A stab at who the Spurs will draft after Victor Wembanyama
No long lists, no maybes, just a straight-up take on who I believe San Antonio is targeting.
In lieu of writing a long list of prospect profiles covering players the Spurs could be interested in ahead of tonight’s draft, I thought it might be entertaining to start a new tradition of sorts. When San Antonio was picking No. 9 overall last summer, I thoroughly enjoyed biting down on tape, talking to people and trying to identify one or two players I felt strongly the Spurs would select. I got it with Jeremy Sochan, and tentatively with Blake Wesley, so let’s do it again, and then again next summer. Make the call, because you only feel truly alive in this game when you’re sticking your neck out there.
There’s not much to argue about with the first pick. Clearly. Welcome to San Antonio, Victor Wembanyama, we’ll see you in a couple of days. But by the time the Spurs’ No. 33 pick rolls around, there is absolutely no telling what might have already developed. Outside of the lottery, this draft could become a total crapshoot, but my goal here is to identify a trade-up target or two — a couple of guys who MIGHT eventually slip to the second round but feel like first-rounders to me.
You could go with Jordan Hawkins and his high-level movement shooting (or just shooting in general), because he gives off some serious Doug McDermott vibes offensively with defensive capabilities Dougie does not possess.
You could go with Keyonte George or Nick Smith Jr., two microwave scorers/shooters with potential — POTENTIAL — playmaking upside, but whose question marks as facilitators and defenders within the “combo guard” archetype may cause them to slide.
Then there’s Kobe Brown and Sidy Cissoko, two big-bodied, versatile forwards who can scale up and down defensively and bring real connective-passing chops to the offensive equation. If their shots come around and stick, both feel like a poor man’s Jarace Walker. They can do a little bit of everything, maybe outside of playing with the ball in their hands.
Does San Antonio like Brandin Podziemski’s clever scoring ability enough to trade up? Does he do enough other things well to warrant it? Eh, I’m not too sure.
But I do know the Spurs have been watching Rayan Rupert for a while now. A source tells Corporate Knowledge San Antonio is one of just a handful of teams that’s made the trip to Australia and New Zealand to keep tabs on the now-19-year-old French swingman, and it’s easy to understand the connections.
Rupert graduated from the National Institute of Sport, Expertise, and Performance (INSEP: Institut national du sport, de l'expertise et de la performance) where, beginning at 15 years old, he was filtered into professional basketball from 2019 to 2022 with Centre Fédéral and Pôle France of the French NM1 while also appearing in FIBA Junior Team events. For those who aren’t true basketball sickos, some notable graduates of the INSEP Academy include none other than Tony Parker and Boris Diaw, as well as a heaping handful of other French standouts like Clint Capela (who is actually Swiss, but moved to France as a teenager to pursue hoops), Evan Fournier and Ronny Turiaf. Oh, and who remembers Joffrey Lauvergne? If you’d like a more recent example, last year’s No. 11 overall pick Ousmane Dieng is also an INSEP graduate, and Rupert has practically followed in his exact footsteps.
Like Dieng did the season prior, Rupert signed with the New Zealand Breakers of the highly competitive National Basketball League in Australia as part of the Next Stars program last year, where he was asked to shift from the guard role he’d been playing for years to the wing position after a growth spurt shot him all the way up to 6’7 with a 7’3 wingspan. And man does he use every bit of that length.
Rupert is a maniacal defender who wreaks havoc on ball-handlers, disrupts passing lanes, and extends for blocks at the rim when he’s able to maintain position on opponents’ drives despite his 195-pound frame. He has moments where he overextends himself and compromises the general defensive structure, but he’s more than capable of recovering and impacting the play. Overall, it’s stuff a team like the Spurs can tweak and accept, because his motor and length form a deadly defensive combination.
Offensively, he’s a mixed bag — one that’s created some real concerns for a team looking to invest. A quick glance at his tenure with the Breakers would suggest he’s a slasher type combined with an open-floor threat given his fluid athletic abilities, and his outside shooting numbers might paint the picture that’s all he is at this point. Rupert shot just 27 percent on catch-and-shoot attempts for his New Zealand squad, which led to defenses eventually ignoring him on the perimeter as the season and the playoffs moved along.
This is not something anyone wants to hear about a prospect, but if we’re talking about drafting an extremely raw upside player in the late teens or early twenties, I’m not sure how bothersome the stats are at this point if a team believes the upside risk is worth the trouble — especially considering his strengths. Or flashes of strengths, at least.
