sort of minimum deal to fill that spot, I’m not going to argue with you. If there’s any other.
Mike Finger: The problem with that is that you want to George McLaughlin.
Jeff McDonald: Yeah.
Mike Finger: And I’m not sure you need two guards that are never going to play. Right.
Jeff McDonald: Well, I mean, you’re going to have people that are never going to play, whatever. But I mean, if there’s other NBA teams out there that are going to go crazy and give him anything more than that, you wish him well and let him go.
Mike Finger: I don’t think they’re going to rue the day they let David Jones go.
Jeff McDonald: Yeah, I I’ve seen like I don’t, I was afraid I was going to be the black cloud of this whole discussion. So I’m glad that we’re all on the same page. But I have not to go Chris Paul, but I’ve seen a lot of Summer League. I’ve seen a lot of, a lot of guys that just are Summer League stars. There’s been a lot of David Jones-Garcias on Spurs Summer League rosters for the past 20 years. And most of them don’t amount to, you know, an NBA rotation player.
The one, the one counter example I will give is one year I covered the whole thing in, I covered the whole thing in Vegas. Maybe other people don’t know this story though. I covered the whole thing in Vegas, covered the draft picks. They had, probably had some second-year guys that were, you know, covered the guys that were going to be on the NBA roster. And by the last day, like day 10, after the final game in Vegas, I’m like, I guess I better just do a story on the guy that actually led the Summer League team in scoring. I mean, all the fans are talking about it, but he’s not, you know, he’s not going to, they never make the roster. They never sign these guys. So I’ll just go, but I need something to write on the last day, so I’ll write what’s this guy’s future. They didn’t even bring him to the podium. There was no podium at that time. And there was no, they didn’t bring him to the interview space, whatever that was in Vegas at that time. I had to go chase him down leaving the arena. And I remember thinking, this is the first and last time I will ever talk to this Gary Neal guy. And then like the next day they signed him and he ended up being, you know, a pretty significant contributor on some playoff teams, on a finals teams. So it can happen. It just doesn’t usually. Like that’s, that’s kind of the needle in the haystack. So every time one of these guys emerges in the summer, I’m usually like, well, I approach it with a healthy dose of skepticism. Like let’s see where this goes from here.
I could see, I mean, he’s totally a professional basketball player, David Jones-Garcia, and I could see him being a two-way guy for a lot of teams. Like I’m not poo-pooing him as a player altogether, but this idea that the Spurs should sign him to, you know, a long-term deal and put him in the rotation is kind of a little, a little much.
Tom: I think they’re more impressed with Minix actually. I mean, he’s, you know, he can shoot the three. And one thing that he’s shown in Summer League is his rebounding defense has improved. He’s just more a well-rounded player and he’s got better size. He’s a big scoring kid.
Mike Finger: You’re not trying to do a David Jones-Garcia, Riley Minix podcast. We’re going to move on here soon, but that’s a perfect, perfect example of the type of guy, like the contrast in Summer League stars, like the two styles of them. On the one hand, you got Riley Minix, who is playing a role on the Summer League team that you can sort of imagine him playing on an NBA team if he were to ever get that shot, like make an open shot, defend a little bit. He’s, like Jeff said, he’s got some size. You can sort of see him do the same things like if everything works out, you could see him have some minutes in an NBA game doing what he does in the Summer League. David Jones-Garcia during the Summer League has just been basically like Allen Iverson. You know, like he’s been a lead guy and that’s never, ever, ever, ever going to be his role on an NBA team. And so, you can see the way that a Riley Minix could fit in as the 14th, 15th player on a roster. As the 14th, 15th player on your NBA roster, you probably don’t want a guy who needs to be ball dominant and Allen Iverson and Kobe Bryant, you know, taking every shot. It’s just not going to work that way.
Jeff McDonald: It was funny to me that like some of the same people that were like, the Spurs shouldn’t draft Dylan Harper, they have too many guards, are now like, let’s sign David Jones-Garcia.
Mike Finger: It’s funny.
Jeff McDonald: The Riley Minix thing, I mean, the Spurs famously need shooters. So I would be a little surprised if Riley Minix isn’t in the program somewhere when this all shakes out. If it’s another two-way deal and he’s, he’s one of those guys, maybe that’s it, but I would be surprised if he’s not one of the 18 guys by the end of this that the Spurs are allowed to have under contract of some sort. I would be a little surprised.
