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He's a good 1/3 more athletic than the Easter Island head the Mavs drafted.

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LO-F***ING-L

Oklahoma City has until Sunday to decide if they want to pay nearly $60mm next year to have Enes Kanter on their team.

just speculating here, but what if you saw a 2nd unit during garbage time or spot situation of..

Mills
Ginobili
Diaw
West
Marjanovic

I suppose what I am proposing is that if this gargantuan Serb shows any ability to play meaningful minutes at all, you also get as a fringe benefit relief for Kawhi since Diaw can easily play the 3, assuming he lays off the gravied croissants for the next couple of months.

Rotationally speaking I'm looking at it this way..

PG: Parker 30/Mills 10/Other 8
SG: Green 30/Ginobili 10/Other 8
SF Leonard 30/Diaw 6/Other 12
PF Aldridge 30/West 9/Diaw 9
C: Duncan 24/West 8/Diaw 8/Marjanovic 8

I left a lot of "other" at PG/SG/SF because I think we'll continue to see some Parker/Mills back courts with Green or Ginobili sliding to the 3. And some small ball will include Kawhi at the 4, so he won't always just play at SF too, I was just trying to portion out Diaw's minutes since he can conceivably play 3 positions.

also, GOOD GOD ALMIGHTY HIS HANDS ARE HUGE.

Guy can pass a little:

Spurs have 12 committed:

Parker Mills McCallum
Green Ginobili (Insert Belinelli Replacement)
Leonard Anderson
Aldridge Diaw
Duncan West Marjanovic

One last active roster spot for another wing. Spurs could also elect to bring back Bonner but in that case they would pretty much be planning on leaving Anderson in Austin for the majority of the season.

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The Spurs announced that they renounced the rights to Manu this morning meaning he will be signing for the Room Exception of $2.8M.

As it currently stands the Spurs could potentially have around $2.5M in cap space once they waive Reggie Williams. The fact that they have not announced the signings of Green and/or Leonard yet could potentially mean they are looking to fit another player into that cap room before losing it for good once they re-sign their big guns. Or it could be possible that Marjanovic is taking that extra cap space.

Preferably, there is not a lot out there in terms of wings that seem very appealing to me. The Spurs pulling off another trade for a backup wing would be best case scenario, like they did with McCallum but probably unlikely.

Some candidates still on the market for the last wing spot: Ben Gordon, Alexey Shved, Dorrell Wright, Jason Richardson, etc.

dp

Caron Butler to the Kings, btw.

edit: adding WoJBomb for source

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Caron Butler to the Kings, btw.

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He would have been an ideal backup for Kawhi.

Marjanovich looks like DJ Qualls post-super soldier serum.

Ehh Butler is done. So is Prince. JMO

Preferably I want someone who can bring up the ball, create his own shot, good handle, etc. I don't think we need another stiff who can just stand on the perimeter and shoot threes. That's pretty much all Dorrell Wright is good for also so I'm not a huge fan of his either but well see what happens.

I feel like if Manu is having some health issues and not getting a lot of minutes, we are still lacking in the play making / ball handling department some. Someone like Evan Fournier, Bogdan Bogdanovic, Kent Bazemore, Jeremy Lamb, etc would be ideal but they are all pipe dreams at this point.

Jason Richardson is someone who might be able to put together one more solid season if he's healthy. He could be the best option all things considered, assuming hes healthy of course.

We need someone who can slide up to the 2 or even the 1 more than we need a combo forward. We already have tons of mobile forwards, we're lacking guards.

Yep, those guys I listed who are under contract all make a small enough amount to where we could fit them into our cap so maybe the Spurs are trying to pull off another trade but yeah, not counting on it.

Is Marjanovich done filming "The Strain" for the season already?

Sorry for that.

The guy is obviously huge, but he also has some skill. He's slow, but with his size and touch, and only 26 years old, that's a really good pick-up for a bargain-basement big. He could be more than just a deep bench guy after a year or so.

