Yeah Krugan Daudov, Russian high schooler with some serious upside. Can't shoot but is long and defends well
Unless a trade is on the table, this was a fold of the 24-25 season before it even began. Cost cutting measure at best. Yeah, we'll have unprotected picks to trade - years down the line, years of losing, it seems like.
Sucks ass, hard to see it any other way unless they make a trade soon.
I think part of the issue here is playing time. We have multiple young players that need some playing time to determine whether they can develop or need to be cut loose. Playing Castle AND Dillingham is probably not very realistic. So Dilly goes to Austin, a #8 pick, or just sits on the bench?
As we know, a rookie can take 2-3 years to develop. Then we have a boatload of picks next year as well. While it is fun to assemble a roster of 15+ players that you like, the reality of it is some are not going to be playing at all. If you combine that with actually trying to win, even less so. This year we got to bench the starters for the end stretch and see more of Mamu, Graham, etc but that may not be in the cards next season.
Then as has been noted, when we go to acquire a star, we are likely going to need to include some FRPs in the mix. On the ATL example, they gave us 3 FRPs or whatever for Murray, so they at least need those back but we don't want to give them the 25 pick. Well, there you go, give the 2031 instead and now we are potentially back in business with them.
My wife was HIGHLY annoyed when I told her Dilly was traded, home don't play that she was like WTFFFFFFFFF???????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not sure she will ever watch a draft again, LOL.
I was hoping the Dilly trade was going to bring us back a player, like Naz Reid, pipe dream apparently. :-(
Looks like Tim mvp did a 180 after he said trade was bad yesterday. It was a bad trade. No two ways about it. Needed that swap to be another pick by itself to make it palatable. Ie 1:2. Not 1:1. Horrible trade.
Looks like the edit function is broke, it was *homey doesn't play that. My wife would string up Wright if she could, LOL.
Who are our young guards that still need developing and would be taking minutes from Dilly in this scenario?
In my opinion, you have to be okay with losing needlessly for years to save the ownership money to also be okay with this draft.
IDGAF about these rich s and their money saving. We have Wemby, we'll have a full house every night. They simply want to maximize profits, winning be damned - for now. I reserve the right to take this back if a major trade occurs by the trade deadline and we're at least in okay play-in position, but I don't see it. The projection is we're another lottery team with only Castle, and perhaps another bottom 4 team as well. The penny pinchers in ownership called this, and PATFO were happy (for job security reasons) to take them at their word.
The backlash begins in earnest this season. Either Castle is extremely good and improves fast and is already an NBA-caliber starter who can add a significant number of wins to a team, or we make a trade. Otherwise, we gave up on 2025 at its very beginning, an unforgivable move. I'd have rather we draft Topic than this non-sense, but I'm just a normal fan, not a rich asshole who owns a sports team.
It feels lame in a vacuum, but as I said it was going to be hard to play Dilly and to think he is a win or contribute right away player may be overly optimistic. This is the 160 pound guy we were also afraid would get abused, though it felt more fun to see him give it a try in the silver and black for sure.
We will need to see what other moves the Spurs make. If they had nothing lined up, that also feels lame but jumping to that conclusion is probably a bit of a leap.
Weird situation for sure!
I get that it's annoying, but going on a rant about the FO being too cheap to spend $5 million per year on a player does not make mathematical sense. Rookies are actually a good deal, financially. Veterans are typically ungodly expensive, these days...so axing a rookie then acquiring a veteran is probably not the "FO being cheap", LOL.
Unless you think Tre Jones and Blake Wesley will peak higher than Dillingham and deserve all the playing time, this doesn't make any sense. Both of those guys should have immediately been trade fodder or simply end of the bench guys, as their skill level dictates (provided Dillingham brings it like he did in college). We would have had a WAY more exciting regular season, at least, unless Rob is a total bust and simply can't play on the floor due to his defensive woes. Let's not mention the fact that our "core" could already be formed and growing together starting this season. Instead, it's more non-sense about "development" when we won't even commit to an 8th pick.
We shall see, but punting for picks 7 years down the line was God-awful as the situation stands now. I'm hoping against hope that a trade is the reason for this.
I'm not gonna complain too much until the rest of the summer plays out. If the Spurs make moves to add talent or package the picks for a star then fine. But if they do jack and we have a repeat of last summer this trade is going to look like ass
Would they not spend less if they don't sign a rookie at 8 as well??
You really think a #8 pick in such weak draft would help us in the upcoming season?
For reference, last year's draft was way stronger even if we exclude Wemby, all of the top5 selections were marketed as players with superstar upside.
Fast forward and it's pretty obvious that most of them were overestimated.
Wemby, Miller, Lively and Jaquez were the only four rookies who had actual impact on winning games.
Drafting Dillingham, Willams, Buzelis or even a more ready prospect like Knecht wouldn't have helped much.
It's pointless to have meltdowns over this pick.
I'm waiting to see what's the roster going to look like on opening night. If we don't get two competent wings, then I'm going to have a meltdown.
