Zach Lowe (and John Hollinger): Spurs Were Close to Offering a Contract to Austin Reaves

[T Park]

At the end of the day price enforcing is petty and beneath the classy Spurs and even if you hate that:

I'm also not giving rival Lakers bulletin board material that Victor will have to slay through.

I could see the LAL FO sending a revenge memo for Spurs games and even those Laker players are going to know and see the Spurs bind them and so when Reeves' albatross costs them the ability/financial flexibility to land other help because SA bid him up, they are going to mark their calendars for those Spurs matchups.

Just not worth it.

"its beneath the spurs"

that pansy ass horse .

No other teams are going to give the Spurs that ing kind of gift, so why should they do the same?

ing christ

[Uriel]

Just a little pet theory for why Brian Wright didn't do it: he probably wanted to build some goodwill with the Lakers front office, thinking they might return the favor for us in the future.

[scott]

It only would have made sense to offer Reaves if you actually wanted him on the team. Screwing with the Lakers is just a side effect, not the main attraction. I think Reaves would have been a good addition, but he's not worth losing any sleep over. Moving on.

[spursparker9]

I hope Jeanie Buss appreciate the goodwill...

[Seventyniner]

This is no longer true. The Spurs have used cap space to get an unprotected first round pick swap in addition to Osman and Bullock. With those deals on the table, the Spurs not wanting to waste time on Reaves now makes more sense

This is the correct take imo. The Spurs have had these deals cooking all week and evidently weren't willing to put one or more of them in jeopardy just to make the Lakers use more salary space in 2025-2026 and 2026-2027.

[AusSpur]

I was in the pro-Reaves camp, but after reading this article by Matthew Tynan about the how the deal would have rise significantly on the backend (at a time many of our young players would need to be paid) I understood why the Spurs didn't go through with it.

Here is a snippet from the article:

While the Lakers can only offer Reaves a four-year deal with incremental raises that rounds out around that aforementioned $50 million total, outside teams can come in and max the guy if they so choose.

But given the fact those bidders would be limited to that initial ~$11-million number in the first and second years, the third and fourth years of the contract would have to make up the rest of the remaining salary. That would mean a massive e and potentially huge hit on the back end.

Let’s say San Antonio arrives with a 4-year, $80 million offer — forgetting for a minute the basketball side of things and whether or not a potential bench guy is worth that kind of money. Here’s what that offer sheet would look like:

---

(Note: While there is room for small raises between the first and second years, as well as the third and fourth, I’m just going to keep it simple with flat numbers so it’s clear.)

2023-24: $11,000,000
2024-25: $11,000,000
2025-26: $29,000,000
2026-27: $29,000,000

https://matthewtynan.substack.com/p/...es-free-agency

[timvp]

I was in the pro-Reaves camp, but after reading this article by Matthew Tynan about the how the deal would have rise significantly on the backend (at a time many of our young players would need to be paid) I understood why the Spurs didn't go through with it.

Here is a snippet from the article:

While the Lakers can only offer Reaves a four-year deal with incremental raises that rounds out around that aforementioned $50 million total, outside teams can come in and max the guy if they so choose.

But given the fact those bidders would be limited to that initial ~$11-million number in the first and second years, the third and fourth years of the contract would have to make up the rest of the remaining salary. That would mean a massive e and potentially huge hit on the back end.

Let’s say San Antonio arrives with a 4-year, $80 million offer — forgetting for a minute the basketball side of things and whether or not a potential bench guy is worth that kind of money. Here’s what that offer sheet would look like:

---

(Note: While there is room for small raises between the first and second years, as well as the third and fourth, I’m just going to keep it simple with flat numbers so it’s clear.)

2023-24: $11,000,000
2024-25: $11,000,000
2025-26: $29,000,000
2026-27: $29,000,000

https://matthewtynan.substack.com/p/...es-free-agency

Tynan is wrong. The Spurs could have smoothed out the salary hit for Reaves. Only the Lakers would have to pay his salary at that schedule.

[kobyz]

Not to make the Lakers pay Reaves more is one of the worst moves of the FO all time...

[Chinook]

I was in the pro-Reaves camp, but after reading this article by Matthew Tynan about the how the deal would have rise significantly on the backend (at a time many of our young players would need to be paid) I understood why the Spurs didn't go through with it.

Here is a snippet from the article:

While the Lakers can only offer Reaves a four-year deal with incremental raises that rounds out around that aforementioned $50 million total, outside teams can come in and max the guy if they so choose.

But given the fact those bidders would be limited to that initial ~$11-million number in the first and second years, the third and fourth years of the contract would have to make up the rest of the remaining salary. That would mean a massive e and potentially huge hit on the back end.

