Back At It
Hey y’all, sorry for the long break. Took some time off to get married to my beautiful wife Montze, then frankly found it hard to get back into the swing of it. A lot has happened since last time I wrote. Obviously, the Finals did not go the way we hoped it would. Congratulations to the Knicks on ending their 53-year championship drought. The Spurs showed their potential, but also the inexperience we had suspected would be their downfall finally reared its ugly head in the worst, most dramatic ways possible. Giving up the biggest comeback in Finals history is something we’ll have to live with for a long time. We’ve also had the NBA draft, which went about as well for us as it possibly could have, and a pretty weird NBA offseason so far. Let’s talk about it!
We’ll start off with what the Spurs have been up to since the Finals. We addressed a couple of very specific areas in the draft, which were defense and size. After going through the playoffs last season with no one on our roster between 6'7 and 7'0, we went and added three guys who are 6'9 (Brown), 6'10 (Quaintance), and 6'11 (Reed Jr.). Reed and Quaintance are also both 250+ lbs, which will help make us a lot harder to push around in the interior. Quaintance had top 5 pick hype in his season at Arizona State in 2024–25, where he was a defensive demon. He suffered an ACL injury towards the end of the season, then transferred to Kansas. His injury limited him to just 4 games in his one season there. That injury is why he dropped to us at 20, but all reporting seems to suggest his ACL is still intact and just needs a minor operation to clean the knee up. We probably won’t see much of him this season, but even if he sits out the entire 2026–27 season he’ll still be younger than the majority of the rookies next season. His potential is through the roof.
The rest of our draftees are all 4-year college players, so we know more about what we’re getting. Reed is a monster down low, snagging rebounds at a tremendous rate. He displays excellent screening technique and a soft touch around the rim with some post technique, which will be helpful for us when we simply need to get a bucket. He knows how to use his huge frame to impact the game on both sides of the floor. Gillespie comparatively is a tiny terror, probably a Jordan McLaughlin replacement. He only stands at 6'1, but is a defensive pest at all times on the floor. He’s a good shooter from distance, hitting 36% of his threes over his four year college career. Maliq Brown is probably the one I’m most excited about after Quaintance. A lot of scouts I watched said he had the best hands defensively in college basketball, where he lead his conference in steals as a sophomore at Syracuse. He’s a low usage, limited offensive player right now, but if his three point shooting can come around he’ll be a great asset with his defensive instincts.
In free agency, the Spurs have taken care of business. They resigned Julian Champagnie to a 3-year, $45 million contract, locking in one of our two best shooters. His starting spot no longer feels promised however, with the additional signing of 33-year old Tobias Harris from the Detroit Pistons. The Spurs signed him to a two-year, $31 million contract, which lines up very nicely with the timeline of the rest of our contracts. Harris held down a starting spot on the team with the best record in the league last season, and raised his game for them in the playoffs when the rest of his team was struggling. He’s a versatile player who also brings some size to the Spurs, standing at 6'8, 226lbs. He’s also an efficient isolation scorer, which is super helpful in the playoffs when defenses can take away your offensive options. With Wemby still being so raw offensively, it’ll be nice to have a release valve like Harris while Victor develops his go-to offensive move. He’s always been an effective team defender, and I think his veteran leadership will be a welcome addition to our roster.
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In the same vein of veteran leadership, the Spurs brought in former Bulls head coach Billy Donovan to fill the spot vacated by Sean Sweeney who’s leaving for the head coach position with the Orlando Magic. His career resume may not blind you with his NBA achievements, but to my eyes he’s never been put in the best positions to succeed. Donovan was a hugely successful college coach at the University of Florida, where he lead the team to back-to-back championships in ’06 and ’07. He took over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Durant’s final season there, took them to the WCF where they lost a 3–1 lead to the Warriors, then watched Durant jump ship to join them. The Westbrook-lead Thunder put up valiant efforts over the years, but never reached those same heights again. He lasted through four more winning seasons in Oklahoma before mutually agreeing to part ways with OKC and taking the head coaching job with the Bulls. Chicago has been a vision of mediocrity during his time there, but it’s hard to really fault him for any of it. A lot of head-scratching front office decisions gave him ill-fitting rosters to work with, but I’d argue he made the most of it. He leaves as the Bulls have (finally) decided to enter a full-on rebuild.
Around the rest of the league, there were a lot of surprising moves this season. Arguably the biggest one that does the least for the two teams involved is Giannis Antetokounpo’s move to the Miami Heat. This has been a long time brewing, but ultimately it feels pretty underwhelming now that it’s happened. The Bucks got a pretty decent haul in Tyler Herro (who’s from the Milwaukee area), Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr, Kasparas Jakucionis, three first round picks plus a swap, and a 2033 second rounder. For me, Ware and Jaquez Jr (plus the picks) are the highlights of the package, which should set Milwaukee up nicely for a rebuild. Herro is the sort of empty calories scorer who should put up good numbers on a losing team this season. The fit seems awkward for Miami, who pairs Giannis (a non-shooting big man) with Bam Adebayo (another non-shooting big man). They traded away a sizable chunk of their depth in the trade, and will have to scrape the veteran minimum scrap heap to assemble a roster that can make any noise in the East even with their prize acquisition.
Former Finals MVP Jaylen Brown (not pictured) was also traded from the Celtics in a cost-cutting move, after leading the surprising Celtics to the playoffs last season while missing Jayson Tatum for most of it. In return the Celtics get 36-year old Paul George, a couple of first round picks, and a couple of seconds. I’m sure Celtics fans are devastated. Brown was signed to a large contract extension after their Finals win, and that contract immediately became an albatross the Celtics needed to move on from. I think this trade will have ramifications for the CBA structure when they next renegotiate. Seems bad that a homegrown star who got the contract he deserved immediately needs to be gotten rid of to save money.
Other big trades include Kawhi back to the Raptors (trying to avoid punishment for the Aspiration saga?), LaMelo Ball to the Wolves (possibly creating the funniest duo in the league with Ant Edwards), Ja Morant to the Blazers (though remains to be seen if this can still count as a big trade, given Morant’s performance the past few seasons), Julius Randle was sent to the Nets (who want to look like they’re trying), and the Lakers traded two first round picks and two first round pick swaps to the Jazz for Walker Kessler (assembling the most powerful white guy trio we’ve seen in some time).
Still on the horizon is the ultimate destination of LeBron James, who informed the Lakers he will not be returning but wants to play one last season (and make a documentary about it). There’s also Draymond Green’s situation, who remains a free agent after declining his player option with the only team he’s ever played for in the Warriors. The rumor is that Draymond is going to take a team friendly deal to remain with Curry & coach Steve Kerr (who signed a two-year deal earlier this offseason), while the Warriors attempt to bring in LeBron and his former Lakers’ teammate Anthony Davis to go full Expendables and get all the old guys for one last run. I’ll admit, I’d probably watch that documentary.
That’s all I’ve got. Thanks if you read it. Feel free to leave a comment if you’ve got feedback. I’m ready for internet arguments about basketball opinions. Share it with people who you think might like it too, it would be cool to get those numbers up. I have social media that I suppose you can interact with if you want. I’m on Instagram, Threads, or Reddit as Chocodoctor, and Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/lareunion.bsky.social. There’s not much content there, but you can say hi. If you want to listen to music I’ve listened to, I’ve got a pretty extensive collection of songs I’ve liked in chronological order you can find here. Goodbye and see you next time.