It's not just an 8th pick anymore, it's Rob Dillingham. We selected him and traded him. He does have the most offensive upside of a guard in this entire draft, so yes, I think he would have helped us win games, maybe a lot of them, at this point, and that's not ridiculous or melting down. it's being objective.
Well you can't just consider the young guards, we also have established ones. Vassell, Castle, there are two automatically above the pecking order right there. Tre Jones, are we going to just bench him for Dilly? What if Dilly is actually unplayable for a season or two? Branham/Wesley are the sore thumbs sort of, we are still rostering them and nobody can prove Dilly is any better than them. PATFO did not view Dilly as any sure bet or great fit for the team, and they may well be right. Cissoko is even listed as a guard.
And the Spurs may be acquiring a veteran PG, with the newly acquired 2031 pick as part of the package. Since we don't know that, we are only guessing in the wind as to whether the trade makes sense or not. But i certainly feel your annoyance, we all want to stop being a 22 win team!
It's not Rob Dillingham, it's #8 pick.
Minnesota traded for that pick and told Spurs which player to select. They could've asked for Buzelis, Spurs would've made the same trade, it was irrelevant to them who was Minnesota's target.
Reports are that they were trying to get into top10 and finally found a partner in Spurs.
Anyhow, I was one of the biggest propnents of Dillingham in here and wanted the Spurs to draft ihm.
But our current strategy is obviously not to draft undersized players or bad defenders.
I also think Dillingham will be good, but what can you do.
If they didn't want him, I'm glad the pick was traded instead of it being wasted on someone like Buzelis.
Also, I don't see how you can see our guard rotation of Wesley, Branham, and Tre and not think Rob Dillingham might not be better than at least 2 of them. Even if only Tre and Wesley (though Branham started at the 1 last years repeatedly), Rob has as much upside offensively and more than Wesley does defensively. I think we guaranteed Branham and Wesley and we're willing to sacrifice 8 because of it (the cost). PATFO/ownership are running it back and banking on trading for someone in a few years time or, us actually being good in 6-7(!!!!) years and needing a young infusion, which is putting the cart before the horse, if you ask me. I'll be happy to be wrong about everything when a trade occurs, which is likely years down the road. The picks aren't useless by any means, but will they be worth Rob Dillingham and a possible financial savings of not signing him? We'll see how it all plays out. I'll be a critic until then.
Yeah remember Scoot Henderson, the Thompson twins. Pretty worthless players their first season, what about year two or three? Who knows.
The value of the 8th pick is Rob Dillingham. Other arguments in a vacuum are irrelevant. That's who was picked, and that's who we can now tie the value to. I hope you're right and he sucks, though, to be fair.
Keep pounding that f'n rock i guess
The value should be tied to any of the picks made in that let's say #8-13 range because Spurs could've had any of those guys.
Williams, Buzelis, Topic, Carter. If any of those guys turn out to be legit starters or better, then I'll be upset with the Spurs because they passed on prospects who developed into good players.
But other than Carter, those three are long-term projects who won't do much next season or even the season after.
I think the Spurs are probably looking to acquire a PG, perhaps Murray or Garland. The only wildcard there is Castle, since that moves him too the 2 guard, which is what Vassell plays. But, Castle is also big enough to play the 3 and be considered a "wing", so I think we got a useful player by all accounts either way. And Castle starting from the get go, maybe. I thought the poster who mused about Keldon Johnson now being a starter was interesting, since I had no idea how that followed. I think they had Castle starting also with Vassell.
I think for now though it is safe to assume that Castle is primarily a guard and that means that minutes at the position were less available for Dillingham as a second guard in this draft.
Maybe I was attached because I called Dilly at 8 as the best possible scenario for us. It's of course, certainly possible FO and I know others here didn't agree with that. I do believe, as we stand right now with no 2024 NBA draftees having played a minute of action, that Dillingham was our best pick at 8 and could have aided us in rebuilding - at least as far as winning games. We could then have traded him for better than unprotected firsts, or at least a similar haul. The main difference being our win/loss tallies and our financials. Then again, if Dilly ends up being impossible to play due to his defensive struggles, perhaps we win the evening after all. Or, the 30/31 picks are key in a trade. It's not impossible, but it's not like picking Dillingham could have been construed as a huge mistake from anything other than the financial side if he didn't pan out. Hence why I see this as cost cutting at face.
Another issue here is that I believe the timing is such that we had to pick up options on Branham/Wesley for the UPCOMING season before we saw them play in the PREVIOUS season. Now I get that we want to just move on from those players as fans, but the FO may not be ready to see it that way. They may believe that one or both of those players are progressing well enough that Dilly is unneeded, and/or will never be able to play NBA level defense.
But as was pointed out, the Spurs just didn't like anybody left and it was never about Dilly at all, it was the whole pool of players left that were meh to the FO.
That's the opposite of being objective, lol.
The belief that Dilly would've helped us win "maybe a lot of" games next season is your personal, subjective belief. He can just as easily be physically overwhelmed as an underweight and undersized rookie, and fail to make an impact on games that isn't negated on the other side of the court. His performance is anything but certain.
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