A look at Thursday's news, and harbingers of things to come

With the Spurs opening for business and Devin Vassell scheduled for a knee procedure, San Antonio is now officially entering a difficult but all-important stretch of the season.

We knew the transactions were coming at some point, we just didn’t know when.

On Thursday, the Spurs announced they had made a trade with the Boston Celtics (first reported by Adrian Wojnarowski), acquiring forward Noah Vonleh and cash considerations in exchange for a heavily protected future second-round pick that will likely never convey. San Antonio waived the seldom-used Gorgui Dieng in order to create the open roster spot necessary for the move to work, and then immediately let Vonleh go following the completion of the deal.

On its face this deal doesn’t require a ton of analysis, but like every move made this time of year, there was a purpose behind it. In essence, the Spurs were just paid to both help Boston save nearly $7 million in luxury-tax payments, and to clear a roster spot for added flexibility during the month ahead. Per Bobby Marks of ESPN, Boston sent $1.5 million to San Antonio in the transaction, which covers the cost of waiving both Dieng and Vonleh and nets them an additional $480,000 in the end.

Awesome. Two franchises worth billions of dollars just saved the normie equivalent of couch-cushion cash. You love to see it. Still, saving money where you can when it functionally costs you nothing to do so is never a bad strategy. Besides, that’s not really the main takeaway from this deal anyway.

Fostering healthy relationships is critical in the NBA. When talking about the cut-and-dried price-tag element of player transactions, it’s easy to forget about the human side of bartering. “How much do I like this guy or gal?” is just as much a thing in this world as it is in everyday life, and no matter how professional we are, we’re much more inclined to do business with someone if we don’t hate their guts.

Over the last several seasons we’ve seen San Antonio deal with the Celtics and the Toronto Raptors on multiple occasions. While there’s no way of knowing exactly what went on in discussions, the Raptors certainly remembered the championship-winning trade for Kawhi Leonard when they handed over a first-round pick for Thaddeus Young last February; and ahead of Thursday’s dealings, San Antonio understood it got a great deal from Boston in the Derrick White transaction last season. A lightly protected first-round pick in 2022, a very, VERY lightly protected first-round swap in 2028, and two good role players — both of whom could turn into trade assets themselves, by the way — is a significant haul for a guy who’s got a 15.8-percent usage rate this season.

For a rebuilding team like the Spurs, with roster flexibility and all the cap space in the world to boot, it pays to be a facilitator on standby. There’s no telling when they’ll need assistance down the line, so stepping in and affording the Celtics a chance to shed what was essentially dead money from an increasingly expensive roster was a no-brainer. Scratching backs is important in the business world, especially when doing so requires no skin off your own.

But explaining the deal in a vacuum isn’t the most interesting part of this equation. With the trade deadline just 34 days away, the Spurs have officially flipped the light switch on the “We’re Open!” sign in the window. It isn’t as though teams were not already keenly aware of San Antonio’s situation, but this deal sent out a signal to the rest of the league that it’s ready to negotiate. And considering their activity at the deadline last season and during the offseason as context, the Spurs have already shown that nearly anything is on the table.

As Josh Richardson put it when asked at shootaround on Friday if this deal was a reminder that trade season is here: “Come on, man. You don’t really need a reminder for that.”

As good a time as any

The Spurs announced yesterday afternoon Devin Vassell is scheduled to undergo an arthroscopic procedure on his left knee on Jan. 11 in New York. The team will provide updates as appropriate, but there is no timetable for his return at this juncture.

Vassell has missed eight games this season due to soreness in that knee, and while San Antonio has been managing the situation over the last couple of months, the issue just hasn’t subsided. During that stretch, Vassell has said on a number of occasions there were good days and bad days when it came to pain tolerance, but that he would continue to play through the soreness as he could.

It’s been a relatively confusing situation, as neither Vassell nor the team have provided more detail about the nature of this injury beyond the “left knee soreness” designation on the injury report and the way they’re keeping tabs on it. But regardless of the specifics, there is no better time than now to address whatever is going on.

The Spurs are 14 games under .500 for the season, and with health and development being the main priorities going forward, there’s no sense in pushing things with a player who’s up for a contract extension this summer and figures to be a major part of the team’s future. Arthroscopic procedures are minimally invasive and will better inform the team of the problem at hand, so just knock this thing out and don’t rush him back.

Vassell’s injury, combined with the looming trade-deadline possibilities, casts an ominous shadow over San Antonio’s on-court outlook in the coming months. But if short-term actions and sacrifices — however inconvenient they may be — lead to greater opportunities for achieving longevity and future success, then the Spurs have to bite the bullet.

The quintessential glue guy

Gorgui Dieng has not been a crucial part of the Spurs’ on-court production this season. He rarely played, and when he did it was largely during blowouts or when injuries were affecting the roster. From the outside looking in, he was just a guy who’d sometimes show up in the box score, and whose loss won’t be much of a factor in the future.

But from the insiders’ perspective, he’s anything but that.

“Gorgui is a great locker room guy. He’s got a lot of experience, so he does so much for team chemistry, but also for situations in the game,” Jakob Poeltl said. “He might not be playing, but he can pull somebody to the side or take over a huddle, and either set the tone or point things out we might be doing wrong. He added a lot of value to this team.”

And he was more than just that presence on the sideline. When players were returning from injury and getting full-court reps in after practices to reacclimate, Dieng was running up and down with them along with other members of the training staff. When rookies and new acquisitions were running 3-on-3 drills in the halfcourt in order to get up to speed, Dieng was often right in the middle of it.

It’s small stuff, but it’s important stuff for such a young team. He did the job he was brought in to do, and now the team and its remaining veteran players will continue on with the process. Business can be cold sometimes.

“We can’t be Gorgui, because he’s very unique,” Richardson continued. “So we’re gonna lead how we know how, and hopefully that’s enough.”