Mike Finger: You guys would know this. He’s not. This is not a, this is not a shot necessarily, but has the, has the Spurs had a two-way player success story recently? Like Drew Eubanks worked his way up from two-way into a, carved out a nice NBA career as Greg Popovich used to say. A lot of, you see a lot around the league every now and then a two-way guy becomes a rotation player, but it seems like the Spurs have been kind of a dry spell in terms of turning two-way guys into significant contributors. Am I wrong about that?
Tom: No, Eubanks was a good story. He’s like, yeah, like Pop said, he carved out a career.
Mike Finger: That’s been a few years though.
Tom: Yeah.
Mike Finger: You’d like to see a little more from like the C.D. Sasoko really hasn’t caught on. He got moved on. Harrison Ingram, the jury is still out on that.
Jeff McDonald: Who would be the next guy like Bassey?
Mike Finger: Bassey. Yeah, it’s just been they haven’t had those kind of lottery tickets pan out recently and it’s, it is a crapshoot, but maybe, maybe we’ll see a guy like Riley Minix move up from two-way guy to top 10 rotation player or somewhere at some point. I could see it.
The fans do not want to listen to more David Jones-Garcia, Riley Minix.
Jeff McDonald: I actually disagree with you. I think that’s all they want to talk about.
Mike Finger: Judging from social media. We discussed Luke Kornet last podcast. He was made official since then. Tom went and graded him. Heard him talk about how he wants to be a third of the player that Tim Duncan was, his number seven. That was a good line. But we probably don’t need to get too deep on Luke Kornet who we discussed a lot last time.
There was a, there was a trade, adding another center to back up Victor Wembanyama. Kind of the contrasting backup style to Luke Kornet who went from outside to inside and now is an old-school offensive rebound, defensive rebound, a finisher at the rim, never ventures outside the three-point line. In Kelly Olynyk, who the Spurs traded for, you have that stretch five who is an accomplished three-point shooter. Adds that kind of dimension to the rotation. And I think, I think that’s a pretty good way to use the combined talents of Malakai Branham and Blake Wesley, who remained together, remained joined at the hip ever since they were drafted together. What do we think about that deal?
Tom: Well, it’s going to be interesting to see how the rotations shake out, how much time those guys see on the court with Wemby. You know, we talk about him strictly in backup, old school thinking, but yeah, I mean, Mitch has got a lot, Mitch and the coaching staff have a lot of things to shake out on how to implement all these, all these new pieces.
Jeff McDonald: I like adding that tool to the toolkit. You know, a stretch, a stretch big. I mean, we talked about how the Spurs need shooting, and here’s a guy that I believe Olynyk hit 40% last year. Like I know he wasn’t shooting like a Steph Curry-esque volume, but he’s a guy that can knock them down. And he’s a veteran guy that’s been around the block a few times. And I, I think at this stage of the Spurs life cycle, it’s not a bad idea to have a few of those guys around who can, you know, who know the deal, who know the deal. Not saying he’ll be Chris Paul in that scenario, but just another veteran voice will be good to have around. And I think, I think Olynyk can still play a bit too, so you’ll, you’ll see him, you know, contribute in the ways that we’ve talked about.
Mike Finger: Gives you options, right? Like the, like we, there are games when the Spurs the last year or so, just were getting so pummeled on the glass that they needed a big guy to get in there and just be big for a little bit and do big guy things. And in those type of games where you’re just getting overwhelmed, you can probably see more Luke Kornet. And then there are games when they need some where maybe the opposing team goes, goes small and plays fast and you need three-point shooting. Olynyk can play there. I think it gives Mitch Johnson options to use one or the other. You’re not going to necessarily see all three of those big guys, counting Victor, play, certainly not at the same time, maybe not even in the same night. You know, there might be one night might be an Olynyk night, one night might be a Kornet night. You know, there’s going to be nights when Victor misses games like every NBA player does. It, it gives you some options. And in terms of bidding farewell to Malakai Branham and Blake Wesley, I know Jeff has the patent answer to this, which I know is coming. But those, those picks, in retrospect, kind of disappointing. You had two, you had three first-rounders that year, took Jeremy Sohan in the top 10. And we’re hoping to hit on either Malakai or Blake, and neither really panned out as a rotation guy. But Jeff, your response is?
Jeff McDonald: I mean, it was genius. It helped you get Victor.
Mike Finger: That’s it. That’s it. If they’d have taken a better player there with one of those top, top 30 picks in Malakai and Blake.
