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EspañolTORONTO — Say this for the San Antonio Spurs: when they decide to tank, they get it right.
It’s one of the interesting subplots to the heated league-wide debate about the practice of teams throwing whole seasons — sometimes several of them — in the name of securing a favourable draft position and having a better chance to choose a franchise-changing superstar.
Like, say, Victor Wembanyama, who the Spurs drafted first overall in 2023 after going 22-60. Or Tim Duncan, who the Spurs drafted No. 1 in 1997 after another 22-win season, or even back in 1987 when the Spurs bottomed out to 21 wins and drafted Hall-of-Famer David Robinson with the first pick.
It’s a San Antonio tradition. But in this most recent iteration, the Spurs didn’t stop there at just one year of draft shenanigans.
After drafting Wembanyama, they stayed bad and were rewarded when 2025 rookie of the year Stephon Castle was available with the fourth pick. Then, they were careful to stay in the lottery mix last season and were lucky enough to move up six spots to No. 2 overall for Dylan Harper, who projects as the ideal long-term pick-and-roll partner for Wembanyama, the seven-foot-five French star already in the conversation for MVP.
Ironically, the Toronto Raptors helped them with their strategy, trading a first-round pick for Jakob Poeltl as they were dismantling their team back in 2022-23 with an eye on drafting Wembanyama.
The Raptors have never embraced tanking as fully as the Spurs have in recent years. The result is a relatively rapid rebound to playoff contention after a couple of losing seasons. However, their path to contention might be a bit murky. For San Antonio, their efforts have paid off. Their road to a possible title is pretty simple: follow Wemby.
For the Spurs, using the draft strategically has worked for nearly 30 years of unbroken success, and with Wembanyama, Castle and Harper on board, it should work for a decade or more.
Less than a year removed from their most recent draft lottery the Spurs have emerged as legitimate championship threats.
The Raptors got a taste of what the Spurs have stumbled into on Wednesday night when San Antonio showed up, played very average basketball by their standards and still managed to pull out a 110-107 win that came down to a missed three-point attempt by Brandon Ingram at the horn.
The win improved the Spurs to 41-16, the NBA’s third-best record and left them just two games behind Oklahoma City in the race for top seed in the Western Conference.
The Raptors fell for the third straight time at home and second in as many nights, but remain fifth in the East with a 34-25 mark.
They’ve been looking for signature wins all season and had one in their grasp even though they were playing on the second night of a back-to-back against a rested Spurs team that has now won 10 straight.
The Raptors led by as many as 15 late in the third quarter, but saw that lead get whittled to one in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter during one of the few stretches this season that Raptors head coach Darko Rajakovic has sat Ingram (20 points on 9-of-22 shooting, with 11 rebounds) and Scottie Barnes (15 points, four rebounds on 7-of-13 shooting) at the same time. A decision he said was attributable to Ingram needing rest (he had played all 12 minutes of the third quarter) and Barnes needing a breather as he dealt with the aftereffects of a bruised thigh suffered the night before against Oklahoma City.
“Scottie, he was really playing through the pain, so he was in constant communication with us. And he was saying, ‘If you guys don’t have to play me, try to keep the momentum,’” said Rajakovic. “So we had that technical communication. And, you know, we had, at that point, a 12-point lead.”
But the Spurs had Wembanyama, who — by his own admission — was not at his best.
The Raptors used a combination of Collin Murray-Boyles (until he had to leave in the third quarter after banging his troublesome left thumb trying for a steal on Wembanyama), Jakob Poeltl and Barnes to make life difficult for the Spurs star.
On paper, they succeeded as he was limited to just 12 points on three-of-12 shooting in 30 minutes.
“I thought we did as well as you can do against Wembanyama,” said Rajakovic.
What did Wembanyama think? Mostly that he was tired after having been in Los Angeles for all-star weekend and then getting in late on Monday night after the Spurs’ big win over Detroit.
“I didn’t recover tonight, with all the time changes, coming from L.A., coming here late from Detroit,” Wembanyama told me when I asked whether it was the Raptors coverage that was the problem, or him. “I need to do a better job, getting treatment, getting sleep. I couldn’t sleep last night. I wasn’t in shape today…”
Of the Spurs’ highly drafted young stars, Harper might have been the most impactful as he came off the bench for 15 points and seven assists on 11 shots. Devin Vassell led them in scoring with 21 points as he shot five-of-six from three.
As for Wembanyama, he didn’t let his tired legs affect his defence. He blocked five shots, altered many more and discouraged even more from being taken. In the game’s first five minutes, the Raptors had three turnovers after altering course on drives when they realized Wembanyama was lurking.