In his element, Rupert is handling the ball if he isn’t picking someone’s pocket and pushing in transition. Whether it’s on the break or in the half-court, the lanky teenager has a great pace about him — able to read what the defense is giving him and adjust his speed accordingly — and appears to understand all the little nuances of basketball. He just seems malleable, and growing up with the international game has exposed him to a multitude of styles, added layers to his repertoire and forced him into different levels of responsibility.
And that’s where Rupert stands out in this area of the draft: He just has an overall feel that doesn’t necessarily pop with others in the same range. It’s the spatial awareness and the passing ability; the confident-looking, fixable pull-up jumper; the high release on his spot-up shot that looks like it should connect more often than it does; the eurosteps around the hoop, even when he’s in a crowd; the intrinsic gravitational force that naturally pulls him toward the middle of the floor and sets up opportunities at the basket, dump-offs to rolling bigs, or kick-outs to shooters; and the comfort in second-side pick-and-rolls at such a young age. He not only has talent, but the basketball intelligence is obvious.
All the awkward shots, the funky release points, the bricked misses on open jumpers — there’s reason to believe in all of it, because the process is sound. Rupert is as raw as it gets among first-round prospects, but the skill set is evident, as is the basketball I.Q. Rupert was an 18-year-old learning a new position in a real professional basketball league, and he did so while investing fully into adjusting his game to fit what the team needed. He went from being one of ‘The Guys’ to being a role player without a wince, and that means something.
On top of that, basketball is in his blood. Rupert’s late father, Thierry, played for the French national team in the early 2000s, serving as team captain at one point during the beginning of France’s basketball glow-up. Rayan’s sister Iliana was the No. 12 pick of the Atlanta Dream in the 2021 WNBA Draft. He comes from a family of hoopers who understand the life of a professional and what it takes to make it.
Count me as a believer, because he checks a TON of Spurs boxes.
Then there’s Ben Sheppard, who’s got some seriously sneaky upside in the bigger picture of what NBA basketball has become.
Movement shooters don’t typically have the secondary skill set he flashes. It’s one thing for defenses to have to account for a guy flying off screens looking for his high-percentage jumper, but it’s another thing entirely to also have to gameplan for pick-and-roll action once he’s got the ball.
Like Rupert, Sheppard grew up as a point guard before hitting a growth spurt, and his ability to transfer quickly from playing off the ball to operating out of ball-screens shines on tape. Not only did he hit nearly 50 percent of his unguarded 3-pointers last season at Belmont (per Synergy data), he registered 1.036 points per possession on pick-and-rolls that included passes. He’ll kill you from the outside, and if you close out on him, he’ll make you pay by putting the ball in the right players’ hands.
But the shooting is where he really pops. He’s not quite as fluid as the aforementioned Hawkins in terms of movement, but man is he smart. His offensive screen navigation is a joy to watch. He can shoot off the run going left or right, he’s excellent at baiting defenders into dying on re-screens, and he’s totally adaptable to what an offense wants to run.
A simple pin-down screen? No problem. Dribble-hand-off action? Cool. Loop around the entire defense and relocate to the appropriate spots away from the ball? That’s probably where he’s at his best. But it really is his ability to turn a potential shooting opportunity into a playmaking chance that piques the interest levels.
Defensively, he’s alright. It’s a funny thing to say considering he was named to the Mountain Valley Conference’s All-Defensive Team, but it’s just tough to tell how that side of his game will translate to the next level given the fact he’s not one of the these physical marvels. Sheppard doesn’t have crazy length — he’s 6’6 in shoes with a 6’8 wingspan, he’s 190 pounds, and he’s nothing more than a smooth athlete — but he’s smart and he works hard. And sometimes that’s enough.
There you have it. I gotta get out of here because there’s a ton going on today and I’m already behind, but you’ve got my targets. There’s a real chance the Spurs don’t use their No. 44 pick given their current roster situation, so the focus should be on players who could go anywhere from the late teens to No. 33 overall. We can reconvene at a later date to either laugh at my choices or celebrate speculation.
Have fun tonight!
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We missed our chance to draft Rupert at 33 - could have ended up with three Frenchmen. Like the Cissoko pick at 44
Rupert has been invited to the green room. Do you think that Spurs will have to trade up if they intend to draft him?