Now's not the time to chase the stars
The Spurs will have the opportunity to pursue their next superstar, but they shouldn't go that route before they're prepared to do so.
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In the glitzy, glamorous party that is the NBA, the superstar or franchise player is the chandelier to which the ballroom crowd is drawn. Not only does it tie the room together nicely, but it resembles a sort of gravitational pull that serves as the anchor around which a group revolves and evolves.
The magnetism of these centerpieces is real and the pressure to attain them is permanently palpable, as they’re typically associated with identity, hope and direction — symbols that represent an organization and fanbase on local, national and international levels. But too often the urge to grab at these bright, shiny objects can convince those seeking them to jump before they’re truly ready to pay the going rate of ownership.
For the Spurs, the asking price of Ben Simmons is a difficult one to digest – not necessarily because of his abilities, but because the structure and timeline currently in place may not be able to accommodate him. You can buy that chandelier but you’d better hope your ceiling can support it over the long haul.
High-profile trades, especially ones involving superstars under contract, almost always require the inclusion of All-Star talent in return and/or a bevy of additional picks tacked on to outgoing salary as compensation, or a slew of assets in the form of multiple players and picks to even make it in the room. San Antonio clearly doesn’t have the former, so the acquisition of that centerpiece would come at the expense of depth and flexibility for a team that, after four years of limbo, has finally found its way back to the starting line.
You’ll find many people – fans, media members, coaches and team executives alike – who share the belief that you should do your best to find a way to the superstar, even at great cost, whenever the opportunity presents itself. That simply, once that piece has been acquired you’ve taken the most difficult and important step, and the risk is always worth the reward. While this may be difficult to argue in a vacuum and on paper, outside of that vacuum it’s an approach that’s more market-specific and time-sensitive than it is all-encompassing.
Big markets like New York, Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago (to name a few) have the luxury of being destination cities. This often affords them the ability to plan for big free-agency periods every summer with confidence they have a realistic chance to land the biggest of prizes; and in the meantime they can also experiment by throwing shit against the wall until something sticks or ripens enough to be of interest to other organizations. And perhaps ‘shit-throwing’ is too pejorative a description, as it still takes shrewd management and smart drafting to maintain flexibility during tumultuous stretches or down years. Take the Knicks for example: a team with all the money and mythology that exists in the world of sports, in perhaps the most famous city on the planet, that simply hasn’t been able to get out of its owner’s egomaniacal shadow and manage that franchise intelligently. It’s only recently adopted a decent roster-building strategy that doesn’t consist of simply gutting rosters with the hope a major free agent will sign and deliver them from evil, and still there’s a long way to go for them.
But that isn’t a viable approach for the Spurs. Unless they believe they’re getting a superstar who can quickly attract other top-tier talent to join him in San Antonio, the likelihood of landing the co-stars necessary to reach the NBA pinnacle in free agency probably isn’t high enough to legitimize this as a sound strategy for this team’s immediate future. And even understanding Simmons is represented by Klutch Sports with its long list of big-name players, agency founder Rich Paul and Co. haven’t exactly made it a habit to funnel players toward South Texas.
What’s more is the free-agent landscape during the summer of 2022 is not teeming with realistic options, and therein lies one of the biggest issue in trading for Simmons right now: By taking this route, the Spurs would be aggressively expediting the rebuild/retool process and immediately placing upon themselves a countdown for expected success prior to the expiration of Simmons’ deal following the 2024-25 season. And given what the Sixers are asking for in return, any trade made would leave a sizable dent in San Antonio’s current stockpile of assets that hasn’t truly had a chance to mature into something valuable as players or trade pieces.
Reports over the last month or so revealed Philadelphia was asking for at least four first-round picks and an All-Star caliber player in return for Simmons in most situations. The Spurs do not own a player of that status, so they would have to send back multiple picks and players — almost assuredly including a portion of its young core — in order to absorb much of Simmons’ $33-million cap hit. But another report from Keith Pompey of the Philadelphia Inquirer surfaced yesterday that Simmons has now demanded to be traded and will not report to training camp if he isn’t moved, which inevitably changes things from a leverage perspective for Daryl Morey and the Sixers’ front office. Exactly how much that’s changed remains to be seen, but you don’t have to go back too far to the January trade of James Harden from Houston to Brooklyn AFTER THE SEASON HAD ALREADY STARTED to understand the kind of value these players can demand even when the aggrieved party’s current team is firmly cornered with its proverbial back against the wall.
