#队记: The Spurs now have 18 formal contracts#
Last night and this morning, the Spurs once again "tactically" increased their strength.
After a trade with the Suns, the Spurs sent a future second-round pick from the Suns for Cameron Payne, a second-round pick and some cash.
After trading Payne, the Spurs' roster swelled further. According to team reporter Jeff McDonald, the Spurs currently have 18 formal contracts on their books.
According to the league's rules, before the start of the new season, each team needs to reduce the roster to the size of 15 guaranteed contracts + 2 two-way contracts. Therefore, of the next 18 permanent workers, the Spurs need to make a selection to cut three of them.
Looking at the current roster of the Spurs, there are five people who should be the most secure, they are Vembanyama, Devin Vassell, Jeremy Sohan, Keldon Johnson and Trae Jones. In addition, sophomores Blake Wesley and Malaki Brannam are likely to remain in the Spurs' development system.
In other words, if there is no big deal for the Spurs in the next stage, the core rebuild framework of these 7 young people will not be shaken for the time being.
In addition to these seven, Graham, Mamukelashvili, Zach Collins and McDermott were on the Spurs' roster last season and have all had shining performances. As players who are relatively familiar with the Spurs system and style of play, the four of them also have certain advantages in staying with the team.
As for the other 7 players, Charles Bashi and Chambany are still relatively young and have certain development value. Among them, Chambany had a very bright performance at the end of last season and during this year's summer league. But in the future, even if the two stay in the list, the living space is very small.
As for the remaining five players, Ken Birch was traded to the Spurs in a mid-season deal involving Poeltl, while Osman, Stevens, Bullock and Payne were all abandoned players who were sold by the parent team after several trades this summer.
In the future, these five will certainly also hope to shine on the Spurs' roster, especially considering the addition of Venbanyama and the Spurs have become one of the new focuses of the league, so if they can play under Popovich, it will also help these players turn their careers around.
But the harsh reality is that future layoffs are the most likely to happen among these 5 players.
Of course, with three months to go before the official start of next season, the Spurs still have plenty of time to straighten out the team's personnel and observe the state of every potential fringe person. Maybe the final layoff decision won't settle until October...
