The Spurs' cap sheet before the NBA Draft Lottery
Let's dive into the San Antonio Spurs' cap sheet before the NBA draft lottery takes place on May 12, 2024.
With the San Antonio Spurs’ regular season completed, let’s look at the Spurs’ cap sheet before the NBA draft lottery takes place on May 12, 2024.
Before going in-depth on different scenarios, let’s breakdown the Spurs’ roster based on the cap sheet above for the 2024-2025 season:
Guaranteed contract players - 10 players have guaranteed contracts entering next season in Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson, Zach Collins, Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs’ 2024 first round pick (insert name), Tre Jones, Jeremy Sochan, Malaki Branham, Blake Wesley, and Sidy Cissoko. If the Spurs do end up with the Toronto Raptors’ first round pick, then that would be 11 players on guaranteed contracts.
Non or partially guaranteed contract players - 3 players have non or partially guaranteed contracts in Julian Champagnie (NG), Charles Bassey (NG), and Devonte’ Graham (PG).
Free Agents - 4 players will enter free agency this summer in Cedi Osman (unrestricted free agent), Dominick Barlow (restricted free agent), Sandro Mamukelashvili (restricted free agent), and David Duke Jr. (restricted free agent, two-way)
This means barring any trades or waiving players, the Spurs will already have 14 players on the roster when free agency begins July 1. If the Spurs do end up getting the Raptors’ pick, that’s 14 players on the roster. While teams can have up to 20 players on the roster in the offseason, the most players a team can have on the roster before opening night in October (excluding two-way players) is 15 full roster players and 3 two-way players.
Now that we have a baseline of where the roster currently stands, let’s go through a few scenarios in a question format to see what the Spurs’ cap space options could look like going into free agency.
How much cap space can the team open up if they get the 4th pick, the Raptors’ pick at 7th, and keep Julian Champagnie on the roster?
Considering he was a starter this season, it’s tough to see a scenario where the Spurs waive Julian Champagnie this summer. To answer the question, the most cap space the Spurs can open up is $18.9 million in this scenario. To get to this number, the Spurs would have to let all their free agents walk and waive Bassey and Graham on non/partial guaranteed deals.
How much cap space can the team open up if they get the 4th pick, keep Champagnie, but don’t get the Raptors’ pick?
In a scenario where Toronto lands a Top-6 pick that doesn’t go to San Antonio, the Spurs can open up $24.5 million in cap space, with those same roster requirements from above regarding non/partial guaranteed players and free agents.
Until we know the results of the lottery next month, the Spurs’ available cap space will really depend on where their pick lands. The Spurs’ lottery odds can land a pick anywhere from 1st ($12.6 million) to 9th ($5.7 million). So if the pick is higher in the Top-4 range, that’ll mean less cap space on the cap sheet. If the pick is lower in the 7 to 9 range, then that’ll be more available cap space.
The same can be applied to the Raptors’ pick. If the Raptors’ pick lands anywhere from 1st to 6th, then Toronto gets to keep their pick. If the pick lands in the 7th ($6.8 million) to 10th range ($5.4 million), then the Spurs will see a decrease in their projected cap space because they’re adding another player to the team via the draft.
Once the lottery takes place May 12 and we know exactly where the Spurs will be drafting and if they’ll have Toronto’s pick, I’ll revisit their cap sheet to have a better idea of their options going into free agency this summer.