The Spurs and guard Devonte’ Graham are moving back his contract guarantee date to July 8, according to ESPN’s Andrew Lopez (Twitter link).
Graham’s contract is already partially guaranteed for $2.85MM for next season, but it was set to increase to $12.65MM by July 1. Now, the Spurs have an extra week to mull over options for Graham, including potential trades.
The Spurs acquired Graham in 2023 from New Orleans in a move that also involved Josh Richardson going to the Pelicans.
In one-and-a-half seasons with the Spurs, Graham has averaged 8.7 points, 3.0 assists, and 2.0 rebounds per game and has shot 33.8% from beyond the arc. The 34th overall pick in the 2018 draft began his career with the Hornets, playing modest minutes in his first season before breaking out and averaging 18.2 points and 7.5 assists in 2019/20, finishing fifth in Most Improved Player voting.
However, his production has gradually declined since that season. At 29 years old and a career 35.4% shooter from beyond the arc, Graham could provide value to prospective playoff teams, but likely not on his current contract. In 336 career games (171 starts), Graham holds career averages of 11.1 points and 4.3 assists per game.
Good— hopefully they can use it to absorb a larger contract.
Using it to balance out a big trade better be the reason. Keeping Graham at 12.9 would be a big waste of their cap space. If the Spurs do keep Graham, that means they are likely willingly wasting another year of the huge value they are getting in paying Wemby only 13 mil.
They are not keeping Graham. He’s trade potential filler. If no trade he’s gone.
Spurs are going after some free agent or making a trade. That’s why they traded the 8th pick in the draft. Gave them an open roster spot and $8M less in salary. Gives them $26 in cap space for a trade. They’ll probably include Keldon in a trade at some point as well.
The free agent market isn’t great. There are some guys that can be signed to upgrade the roster, but taking a big step forward will have to come via trade.
Problem with spurs fans they expect all the big game hunting. In all honesty if they were able to get a vet pg to mentor and two solid 3 and d guys at small forward and power forward they would probably have a huge jump. Having wemby and vassell are nice. They should be opportunistic but just getting better vets than graham, osman and McDermott i would be happy with.
Enter, Tyus Jones, as our new starting PG with a 4 year deal.