Jeff McDonald: It’s the greatest get out of jail free card ever for Brian Wright, you know. Why, why’d you, why’d you take Tari Eason? Well, we did, we wouldn’t have Wemby. You know, why’d you take Primo? Well, we didn’t, we’d have Primo, we’d have Wemby. It’s pretty great. It’s pretty great. And in fairness, I think a lot of things the Spurs have done since getting Wemby have been pretty, pretty, pretty great. But a lot of those interim draft picks because, we don’t need to talk about it. But because you’re just taking swings at that point. Before you have your Wemby, you’re just, you’re just, you’re rolling dice and taking swings and.
Mike Finger: And they had been so good at those. The Spurs had been sort of spoiled with their late first-round picks over the years. I mean, over and over and over again. They got guys who were part of the the the the foundation or, or, you know, building block pieces from Derrick White to Dejounte Murray, even Keldon Johnson. You know, there’s a long list of those guys and you can go back farther than that, obviously.
Jeff McDonald: I think we figured out they’re really good in the top five and like second to last in the first round.
Mike Finger: Yeah. Anything in between is, I don’t know.
Jeff McDonald: Uh.
Mike Finger: But I, I think to, to use those picks, or to use those players, Malakai and Blake, on a guy like Olynyk, I think that’s a, that’s a good use of assets.
Jeff McDonald: Worked out.
Mike Finger: And as we’ve mentioned, still two open spots left, so we’ll see how that.
Jeff McDonald: Got to wish Malakai and Blake well going forward to Washington. You know, they were good soldiers here even though they didn’t pan out. I always talked about if Blake had Malakai’s shot or Malakai had Blake’s defense, that’d be one pretty good NBA player. But you separate those two talents in two different bodies, it’s, it’s, it’s not as good. So it just didn’t, it just didn’t work out for them here and there was going to be no way they were playing on this roster. It was going to take some disasters to happen for these two, those two to end up playing on this roster. Now that you have Steph Castle, you have De’Aaron Fox, you have Dylan Harper, you’re already going to have trouble getting the guys you want to play on the on the floor. Guys like Malakai and Blake, they had their shot to show what they, you know, how they could be a part of it and it just didn’t work out for them, so.
Jeff McDonald: I think that’s, I think that’s important too. It’s going to be something, good to flip them for something that, that does help you.
Mike Finger: I think it’s important too to acknowledge there that they, they did have their shots over the, over the past several years. It’s not like they immediately got buried on the end of the bench and then never had their opportunities. There were there were many opportunities over the past three years for them to get little spurts and get several games at a time where they were, they were being used and like both of them had their stretches. Pop had Malakai playing point guard for a while.
Jeff McDonald: Maybe that screwed them up.
Mike Finger: Maybe it did. Blake Wesley had his stretches where he was a really effective defender off the bench, but it just never came together. Spurs have moved on and they’re moving into an era where their best player, star player, is going to be ready for the start of training camp. We’ve gotten 20 minutes into this podcast and haven’t mentioned maybe the biggest news of the summer and that is something that I think we all expected that Victor would be ready to go. But talking to our good friend Maxime Alban, Alban, I’ve never called him by his last name before, of L’Equipe, Victor, Victor told the people of France that he’s going to be ready to play, that the Spurs have officially cleared him. We’ve confirmed that he has been cleared by the Spurs to return to basketball activities and that’s really good news for this franchise, Tom.
Tom: Yeah, yeah, it is. As you said, not unexpected, but, but it is official and, you know, it, it was, it was tough. It was, I remember how shocking it was that day we walked into Moody Center in Austin, a cold day and find out that he’s, you know, derailed by a blood clot in his right shoulder. That’s pretty chilling, that’s pretty chilling thing to hear. But apparently, you know, it’s, it’s all worked out. He’s gotten the medical treatment he needed. Long-term looks to be healthy and it’s really good news, really good news. Considering where we were back in February when, when the news came out.
Jeff McDonald: It’s kind of where I want to be Greg Popovich because Mike Finger, did you ask Tom Orsborn, the Spurs are getting their franchise player back from a blood clot, what do you think about that?
Mike Finger: Uh-huh.
Jeff McDonald: Like it’s a pretty obvious question, right?
Mike Finger: Um, like Pop has been, Pop has been officially retired for a few months.
Tom: You answered the way I answered it. It was real.
