matthew.cafe

Baseline trade for KD – I don’t think Suns would accept anything less than this.

• Spurs get:
  • KD
• Suns get:
  • Devin Vassell
  • Harrison Barnes
  • #14 pick in 2025 draft
  • 2nd round pick in 2026 draft

What would our depth chart be for the 2025-26 season?

What would the finances look like?

My assumption is that we would want to stay under the tax. This would put us right at that limit. Everyone in brackets is assumed and not currently under contract. I think this would be a good deal for this next season. The biggest bummer is that we would only have about $7M to get a shooter in free agency and that we have no money for a center and so we would just bring back Biyombo and Bassey. Maybe we could get Sam Merrill as our shooter, but no idea.

I think the biggest question is if we would be able to extend KD into another contract and then what would that amount be. If we don’t extend him, we would find ourselves $13M UNDER the salary cap for 2026-27. We could sign a player up to that amount and then another player using the NTPMLE – so we could get two solid rotation players. We also have either one or two draft picks depending on Chicago. Here is our 2026-27 depth chart without extending him.

My fear is that this team just isn’t good enough. Keldon would be on an expiring contract so we could package him and a future pick for another big and then move Champagnie into the backup SF position. For this reason, I don’t think I would want to add another first round draft pick into the trade. I would want to be able to use that draft pick plus Keldon for an upgrade at center.

If we extend KD for something like 2 years $100M, we would be over the tax and about $5M under the first apron with the following. I assume by this point, we would move Harper into the starting lineup and see what the three guard lineup looks like. We could also still do the Keldon trade to upgrade the center position or else we only have about $7M to get the backup center.

I think I land on the trade being worth it, but I would not do it if we have to add any more draft picks. Because eventually our roster is going to be pretty thin and we need assets to be able to refill it. If we cant extend him, we will end up sending out three players that could actually be in a rotation (assuming #14 could actually play in the future) for one year of KD and then having to use free agency to replace him.

Assume we use the #2 pick for Dylan Harper, use the full NTPMLE on a backup center or a shooter, and then the #14 pick to address the remaining hole. We could bring back Biyombo to slot into the backup center role.

What if we trade Vassell, Barnes, and #14 for KD? We will only have like $8M to go and sign someone and we wont have the #14 pick to fill another role.

January 3 is when Spurs starting lineup was set as: Tre, Vassell, Champagnie, Sochan, Wemby. March 10 is yesterday.

This list is limited to our most used lineups with a positive plus/minus. Note that Keldon is missing since he plays with the bench unit which is always net minus… EXCEPT for the five man rotation where he plays with the starters.

Per 48 Minutes

Just putting some early thoughts down for next season.

I just wanted to look over some of the Duncan era post-Robinson to see how our teams were constructed and what a typical tenure is for a player. It is about 2.25 seasons per player. If you take out Tony, Tim, and Manu, the average is 1.9 seasons per player. If you only include players that played at least 1000 minutes in a season, the tenure is 3.1 seasons. So basically when we play GM, we should remember that a player is most likely only going to play 2 to 3 years with us.

This is with us running Point Sochan and Tre Jones coming off the bench. This assumes we resign Tre Jones, Keita, Mamu, and Champagnie. This roster still has two open spots and about $30mil under the cap.