The Spurs, the trade deadline, and finding the right time to strike

It's usually quiet this time of year in San Antonio, but these are anything but familiar times around here.

For years the NBA trade deadline has served as a rather uneventful reminder of San Antonio’s dedication to roster continuity and familiarity, as well as a source of disappointment for those Spurs fans who yearned for all the rumors and hype to somehow come true just once during a time when the transaction quickly became king across the landscape of the league.

But during an era of winning and stability, much of San Antonio’s approach was born from the good old-fashioned belief that you don’t mess with a good thing — that the cost of doing business was often too high for the potential of a reward that was anything but guaranteed, and that there was plenty of value to be found in small-scale movement. Besides, if things didn’t work out by the time June rolled around, the Spurs still had most (if not all) of their draft picks in tow and franchise cornerstones in place to anchor any summertime retooling process.

But the situation in which they find themselves now is a far cry from what it once was. These Spurs are 13 games under .500 and possess one fringe All-Star, a rock-solid center and a roster full of role players and young guys who haven’t quite realized their full potential yet. They’re not good enough to be a threat to anyone and not quite bad enough at this juncture to have more than a puncher’s chance at landing one of the top picks in the draft (though they’re very much in the top-5 discussion).

For this team (and more specifically, the fans of this team), this deadline represents a chance to cling to something tangible — a rope to grab during such an uncertain and unfamiliar time. And from a front-office standpoint, with the rebuild fully underway, this marks one of the first real tests of Brian Wright’s tenure as general manager of the Spurs. Coming out of this bearing any sort of fruit for future nourishment would give plenty of folks around here a little extra life.

“Brian has been around … worked in several different situations, he’s been here for several years now, and he feels very comfortable in what we need for the future and how to build that,” Gregg Popovich said after Bryn Forbes was dealt to the Denver Nuggets on Jan. 18. “He’s great with relationships and done a good job of slowly getting us back to where everybody wants to be, which we all know takes time with the cycles that you live through in the NBA.”

And in Spurs world, things have gone a little slowly. Of course that’s relative, as the postseason drought of a few years in San Antonio is nothing compared to the torture some fan bases have experienced over the last few decades; still, with Popovich remaining at the helm, this isn’t a franchise that’s going to slow-play a rebuild by simply drafting in the mid- to late-lottery until they sneak another superstar past the league’s cellar-dwellers. And while they’ve also made it pretty clear they’re not interested in tanking, they’re not delusional either. San Antonio is well aware of its star-power deficiencies when compared to the league’s title contenders. While it may have high hopes that Josh Primo and Devin Vassell will develop into critical players for the future alongside Dejounte Murray and Co., the idea that either will ascend to the NBA’s upper echelon of soul-snatching superheroes is not one on which the Spurs can bank their future. But regardless of where the process takes them, they’ve got to first start small.

San Antonio did well in dealing Forbes to Denver in a clever overall bit of management, as it essentially spent ~$4.5 million in free agency to acquire an asset they would later use to deal for a second-round pick. But next in line is finding an eventual landing spot for Thaddeus Young. His acquisition was a byproduct of the DeMar DeRozan trade to Chicago — the Spurs weren’t pursuing him but had to take on his salary in order to make the sign-and-trade work — and his $14 million is not exactly the easiest contract in the world to move. But it’s trickier than just the financials involved.

Outside teams know San Antonio will almost certainly buy out Young’s expiring contract if it can’t find a partner by the deadline, so the idea of trading assets to acquire someone they could potentially find on the buyout market at a later date may not be very appealing. Young could absolutely play a role for a contender looking for frontcourt help, but whether or not teams deem him worth the cost remains to be seen.

But the conversation becomes more interesting once the first couple of dominoes are tipped. Forbes and Young could potentially net San Antonio a few low-value assets in the form of picks and/or players, but those are just the appetizer items.