Mike Finger: Pop hasn’t been around. Pop really hasn’t, we haven’t done a Greg Popovich press conference question and answer-wise since last October. We mentioned both times. Or November. So it, it, I think it was the first week of November, wasn’t it? Yeah. First, yeah, first week. So and we’ve, we’ve talked on this podcast for years about how.
Jeff McDonald: Well, lazy there with the questions.
Mike Finger: About how he’s kept us honest and about how you learn to ask better questions. And when you’re you spend time away from Pop, you, you develop lazy habits. You don’t have anybody there to jump on you for asking asinine questions. And that was, that was an example of that. Like he, he, he hasn’t been around to keep me honest, so I asked Tom a pretty obvious question. That Pop would have said, did you stay up all night thinking about that?
Jeff McDonald: No, we’re upset about it. We don’t want him to play, he’s terrible.
Mike Finger: Uh-huh.
Tom: Well.
Jeff McDonald: He asked Mitch Johnson that question, he would answer much in the way your, your, your kind colleague Tom Orsborn.
Tom: Oh, I mean, yeah, you put it in context.
Jeff McDonald: Right, because Mitch lets Mitch lets you slide.
Mike Finger: Uh-huh. Um, yeah, so, so Victor will be ready seemingly. I, I think that there’s, there’s probably some, you never, you never want to take anything for granted all the way that he’s going to be, he’s going to be there on opening day. There’s, there’s still issues to deal with and going through what he went through. You know, you don’t want to take anything for granted, but it’s good news and to have that group together to start out. As Jeff mentioned, Carter Bryant might not be part of the rotation right away. But I think Dylan Harper will be. And I guess Jeff, do you want to take a guess as to what the, the lineup looks like on opening day if Victor is ready, Dylan Harper is ready, everybody’s ready. I think I’ve had my guess and I’ve mentioned it before, but who’s your, who’s your starting five?
Jeff McDonald: I think there are four players that I would lock into the opening day starting lineup. And I’m not saying it would stay that way the entire year, but on the first night of the season, I think you will definitely see De’Aaron Fox in the starting lineup. I think you’ll definitely see Devin Vassell in the starting lineup. I think you’ll definitely see Harrison Barnes in the starting lineup. And I think you, think you’ll definitely see Victor Wembanyama in the starting lineup. And the only spot I’m a little, I don’t know about is, is, do you start Steph there, which I think they probably do, or do you put Dylan there from the get-go? But I think it’s going to be Steph Castle and Dylan starting his career off the bench. That’s exactly what they did with Steph last year. Let him work his way in, get his feet wet off the bench. So I’d put Steph in that group of four that I just mentioned and I think that’s your opening day starting five.
Tom: No Jones-Garcia.
Jeff McDonald: No, no, no, no, no. He’s going to sign a max deal with the Lakers.
Tom: Okay, okay.
Jeff McDonald: Heard it here first. Aggregate that if you want. All you aggregate.
Mike Finger: Can you imagine if he not the max deal, but if he just like signed with the Lakers, the freak out in certain quarters that that would create? Because it’s like our, our friend of the podcast in Portland, Sean Heiken has the thing that he calls the prestige zone. That when some guy who’s been a journeyman his entire career signs with either the Lakers or the Celtics or the Knicks. Sometimes, I think the Warriors are a prestige zone team now. That automatically they become better. Like everyone talks about them. The, you know, national media throughout the league, it’s like, oh, these guys, you know, this guy is, is good now. Like if Dalton Knect had been drafted by the Hornets, no one would care about him, but when he was drafted by the Lakers, it was like, he’s going to be the next coming of Larry Bird.
Tom: Charles Bassey could be the next Bill Russell.
Mike Finger: Exactly. Exactly. So, so like if, if David Jones-Garcia doesn’t get signed by the Spurs and signs with, that’s what happened with Lonnie Walker. Remember? When Lonnie Walker was a Laker for a little bit. Like everyone was freaking out about how great Lonnie Walker looked as a Laker. And, well, the Spurs messed up and now he’s, he could be, he could be LeBron’s running mate for years to come. You know, Lonnie Walker, it didn’t really work out that way. But I, I think that’ll be the most hilarious outcome for David Jones-Garcia to sign with the Lakers. I’m, I’m sort of rooting for that to happen now. That’d be, that’d be fun.
How did I get sidetracked? What were we talking about? Oh, the, the lineup. Tom, you think that’s, that, that sounds like the right guess on that lineup. I think that’s the obvious one what Jeff said.
