NBA Rumors: Best free agent every team in Southwest Division should target
By Matt Sidney
San Antonio Spurs: Kai Jones, C
Last but not least, we have the San Antonio Spurs. Long gone are the days of the 50-win Spurs who seemingly punched their ticket to a deep playoff run every season from 2000 - 2017. This iteration of the Spurs is, "Be patient and develop the young guys." Well if that's the direction they're going in, that's the direction we are sticking with. We have the youngest player to appear in our exercise for the last team of the exercise, who has the oldest coach in the NBA, Gregg Popovich. Popovich asks a lot out of his players, but what he expects in regards to respect, he also gives it. Kai Jones did not work out in Charlotte. It was a rather odd exit.
Luckily for him, he gets picked up by the Spurs here and is privy to learning from one of the best coaches in NBA history.
Honestly, why not take a flyer on Jones? He's a 22-year-old, 6-foot-11 center who still has a lot of untapped potential. Who better to pull that potential out of him than Coach Pop? Jones would get the proper structure and culture that could let him thrive. This past off-season Tim Duncan opted to help develop the bigs in the off-season, mainly because of Victor Wembanyama. Well, if Duncan is still there, learning from one of the greatest power forwards of all time would be incredible for Jones' development.
The Spurs need a lot of help in a lot of places. I personally don't think that it would make much of a difference if they brought in a veteran on this team. I think that this season is already a wash, so go grab a kid who needs some help bring him into one of the most structurally sound programs, and see what he can do. Worst case scenario, he's off the team by the end of the year.
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Best-case scenario, you have a reliable, young big who will continue to develop over the years to give the Spurs more depth. Sometimes all it takes is the right person at the right time to come into your life to change all the misfortunes. Coach Popovich and the Spurs could be just that for the young and promising Kai Jones.