I still can't wrap my head around this pick ...
-Primo's value was mostly due to the thinking that if he had gone back to Alabama and played really well, he probably becomes a late lottery pick in 2022. He wasn't going to become a high lottery pick because he doesn't have the physical tools to be a high lottery pick -- but he could have gone back to Alabama and worked himself into that 10 to 15 range if all went well.
-Primo decides to stick in the draft after elevating his stock from the middle of the second round to the end of the first or beginning of the second. Teams drafting in that range would have viewed him as a pretty good investment, with the logic being that they'd spend a ~28th pick in 2021 on a guy who had like a 50/50 shot of being a ~12th pick in 2022. That math checks out.
-But ... the Spurs pick him instead with a late lottery pick in 2021. Trying to get that logic to work is difficult. For it to make sense, they have to be like 100% certain he is going to make that big jump. Without that big jump, there was no way he was going to be a lottery pick next year -- he would be a second rounder to undrafted without a sizeable leap forward. Picking him in the lottery this year made so little sense that Primo himself was shocked. I don't remember seeing a lottery pick who was so blown away by being picked in the lottery. I bet his agent was equally as stunned
So, yeah, just a real head-scratcher. One scenario that may make sense is that the Spurs really wanted a developmental perimeter shooter. The two developmental perimeter shooters that stand out in this draft were Ziaire Williams and Primo. After Ziaire went tenth (a little surprising), perhaps that scared them enough to not trade back. Trading back when there's two guys you like is a lot easier than when you're down to the final player you really want.
I've also had the thought that this could have been a Chip Engelland pick. After taking a closer look at Primo's form, it's exactly how Engelland teaches. He prepares for the shot well, has a short, repeatable stroke, releases his off-hand before the shot is released and gets full extension. I could imagine Engelland looking at Primo shooting in a gym and telling everyone that he's going to be a great shooter down the line. Then if you look at him only as a shooting prospect, his 38% three-point shooting as a freshman in the SEC when he was the youngest player in college basketball makes him an enticing pick for a shooting starved team -- especially when you add in his elite character traits. On the other hand, though, using the late lottery to take an unproven shooting prospect with little upside elsewhere in his game is not a good use of that asset.
But bottom line, this goes down as at best a strange pick ... at worst a wasted pick. We'll see but it certainly doesn't give me confidence that the Spurs know how to pick in the lottery. Locking into one or two guys is okay when you're picking late in the first but it's a bad strategy when you're in the lottery.