Tom: I think so. Yeah, I think so. Um, you know, we’ve talked a lot about a lot of people, De’Aaron Fox. Um, you know, fully healed from the hand surgery presumably. Um, you know, it’s going to be interesting to see what he can do after a full training camp with his mates and, um, yeah, he’s, he’s one guy I’m, I’m intrigued about. See what, what can shake out with him.
Jeff McDonald: People seem to forget what an absolute bucket that guy is.
Tom: Yeah, yeah.
Jeff McDonald: We didn’t see him very much in San Antonio last year and we didn’t see him healthy at all because he arrived with the finger thing. So, um, hey, that’s not nice.
Mike Finger: [laughs]
Jeff McDonald: Was going to say, should that be the name of this podcast, The Finger Thing?
Mike Finger: The Finger Thing.
Tom: In the podcast.
Mike Finger: Although people might think that’s a totally different podcast.
Jeff McDonald: You know, so we didn’t see a lot of, we didn’t see De’Aaron Fox at his best and he was still pretty good in a lot of those games.
Tom: Right, right.
Jeff McDonald: Um, so, like, let’s, let’s, let’s not, let’s not sleep on the All-Star the Spurs traded for with much, for much with much fanfare last year. Like he’s going to be a big part of this.
Mike Finger: This is a cap nerdy thing and it’s not our bag, as the kids say. And I, and I, it, it makes for sort of mind-numbing discussion, but we might, we might get into this at a future podcast when the date gets closer. He’s, De’Aaron Fox is eligible to to sign that extension. I think the first week of August. And there’s some really smart cap people out there wondering if it will be the whole max thing because of the way that the Spurs situation has changed since they made this trade. And I’m wonder again, I’m I’m reluctant to to get into it here, but I wonder if there’s a middle ground where they, they do sign De’Aaron to an extension. I think John Hollinger brought this up. They do sign him to an extension of two or three years rather than the max four. Give him an option in there. And, and work and, and re-evaluate in a couple years. I guess, I guess the overarching question here is, do you still, knowing that he’s on a different timeline, knowing that you now have Dylan Harper and Stefon Castle in the fold, do you still think it’s automatic that De’Aaron Fox signs for the maximum amount for four years in August or do you think there might be a middle ground there to, to find?
Jeff McDonald: I don’t know. I think that, I think yeah, I think, I think it makes sense to me to look for that middle ground, but, um, you’re going to have to make it worth De’Aaron’s while somehow.
Mike Finger: Yeah. I think the, the the option that Hollinger threw out there was to give him his 50 million for the next two years, give him an option for the third year and, uh, and where he’s still making what he would make under the, under the, uh, the extension, let him go back on the market maybe in a couple years. And by that time, I mean, we’ve, we’ve said over and over again that this group can coexist, that there’s enough space this year, next couple of years for De’Aaron Fox and Stefon Castle and Dylan Harper. But I do think it’s worth thinking about, um, whether that’s the best use of resources over the next like five years to, to pay De’Aaron Fox max money in what 2028 while Dylan Harper hopefully is turning into a an elite lead guard, while Stefon Castle is turning into an elite wing or lead guard. Like it’s, it, it I think the Spurs might be re-evaluating a little bit as to what the, the plan is with De’Aaron. Now, their, their plan when they traded for him was to give him that max, I think. And, uh, and maybe they stick with that, but it does add a new wrinkle having, having, um, Harper around. Just something to look forward to.
Jeff McDonald: I think that’s fair. I think that’s fair to say. It’s, it’s adds a new wrinkle and it, it, it gives you extra things to think about if you’re the Spurs. And I guess if you’re De’Aaron Fox as well. I don’t, I don’t know the answer to your question what they will do, but, um, it, it is something that you definitely have to take a look at for the reasons you mentioned.
Tom: Maybe throw in a private jet.
Mike Finger: Just fly Southwest, man. It’s just the same now. [laughter] This is insider stuff here, folks. We’re not, we’re not going to do this. There’s somebody listening to this podcast probably.
Jeff McDonald: The nerve of this organization.
Mike Finger: Who is driving his F-150 off the road right now. He’s so outraged. But, uh, shout out to him.
Jeff McDonald: On his way to buy a $20 Frito-Lay pie.
Mike Finger: Shout out to our guy. We love you. We love all of you for listening. Whether you listen or not, we’re, we’re a pro, uh, people podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. We’ll be back, we’ll be back in a couple weeks until the next time, take care of each other and keep it real. [music fades in]