Rumor: The Spurs are looking to acquire another first round pick to draft a point guard

The San Antonio Spurs may have already won the most coveted pick in 20 years with the right to draft Victor Wembanyama first overall in the 2023 NBA Draft, but they may not be ready to settle for just one first-round pick. According to Rafael Barlow of NBA Big Board (subscription required), the Spurs are looking to acquire an additional first-round pick to address the point guard position.

This wouldn’t be a surprising move at all as the Spurs look to build a championship team around team Wemby and with the other main pieces of their young core being wings and forwards. Tre Jones was the Spurs’ starting point guard for the majority of last season, and while he has shown massive improvement for a former second round pick, he still doesn’t match up with most starting point guards in the league, especially on contending teams, and is probably more suited for a bench role in the long term (assuming he returns to the Spurs in free agency).

There are plenty of good point guard prospects to be had later in the lottery and first round, such as Anthony Black, Cason Wallace and Jalen Hood-Schifino, but the Bee’s Knees would be Scoot Henderson, who is widely considered the next best prospect in this year’s draft class and would probably go first in another year.

Of course, getting him would be a long shot. The Spurs’ only hope would be the Charlotte Hornets are content with LaMelo Ball as their PG of the future and go for someone who fills a position of need — like Brandon Miller — with the second pick, and then try to work with Portland, who is reportedly open to shopping the third pick to try and build a win-now team around Damian Lillard. The Spurs may not have what it takes to accomplish that goal for Portland on their own, but they do have some very tradable contracts and many intriguing future picks — including the 31st and 44th picks this year and six more first round picks in ‘24 and ‘25, three of which are unprotected — that could work as a smaller part of the Blazers’ plans or in a larger, multi-team deal that would send them a star.

That being said, getting Wemby and Scoot in the same draft would be ultimate draft-day ripoff, and it’s hard to imagine any other team in the league would be willing to help the Spurs accomplish such a feat, so their best bet would probably be to look back towards the latter half of the lottery and into the mid-first round to find willing trade partners who are intrigued by all their assets.

And of course, if there are no willing trade partners — again, everyone else may say, “you already got Wemby,” — the Spurs could also look to free agency to find an upgrade at point guard. As Jacob Douglas already pointed out, the Spurs have plenty of cap space, and there are good point guards such as Fred VanVleet hitting free agency this summer.

Whatever the Spurs do, it appears they are not content to stand pat after Wemby this summer, and that should be good news to Spurs fans. The more they can do the upgrade the roster now, the sooner the Wemby Era can kick into high gear. While fans shouldn’t be expecting a turnaround like we saw when Tim Duncan and David Robinson arrived (who were both grown men by then, not 19-year-olds), the hope is the true rebuild/tank is over, and the Spurs will be back in winning mode by next season.