“I do take pride in it,” said Wembanyama as the Spurs held the Raptors to 42.2 per cent shooting. “As a team, we take a lot of pride in guarding the ball like that. We take pleasure in it. It’s the first thing we think about.”
Offensively, his final line was well off his season averages of 24.2 points and 11 rebounds on 50 per cent shooting — and the Raptors definitely deserve some credit — but he was still a game-best +19 for his time on the floor, including +14 in 10 fourth quarter minutes. Wembanyama’s only three-pointer of the night was a big part of that as it put the Spurs up by six with 3:42 to play. The Raptors couldn’t close the gap from there, even though the Spurs missed four-of-six free throws in the final 16 seconds.
That was another issue for the Spurs star: “We did not win that game because we played better basketball,” said Wembanyama. “That’s kind of the recap of the night, how we shot those free throws at the end.”
Still, the Raptors could take some satisfaction in pushing a very good team to the limit under difficult circumstances. It wasn’t the bold-faced win over an elite team they have been looking for, but as their record against top 10 teams dropped to 4-15, they could take some solace in a signature loss, if there is such a thing. It was a much more impressive effort than the blowout loss the Spurs handed the Raptors in San Antonio back in November.
“They’re a really good team, really well coached. They’ve got great guard play, great wings along with Wemby,” said Immanuel Quickley, who had 20 points on 12 shots, but finished without an assist. “So they’re a tough team to play against. But I think they just made 17 threes [on 39 attempts]. You make 17 threes with a seven-five guy blocking shots, you got a good chance to win. So, you know, I guess we’ll see them again next year.”
That’s the problem with tanking the way the Spurs have: when done right, it pays dividends that last for decades.
Three-point Grange
Mamu memories: Before Mitch Johnson became the first head coach of the San Antonio Spurs not named Gregg Popovich since 1996-97, he was an assistant coach on a rebuilding Spurs team, working closely with Sandro Mamukelashvili.
The Raptors’ free-agent find made such an impression on the Spurs that he got a video tribute when the Raptors played in San Antonio earlier this season, even though the Georgian big man was very much a fringe rotation player over his two-plus years there.
So it was no surprise that Johnson is thrilled for the success Mamukelashvili has had since joining the Raptors as a free agent this past summer.
“I put my player development hat on [and] you always want everybody to make it, to make a billion dollars and score 100 points and be with the team for 20 years. And that’s never the case. And we’ve lost a lot of people that have been very important to our organization, and people that you build relationships with, and you should have feelings and emotions towards, and Sandro is one of those guys…” Johnson said.
“Think when they leave your organization, and you see them have success, it makes you feel good. And I think that’s, you know, the thing about this league that people don’t realize at times is the relationships don’t change, the feelings and emotions don’t change. And so we want all those guys to be successful, just hopefully [he] misses a few shots tonight.”
Battle time? Jamison Battle has struggled to find consistent playing time this year, generally languishing fourth in a four-person battle for minutes on the wing featuring Ja’Kobe Walter, Gradey Dick and Ochai Agbaji. But Agbaji was traded at the deadline and it appears Walter has been slotting into the role of first wing off the bench.
On Tuesday against Oklahoma City, Battle played ahead of Dick after the latter had a less-than-optimal first stint. On Wednesday against the Spurs, it was Battle who got the first stint, playing six first-half minutes while Dick didn’t leave the bench.
Neither did Battle after the first half, as he finished with two points on one field goal attempt. Meanwhile, Dick recorded his first DNP-CD (did not play-coach’s decision) since Jan. 18, 2024, in his rookie season.
Nothing is set in stone, but guaranteed minutes for Dick might not be in the cards for the third-year wing going forward either: “Obviously, what he experienced in the first two years in the NBA is pretty different than what he’s going through this season,” said Rajakovic. “… He’s in the process of learning how to be a professional, how to embrace that role, how to learn to play that role. And he had games where he did very well and he had games that, you know, did not do great. So he has to live with the process. I still believe in him, we still believe in him, and we look at this as a long-term process with him, not just something that’s game to game.”
Olympics for Kelly O? I caught up with the long-time Canadian national team star and veteran Spurs big man Kelly Olynyk after the game and he says he’s planning to play in the 2028 Olympics.
The 34-year-old is in his 13th NBA season but has no plans to hang up his sneakers. He’s in the last year of a deal with the Spurs and was relieved when San Antonio didn’t use his expiring contract in a trade package at the deadline.
He’s settled in nicely in Texas. His wife works in nearby Austin and they just had a daughter. But having waited so long for a taste of the Olympics that came in 2024 in Paris, he wants one more crack at a medal. He’s been in touch with new national team head coach Gord Herbert and plans to play in the World Cup qualifying window this summer as Canada hosts Puerto Rico and Jamaica in Hamilton.