More I read and film I watch it seems like a pretty great pick up for what the Spurs needed and what else is out there. Guy has progressed at a rapid rate and has really played well in the very competitive Euroleague. He's going to have some trouble with the speed of the NBA and guarding the P&R of course but I think he could develop into a nice rotation big off the bench for certain matchups. I like the pick up a lot.

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Caron Butler to the Kings, btw.

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He would have been an ideal backup for Kawhi.

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Agree. I kinda wanted Casspi. Still can't believe he stayed in Sac for 2 years/6mm. That seems really gettable. I'm just greedy I guess.

I'm not ready to say goodbye to The Sandwich Hunter.

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I'm not ready to say goodbye to The Sandwich Hunter.

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10 years isn't enough? You want his jersey in the rafters haha

I'd settle for a sandwich named after him sold at AT&T Center.

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I'm not ready to say goodbye to The Sandwich Hunter.

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If I had to put money on it I'd say Bonner comes back. He may rarely play but he'll be back. I don't see why they wouldn't carry 6 bigs on the roster...they did last year. He just won't dress for every game like Ayers didn't dress every game last year.

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It's possible. Not like he doesn't have any value elsewhere though. I'm sure he could get the minimum elsewhere and not have to worry about sitting in a suit half the year. Just depends what he's looking for.

Other names the Spurs have been linked with this summer are Rasual Butler and Carlos Delfino. Other guys to keep an eye on.

Last year I speculated that the Spurs may try playing a zone defense more regularly. A slow-footed 7'4 center with 9'8 standing reach and 7'8 wingspan and a slow-footed 6'9 small forward with 7'5 wingspan both fit zone a lot better than they do an active hedging man to man defense. Zone defense really plays to Anderson's strengths and somewhat minimizes his weaknesses. Will not be shocked at all if the Spurs show a heavy dose of zone with the second unit this year.

Yeah I'm sure they will continue implementing some zone. Although I would expect Marjanovic to get potentially 25-30 DNP-CDs this season. He will be there when needed though. Wouldn't expect him to get major minutes though.

Very true.

Some telling comments in a great Q&A with RC Buford in the SA EN.

You're never confident. You plan as well as you can.

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How far were you willing to go to get Aldridge in terms of letting players go?

"The planning of it, to move Tiago and not know you were going to get LaMarcus, that was a significant risk. Especially someone who had had a big part of a lot of success we've had in this building. So the planning that went into the sequencing, the alignment of the contracts, there were a lot of decisions. We'll miss the relationships we had with Marco and with Cory and with Aron, and Tiago. Losing those guysand Jeff Ayres, we don't know what's going to happen yet. And Matt. So losing those relationships, not only a big part of the success but the chemistry and the culture of the group, you have to continue to recognize there will be some losses in this process. It's never easy."

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Sounds like they're not bringing the Red Mamba back. And Ayres but I think that's been a given.

On the Ray McCallum trade...

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As we evaluate the opportunitieswe speculated that if Ray had been a free agent in this market, we probably wouldn't have been able to get him."

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This made me legit laugh out loud.

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How do you see Duncan and Aldridge in terms of how center will be handled?

"We haven't worried about that. Tim has played center for probably the last five years. We've announced DeJuan Blair, Matt Bonner, Speedy Claxton probably as a center in the starting lineup. But our system will handleand I have enough confidence in Pop that he can figure it out."

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Spurs are not offering Delfino a contact

can you imagine how Tiago would have handled this? (for the record, I do like Tiago. he wasn't the strongest finisher, though.)

The Spurs have signed Guard Jonathan Simmons to a two-year contract worth the minimum. Has played last two years with the Austin Spurs and played College at Houston.

Your updates are on point.

good lord you're quick. here I am panning for gold on r/nba, twitter, etc and totally being unproductive and clock watching all day long and you get all the scoops.

so at 6'6" he's our 2/3 Marco replacement eh?

Seems like that the plan at the moment. I'm guessing that his deal isn't fully guaranteed though (not sure he's done enough to merit a fully guaranteed two year deal) which means the Spurs could eventually elect to waive him if it doesn't work out or someone else they like more becomes available without taking much of a cap hit at all.