If it's a 30% max (Victor) and two 25% maxes (Harper + Castle) I think they'll keep it together with De'Aaron being traded in 3-4 years. A 30% and two 25% or even two 30% and a 25% on a cap raising 10% per year is a way different situation than Phoenix paying three 35% max deals on a stagnant cap where those contracts got worse every year from the player raises being higher than the cap bumps.
I think the Big 3 era might be over. I'm thinking Victor plus the best of our point guards and get affordable role players. It would still be super expensive to get a team at least 8 deep. Saving draft capital for trades to keep reinventing every 3-4 years would probably be needed. It's not easy to do. In this new era you hope for a good 3-4 year run. Have to avoid mortgaging the future if possible. That's why I have no interest in going for a big trade now.
In my mind it's more than just caps and aprons. It's more of allocation of funds. I just think they only want 2 max guys and use the rest to build out a roster and acquire picks from trading whichever one they move.
I might be viewed as a Debbie Downer with this take, but I actually don't see a way for both Castle and Harper to earn max rookie extensions with Wemby and Fox being the #1 and #2 options. Maybe one of them can, but I'm not seeing how both do.
That could be... it'll depend on how Castle does since his extension comes 1 year earlier, so he has less time to take over the Fox position (not necessarily the PG, but the 2nd best player)
We're probably getting too far ahead of ourselves if we're thinking about max extensions 4 years down the road, surely something would have to be done by then, but if in 3 years we're pondering this scenario, well, let's just say it'd be an awesome problem to have (multiple young players still on rookie scale contracts worthy of a max extension).
I think we all agree with that..
For sure. The "worst case" scenario (having to pay Castle and Harper max rookie extensions) would actually be quite a great scenario. I'm not worried about it.
The way they earn them is by becoming better than Fox. It's not set in stone that De'Aaron is going to be the second or even third option three years from now.
I don't know about elite. Castle, my second favorite Spur right now, seems to be a very good player but remember he did a lot of this for a ty team. I think Castle... if things go right can be the Sean Elliott of the group. Not an all timer but crucial to a le team.
We don't know anything about Harper when it comes to the NBA so we'll have to wait. If anything we flip him him since he's a mystery for a giant return. (This should at least be considered.)
IDK I think it becomes a real problem at year 9 when all of a sudden you're looking at paying 35% for Jaylen Brown after he made an All-NBA 2nd team and you're in a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. So third contract is when you're having to make really tough decisions. Second one you're probably thrilled to pay a 30% max deal if your 24 year old guy has made All NBA, won MVP, won DPOY, etc to qualify for that supermax. If they're at 25% max salaries meh, Vassell makes 83% of a 25% max right now.
Oh that's it? Cool, no problem.
I don't think I'm trading Harper for anything short of Giannis. Can't think of anyone else on the block that it's worth giving up on the upside of Harper and Giannis is the only sure thing vet seemingly available.
Also I think Castle can earn it largely on the defensive end. It's not inconceivable when you note the Spurs are already paying Vassell 83% of what a 25% max deal would be right now and he has never shown the upside Castle did this season.
Having 3 straight rookie of the years would really suck as too! Oh the horror!
I don't. I expect OKC to be paying supermax to SGA and maybe JDub and 25% max to Holmgren while playing musical chairs with the role players. Hartenstein and Caruso are surely gone in a year or two, probably Dort too, but they'll just keep reloading with draft picks. Appears the Spurs will try to do similar with all the swaps they have from Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, Minnesota, and Sacramento. I do think that OKC core is built to contend for les for another five years at least and the Spurs can have that kind of long run too if Harper ends up being the player he looks like he could become.
I get that they can do it, I just think where this FO goes won't include paying 80-85% of the cap on just 3 players. I think they'll opt to spend 55% of the cap on 2 and use they other 45% to put players around them.
Might as well trade Wemby to the Lakers and move the team already if that's the plan. More realistic is 80% of the cap to Wemby / Harper / Castle and then 45% of the cap to the supporting cast. Puts them into the luxury tax but not in the punitive aprons.