The Nets had to send three unprotected first-round picks and the right to four first-round swaps to the Rockets, as well as four young players to multiple teams (most notably Caris LaVert to the Indiana Pacers and Jarrett Allen to the Cleveland Cavaliers) in order to make the money work in the deal. Simmons’ shooting issues might make him less desirable than Harden in the eyes of many, and the likely draft slots the Spurs will occupy in the near future, even if Simmons was on the roster, stand to have significantly more value than those Brooklyn sent back to Houston at the time, but that trade still paints the picture that negotiations will be demanding and competitive even with diminished leveraging power. Sure, the Nets’ picks stand to be near the bottom of the draft order so long as Harden, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving are around and healthy, but that’s still three extra first-round selections and overall added control with four pick swaps over the course of the next seven years for Houston. That’s substantial.
What may further complicate things for San Antonio in any potential trade scenario is that Paul has apparently made it known he’d like Tyrese Maxey, another Klutch client, out of Philly as well. So there’s a possibility the relationship between agency and front office has soured to a point that the idea of sending guys like Dejounte Murray and Lonnie Walker IV (both also Klutch clients) back to the Sixers in any potential deal would be a bigger headache than Paul or Morey would like to manage, and that would restrict the Spurs’ flexibility even further given those two would likely be among the first players San Antonio would put on the table in discussions. That reality wouldn’t completely prevent any conversations from happening on its face, but you can bet your ass it would be a factor. I’m sure Morey would be absolutely thrilled to send away two of Paul’s guys in exchange for two more, one of whom is entering the final year of his rookie-scale contract and looking at a new deal negotiation in Walker IV.
Regardless of any offer San Antonio could piece together, the reality is the roster supporting Simmons would be comprised primarily of role-playing veterans and young, largely unproven players; and on top of that, the Spurs would be facing the prospect of losing multiple first-round picks over the next few years in the exchange as well. It would be one thing if there was already an established young star in tow for the pouring of an obvious foundation, but that’s certainly not the case in this situation. San Antonio would still have plenty of cap flexibility moving forward, but relying on free agency in a small market in the absence of future draft picks is a very risky business plan that could potentially do even more long-term damage should things not pan out within a potentially tight window of opportunity.
And all of this is only part of the Simmons equation. We’ve gone a long way without discussing the whole basketball side of things, haven’t we? Minor details, I know.
Let’s just start with this: Simmons is elite in nearly every aspect of the game. At 6’10 he’s got a ridiculous combination of size and athleticism, playmaking ability rivaling that of any of the league’s greatest maestros, and he’s not only the NBA’s most versatile defender, but arguably its most valuable. It's just … the shooting, man. It’s always been about the shooting. No matter what else he’s able to do on the court, the narrative will forever come back to his shot.
In and of itself, his lack of range and his terrible free-throw percentage is problematic enough, as shooting is the most valuable singular commodity in today’s game. But what exacerbates the problem even further is the difficulty that comes with building lineups around his skill set. Offensively he primarily operates as a roll-and-cut point-forward in halfcourt sets when he’s not handling the ball in transition, but on the other side of the ball he’s a point-of-attack defender, mostly existing on the perimeter against pick-and-roll ball-handlers and spot-up threats. The matchup issues he causes for opposing offenses can be very disruptive, but on the offensive side of the ball his game necessitates some creative design.
Simmons’ frontcourt presence essentially requires some reverse engineering within a typical roster configuration. Even in Philly, where Joel Embiid is a legitimate outside threat, there have been those skeptical of whether the two could functionally coexist offensively given the former’s nonexistent outside shot and the latter’s ability to dominate games inside. I when I say “nonexistent outside shot,” I mean it. Simmons tallied 326 made field goals during the 2020-21 season … only 11 of them came outside of the paint. That is just preposterous.
