Update: Spurs Trade 8th Pick Dillingham into 2030s, Make Winning Moves Later

Update: After the Spurs helped facilitate the Demar DeRozan trade and picked up Harrison Barnes along with a 2031 unprotected pick swap, the 2024–2025 outlook is looking much brighter.

The Spurs have now added Chris Paul, Harrison Barnes, and Stephon Castle this offseason — all three of which will play meaningful minutes and contribute to a team that is trying to win games.

This was supposed to be simple: draft Victor Wembanyama, compete, and add pieces along the way.

The Spurs, through sheer luck, secured the prize of all prizes. Wemby, a fiercely competitive mega star and exceptional teammate, has publicly stated his sole desire is to win.

His objective for his rookie season was to make the playoffs so what did Gregg Popovich and the Spurs do?

Tank.

As a result of their tanking, the Spurs landed the #4 pick in this draft. And they were able to get the #8 pick as a result of their horrible, rushed Kawhi Leonard to Toronto trade.

At #4, they drafted a seemingly very good talent in Stephon Castle.

At #8, they drafted Rob Dillingham only to trade him to Minnesota for a 2030 pick swap and a 2031 unprotected draft pick.

I don’t know if Dillingham is good or not (but judging from any pre-draft analysis, he’s way better than Blake Wesley). The Spurs could have drafted any of the names in the top 20 and I would have gone along with it — you can justify most selections because a big chunk of drafting is guesswork anyway.

My problem is that the Spurs deferred once again into the future when the time is right now.

Even if the Spurs can trade the Timberwolves’ swap and pick in two years, that’s still two years from now.

Yes, the theoretical value looks good: the Spurs traded the 8th pick in a consensus weak draft and got a swap and an unprotected pick.

But, this isn’t a dynasty fantasy basketball league. Practically, by trading the #8 pick into the future, the Spurs punted on forward momentum. Wemby’s here. He’s already a superstar. He’s already dominant and he’s ready to compete now.

He’s made this as clear as possible — with his actions and with his words.

But the Spurs’ Wemby disrespect tour continues on.

Gregg Popovich, RC Buford (CEO), and Brian Wright (GM) all need to be fired.

The only tangible success they’ve had is in trading away DeJounte Murray to the Hawks so they could lose games to have a better chance at landing Victor.

Time keeps passing by and the Spurs keep losing.