So people are making WAAAY too big of a deal out of his contract. It doesn't mean the Spurs extra believe in him or see him as part of the rotation or whatever. It's a way to keep maximum option value for a guy who should be decent depth. In many off-seasons, the Spurs have had to dedicate the MLE to signing a player to fill a rotation spot. That means basically only the min exception to get a second-rounder signed, and those deals could only be for two seasons. Like with Blair and Metu, the Spurs happened to have the room in the MLE available to make a deal work and to give themselves as much flexibility as possible. There was never a reason to believe SA would cut Jones out of camp; their scouting shouldn't be bad enough to allow that. So guaranteed money this year isn't noteworthy. They're also likely to be paying Carroll more next summer than they would to Jones, so even if next year is guaranteed, it's a low risk. After that, they'd get an extension-eligible third season and RFA after that if he's shown to be worth keeping. But like with Metu, there's a huge chance Jones busts out and is cut that summer with little fanfare.