Sign me up for this. Wheeler dealer Brian Wright will take care of it.
this new era doesn't affect the Spurs since we have cheap ownership that never wants to pay the luxury tax anyway. The only teams affected by this are franchises like the Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, Knicks, Celtics, etc. where the owner doesn't care how much he spends.
I already did the math on that. We should be save until 2032 with all 3 on the team. The cap will literally double until then. The Spurs will always have room for all 3. What's more important is that they have role players on good longterm contracts and don't overpay on them.
one thing about this 3-guard rotation is that it will hurt their statlines, which could result into smaller extensions.
Last edited by RC_Drunkford; 05-30-2025 at 03:20 AM.
TO early to tell. Possibly neither. Funny thing is when you look at the History of the league, the second or 3rd best player is rarely ever someone the team drafted. Out of the conference finals teams somewhere between 1 and 3 of their top 3 players were traded for or signed in free agency. Only team in recent memory to win chips with their top 3 being drafted by the team are spurs and warriors
Also people are seriously underrating Fox. For Castle or Harper to be even as good as him they would have to show the ability to be the best player on a team that was the 3rd seed. Castle hasn't remotely shown he could do that and Harper couldn't even lead Rutgers to a winning record.
Well it's not about what they "earn" it's about what the market dictates they can get. If they know that other teams will pay them the max, why would they settle for anything less than that in San Antonio?
If we are talking about "earn" in the since that the Spurs can't mathematically pay Castle and Harper rookie max extensions because of the money invested in Victor and Fox, they can cause you can go over the cap to sign your own players, but obviously having 4 players on outright max contracts is going to completely destroy your cap. You won't even have a full MLE to work with if you did that.
NBA teams never pay a player more than they have to, and the market dictates what they have to, not the team itself. That's how business works.
OKC is smart in how they are managing the new cap era, where there is one clear super max guy (SGA) and 2 high level max guys (Chet and J-dub), with a supporting group of interchangeable players that are smart, can shoot somewhat and can definitely defend. Then they have a bunch of picks to replace those players as they come along, either through drafting and development, or through trades (I-hart, Caruso). These players are not rare by any means, as long as they have a list of players who are given developmental opportunities and a clearly defined role, they could be found in later first or even second round picks comparatively easily.
The spurs have their super max guy (wemby) and now players are auditioning for the max roles. I’d argue with wemby, you may not even need two other max level guys, but only two 3rd option level players. Whether Harper and castle are those, we will see. But players like Vassell, keldon, and my favourite sochan are part of those rotation of peripheral players. Develop them if they could be, but trade them for picks or other useful pieces if they can’t show any ability to develop. I still don’t believe the spurs drafted a bunch of no talents where they CAN’T develop in a few years in the league, but a matter of poor development and role definition. At this level, these players are clearly some of the best in the world in terms of basketball abilities, they are also young and have room to grow. The basketball abilities and improvement capacities for players drafted by the spurs vs those drafted by OKC shouldn't be so drastically different to the point where OKC is batting at 60/70% while the spurs are batting at 0. There is randomness in success rate when players are this talented but underdeveloped comes into play, so there is luck involved. I refuse to believe the spurs are this unlucky while OKC is that lucky, there some scouting involved but overall it’s really development. You slot a kid to do a couple of things and they should be able to play that at a high level easily, this isn’t rocket science. But if you just throw a kid in the court and make them figure it out by getting over themselves it would be a disaster. These are not largely developed players when drafted, it’s not like they played four years of college with top level coaches to learn the game.
Anyways, the spurs don’t have that many picks so the management of that pipeline is crucial. If either castle or Harper hits, we will have a strong framework in place. Picks, whether first, second or undrafted will determine how long the team can play at a high level.
It's not a Debbie Downer but a realist outlook. Even with a salary cap increase, there's no room for all the contracts realistically without the Spurs being placed on the feared Second Apron.
I think everyone will start to see the writing on the wall during the next season, as Harper comes into his own -- there's no space on the team for all 3 guards to be featured. Sucks to be Fox, really, after he's burned his bridges with Sacramento to get here.
You need high level guards to beat OKC, so we need to run this trio as long as possible.
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