I’m not just aimlessly exploring the Sixers-Simmons dynamic here, I assure you. All of this fits within the Simmons-to-the-Spurs conversation as well. Not only would San Antonio have to excavate what is essentially the concrete slab of its rebuilding process to send Philadelphia the assets it would require; not only would the Spurs have to deal with an expedited timeline in a potentially tighter window; not only would they have to be supremely confident in the quick development prospects of their last three draft classes; not only would they have to nail what remaining draft picks they had and hope for good fortune in free agency, but they’d also have to rework their remaining roster in order to accommodate Simmons’ unique skill set relative to his position on the floor.
The entire process of breaking down a roster even further in order to build around the Philly point-power forward would be as complex as it would be risky. San Antonio wouldn’t simply be able to export players and picks in the trade, bring in Simmons and just continue forward with the current roster construction. More changes would be needed, beginning with the acquisition of a starting-caliber “stretch” five who could also protect the rim as an anchor big, and you can never have too many shooters at any position around Simmons to help maximize the combination of rim gravity and passing ability he possesses. So, even if you believe in the idea that Chip Engelland could work his magic and pull a Simmons jumper out of a hat consistently — and if anyone could do it, he’d be the one — it’s still a massive “what if” San Antonio could not afford to view as a given. It would just be potential icing on the cake; the rest of said cake would still have to be baked accordingly.
Largely, my point is this: Even if the Spurs negotiated a deal they felt was worth the risk, and even if they had confidence in the idea of Simmons sticking it out for the long haul in San Antonio (and there is no guarantee of that for a guy entering his prime who wants to win soon), they’d still be at least a couple of years away from fielding a true contender. And that’s the best-case scenario. Realistically, there’s a good chance that by building organically, maintaining a solid structure and managing assets wisely they’d be in position to push through via the trade market and free agency to acquire the necessary pieces to make a run in a reasonably similar timeframe to the trade-for-Simmons route.
Remember, Philly is in win-now mode, so they’re going to be looking for both current and future value. If the Spurs are able to enter discussions with a deal centered around former Sixer Thaddeus Young (who would help them immediately) and his $14.2 million, and then a combination of either Murray or Derrick White and Walker IV or Keldon Johnson, then that’s a decent start. San Antonio would love to keep White and certainly Johnson, but without an All Star to send back they’re going to be forced into making some concessions given the established young stars other teams potentially interested in Simmons already possess.
But the sticking point is the multiple years worth of draft-pick compensation, and I doubt anything less than a minimum of two firsts would even put the Spurs in the conversation. Many fans in San Antonio don’t like to hear the Spurs could be looking way up in the standings much of the upcoming season, but there’s a real possibility their team will be picking in the top 10 in each of the next two drafts should it maintain the current course. There’s a ton of value there, though, both in the obvious talent they could add and in the convenience and flexibility of choosing the type of player they prefer.
This is not detracting from Simmons’ talent level, but given his shot problems there are clearly questions and complications that come along with his acquisition; and without the draft picks San Antonio would have to send to Philadelphia in order to acquire him, it would be more limited in its ability to properly counteract that downside with the right complementary pieces. Perhaps the Sixers would be willing to talk pick swaps with the Spurs, however, which would make things more palatable.
Still, none of this seems worth it to me. San Antonio has finally set itself up to move forward on a new timeline with control of all its future picks (plus a few more) and ideal cap flexibility, it’s got young talent that now has its first real opportunity to fully grow into itself, and it doesn’t have a strict, pressurized timetable of expected success for a team that simply isn’t ready to heap that upon itself from a roster perspective.
This isn’t to say the Spurs aren’t putting pressure on themselves to win, but there’s truth to what Seneca once said: Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity, and right now San Antonio has more work to be done within the preparation phase of its rebuild. More opportunities will arise down the road, and in that future this team will be more equipped to take advantage.
But all in due time; there’s no need to jump the gun now.