A report from Jake Fischer of Bleacher Report surfaced Thursday that the Atlanta Hawks have put in calls to the Spurs regarding Derrick White, and Marc Stein reported in his newsletter two weeks ago the Raptors had interest in bringing Jakob Poeltl back to Toronto. While none of this is more than a conversation-starter at this juncture, these reports offer a glimpse of what the path may look like should San Antonio decide to up its level of aggression and either take swings at players who are currently in less-than-ideal situations or decide to sell off assets for more future upside. The Spurs typically like to do their big-picture work during the offseason, but times have changed. When opportunities arise to definitively raise the future ceiling of the roster, they’re going to be all ears at all times.

But it still has to fit within the current plan. Last summer I wrote about the importance of patience with this team, and that by acting too quickly and too aggressively the Spurs could sabotage the rebuilding process by trying to erect a structure before the foundation was in place. Well we’ve now arrived at the first crossroads, and San Antonio has had 49 games to examine its roster and gain a better understanding of which players are more valuable as assets right now or as the building blocks of the aforementioned foundation. The Spurs have a very tightknit group in the locker room, but the team’s “best available player” approach to the draft in recent years has all but guaranteed parts will move at some point in the near future once the team is ready to start winning and balance becomes a larger priority. This is the reality of the NBA.

San Antonio has been linked to a number of different reports involving Hawks forward John Collins over the last couple of seasons, and while all Spurs-related rumors should be taken with a large grain of salt, enough smoke means there’s got to be a fire somewhere. The report from Fischer outlined the possibility Atlanta is “only seeking a valuable first-round pick and a starting-caliber player” in a potential trade for Collins, and while I don’t want to get bogged down in any specific trade, these are the types of conversations San Antonio can work with right now.

The Spurs don’t have a superstar player who would command a haul of draft picks in return, nor do they have the kind of pieces already in place that would make trading a bevy of picks palatable, especially as a small-market team that isn’t going to be building out any kind of Brooklyn-esque Big 3 via free agency. They still must be able to build through the draft with at least some regularity. But what they do have are starting-caliber young players who, in the right role and situation, could absolutely make a sizable impact for a team now and in the future. And while putting too many draft picks on the table could damage the Spurs’ long-term flexibility and ability to add young depth to their system, being willing to part with a portion of them along with one of their established players in order to acquire a bigger piece may end up going a long way toward forming a roster built for the long haul.

But the questions still remain: Is any of this enough? Is a Collins-level player worth the potential price of this season’s draft pick? The answer to these questions comes down to whether the Spurs think that level of player will exist in the spots they’ll be picking, as well as their belief in the likes of Primo, Vassell and the rest of their young core to continue developing as major parts of that future. But the most important question informing their decision for the immediate future might be whether or not the plan is to go all in with Murray as the team’s forever plan at point guard.

The idea to even question that at this point may sound a little absurd given the season he’s having, the growth he’s shown, and his seemingly perfect organizational and cultural fit; but with two seasons left on Murray’s contract and what one can only assume is a significantly larger deal on the horizon, there’s inherent pressure on the Spurs to get this thing moving in a more specific direction if they do intend to make him a primary focus going forward, whether we see indications of that now or during the offseason.

And that’s the other thing: None of this has to happen now. The NBA’s trade deadline represents a small window of opportunity to potentially capitalize on deals that may not necessarily be available in less-pressurized situations, but that hardly means it’s always the best chance a team will get. The offseason may come with less desperation and a growing number of suitors, but there’s generally much more room to breathe and explore. For a team that’s rebuilding, it’s important not to overreact in the short term if the right deal isn’t quite there. Trading just to trade wouldn’t be prudent.

But San Antonio will have all lines open for the majority of its roster. If the plan is to move forward with Murray (and for whatever it’s worth, I’d be shocked if it wasn’t … the Spurs love to keep their guys in the building when they can), then there’s not an open-ended amount of time remaining for the slow-play. Wright and the rest of the front-office group are going to have plenty of challenges in the weeks and months ahead, and if the Spurs intend on making a leap sooner rather than later, then perhaps we’ll soon see a few more fireworks than San Antonio is accustomed to this time of year.

Just perhaps.