Let’s say San Antonio arrives with a 4-year, $80 million offer — forgetting for a minute the basketball side of things and whether or not a potential bench guy is worth that kind of money. Here’s what that offer sheet would look like:

---

(Note: While there is room for small raises between the first and second years, as well as the third and fourth, I’m just going to keep it simple with flat numbers so it’s clear.)

2023-24: $11,000,000
2024-25: $11,000,000
2025-26: $29,000,000
2026-27: $29,000,000

https://matthewtynan.substack.com/p/...es-free-agency

The Spurs' cap hit would be flat all four years. The cash payments wouldn't be quite like that. It would be the MLE, a slight raise of the MLE, then whatever the last two years need to be to make up the rest of the money, with a five-percent raise between years three and four. The Spurs would HAVE to have offered the full MLE-worth in 2023 and offer a five-percent raise in 2025. Otherwise, they can't offer him a deal above the MLE either.

[AusSpur]

Tynan is wrong. The Spurs could have smoothed out the salary hit for Reaves. Only the Lakers would have to pay his salary at that schedule.

Interesting.

Then I'm back in the 'why didn't we do it Brian' camp!

[DPG21920]

Interesting.

Then I'm back in the 'why didn't we do it Brian' camp!

Because the Spurs had this deal with Mavs/Bos. IF they tied up all this cap space in Reeves, there’s a risk they miss out on the deal

[cutewizard]

Champagne and Branham can exceed him in time

the lakers

[MannyIsGod]

it's good to see that they were planning to offer him a deal but also had a good reason not to.

[Fireball]

Spurs should just have made an offer of 80 million ... then at least the Lakers do not get a total bargain

[EricB]

The front office did the right thing. I like Austin Reeves and it wouldn’t been fun to stick it to the Lakers, but would it have really been worth paying him that much or tying up your time waiting for the Lakers to respond a week later?

yes

[scott]

Why does TPark have two usernames?

[rankingtear]

Saw a tweet that Kevin O Bonner said we did offer Lopez the contract MIL was forced to match.

[JPB]

This is the correct take imo. The Spurs have had these deals cooking all week and evidently weren't willing to put one or more of them in jeopardy just to make the Lakers use more salary space in 2025-2026 and 2026-2027.

Stop trying to be rational and to make sense. I mean, we could have mess up with the Fakers!!! Who cares about our own biz?

I'll also take these pundits' insight with a grain of salt. There's what they think they know, what spurs tell them and there's the truth.

[kobyz]

Because the Spurs had this deal with Mavs/Bos. IF they tied up all this cap space in Reeves, there’s a risk they miss out on the deal

They would still have enough cap space to do this trade even after Reaves

[kace]

He's literally a one trick pony. Why would we want a shooter who doesn't play difference and literally offers nothing but making wide open shots? That's ludicrous.

a one trick pony ? well, we have KJ at 18.5M/year who is way more a one trick pony than Reaves, and everybody was happy with that contract, and rightfully so.

i don't see why Reaves, who is better at shooting, passing, defending and as good at scoring at 20-25M/year wouldn't have been a good contract in today's NBA.

The only doubt with him is that we don't have a lot of hindsight since he had only one really good season. but when you see his trajectory this last two years, it seems more than he is a legit player who is a late bloomer than a player whose good season was a fluke.

No, the only good reason IMO was the one that Timvp mentionned: the fact that they had to wait til today to be sure about what LA would do. But well, it's not like we would be missing a huge trade anyway. The FR swap is great, but i would have liked the spurs to take their chance with an offer here.

i think also that the timeline for the spurs isn't suitable for making major trades and sending big money to have good players right now. maybe two years from now, the spurs send an offer for a four year contract to Reaves, but right now, they seem happy to let Victor develop and see what they got with their young players.

[ambchang]

Should’ve offered $85m/4

[DPG21920]

They would still have enough cap space to do this trade even after Reaves

Nope. Spurs had 25M in space after Cedi trade I believe. Reeves offer would have been 25m per year.

[kobyz]

Nope. Spurs had 25M in space after Cedi trade I believe. Reeves offer would have been 25m per year.

Obviously if we tied up Reaves we not doing the Cedi trade, Reaves offer could also be 20m

[Extra Stout]

In two years the Spurs will be trading the 2030 pick swap as part of a massive package for All-NBA Superstar Austin Reaves.

[spurraider21]

Nope. Spurs had 25M in space after Cedi trade I believe. Reeves offer would have been 25m per year.

That cap space was calculated based on the contract numbers of Tre, etc. could have just kept them on their cap holds in the interim