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The San Antonio Spurs have one more year of DeMar DeRozan and LaMarcus Aldridge before they hit a reset and start over.
Maybe they want to acquire one more good player and try to make one final run at the postseason.
Trading a few young players for Oklahoma City Thunder guard Dennis Schroder could put them in chase of the postseason.
In return, the Thunder would gain a some one-year deals and depth going into the 2020-21 season.
The proposal
Thunder receive: Derrick White, Trey Lyles, Chimezie Metu, Keldon Johnson
Spurs receive: Dennis Schroder
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Why the Thunder do this
The key piece of this trade is Derrick White, who looks like he can be a role player for a long time and only costs $3.5 million this season before he enters restricted free agency next year.
The rest is salary filler with some upside.
Early in the career of Trey Lyles, the power forward flashed legitimate potential. Midway through his first season with the Denver Nuggets in 2017-18, he averaged about 15 points and seven rebounds over a 30-game stretch, 28 of which came off the bench.
He hasn’t shown that skill set consistently since, but at $5.5 million for one more year, it’s a low risk for Oklahoma City to take him to back up Darius Bazley at the 4 and see if they want to sign him for another couple years.
Keldon Johnson spent most of his rookie season in the G League. He only appeared in 17 NBA games, eight of which were in the bubble.
But over those eight games, the small forward was excellent. He averaged 15 points, 4.9 rebounds and shot a whopping 69.2% from 3, albeit on only 1.9 attempts per game.
This was in part a result of teams playing bench and depth options way more over those eight games, but he showed some promise. He has three more years on his contract to showcase that more often.
Chimezie Metu, who is 23, is simply depth at power forward and a little extra salary cap filler to make the deal work (the Spurs are also releasing the cap hold on Tyler Zeller in this deal).
So Oklahoma City gets a couple young players to look at and gives Lyles one more chance. There aren’t any draft picks, but let’s be real — the Thunder have plenty of those already.
Why the Spurs do this
Here is the list of guaranteed contracts on the Spurs roster in 2021-22:
- Dejounte Murray
Here is the list of players with options:
- Lonnie Walker
- Luka Šamanić
- Keldon Johnson
That’s it. The Spurs have one more year of playing with experienced veterans. The contracts of DeRozan, Aldridge, Rudy Gay and Patty Mills expire after this year.
Gregg Popovich would surely like to run this team back one more time with all the ammo he can.
Adding Schroder doesn’t ensure a playoff spot, but he does make this group better and adds explosiveness.
If he starts next to Murray, that’s a very, very good defensive front. If San Antonio brings back Bryn Forbes, the three of them plus Patty Mills make up an underrated guard corps. Plus, Schroder has enough experience in three-guard lineups — he was part of the Thunder guard group that had the best three-man net rating in the league — that Popovich could get creative.
If the Spurs have to hit a reset, and they aren’t able to trade the expiring deals of DeRozan and Aldridge, they may as well try to make one more eighth seed. Schroder is an easy way to help the team without affecting future salary space or giving up draft capital.
Why the Thunder don’t do this
The Thunder would only save about $3 million in cap with this trade. Most the players are still on expiring deals, so it doesn’t give them long-term help, unless they decide to re-sign White and Johnson ends up being better than a first-round draft pick that they would receive in return.
But even those two have issues: White is only a year younger than Schroder, and Johnson spent almost all season in the G League. It’s unlikely those eight pre-playoff bubble games are indicative of NBA-readiness.
This trade may net the Thunder a handful of good young players, but it also may be a good player for three guys who won’t be on the team next year and the No. 29 pick in last year’s draft. Surely Schroder can net a better return, right?
Why the Spurs don’t do this
Derrick White has some value. On Zach Lowe’s podcast with Bill Simmons, White came up in conversation, and Lowe said, “I know a lot of teams are going to call the Spurs about Derrick White, for instance … ‘Maybe I’ll call about Derrick White and see if I can get him.'”
That could lead to possibilities, including a team offering better than Schroder or the Spurs simply wanting to re-sign White to a long-term deal.
They’ve also got to be intrigued with Johnson after his bubble performance. He has three more years on his contract before he hits restricted free agency, and this year he has a salary of just $2 million.
Does the organization think it has a legit chance to make the playoffs in the Western Conference with the Golden State Warriors set to return, the Memphis Grizzlies hoping for vengeance after just missing out on the eighth seed last year, the New Orleans Pelicans entering Year 2 with Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, the Minnesota Timberwolves adding the No. 1 pick, the Phoenix Suns entering with high expectations and some desperation, and a Sacramento Kings team with a new front office that was in the middle of this run last year?
If that answer is no, it doesn’t make sense to trade White and Johnson for Schroder.
Who says no?
I’m not going to pretend to know how to read the Spurs office. How much of win-now mode are they in? Are they willing to make a push and give up potential future help? I do not know.
The Thunder, meanwhile, can probably get better return for Schroder. If they do this, it feels more like a trade that happens to a rebuilding team during the season as losses stack up, not the return of a front office trying to put together an advantageous offseason.
This feels like a trade that would happen if the Spurs are particularly optimistic and the Thunder are relatively pessimistic.
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