Category: San Antonio Spurs Blog

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Spurs re-sign Quinndary Weatherspoon to a two-way contract

You may not know who Quinndary Weatherspoon is, but the San Antonio Spurs do, and they like having him around. The team re-signed Weatherspoon, a guard, to a two-way contract.

Weatherspoon spent last season as a two-way player for the Spurs, playing in 11 games for San Antonio, plus 36 games in the G League for Austin. Averaging 1.1 points and 1.0 assists in 7.1 minutes with San Antonio, the first-year player posted 14.8 points, 4.0 rebounds, 4.8 assists and 1.19 steals in 29.3 minutes for Austin.

Selected by the Spurs in the second round of the 2019 NBA Draft (49th overall), Weatherspoon played four seasons of college basketball at Mississippi State and is one of just three players in school history to accumulate over 2,000 career points.

Spurs re-sign center Jakob Poeltl

The San Antonio Spurs have re-signed center Jakob Poeltl.

Poeltl’s contract is reportedly a three-year, $27 million deal.

Poeltl played in 66 games for the Spurs last season, including 18 starts, averaging 5.6 points, a career-high 5.7 rebounds, 1.8 assists and a career-best 1.44 blocks while shooting 62.4 percent from the field in 17.7 minutes. After the NBA restart in July, Poeltl contested the second-most shots in the league (114) while starting all eight contests and averaging 8.3 points, 8.1 rebounds and 1.38 blocks in 25.8 minutes. He had a block in 14 straight games from January to February, the longest streak by a Spur last season.

Selected with the ninth overall pick in the 2016 NBA Draft by the Toronto Raptors, the 7-0, 230-pound center has appeared in 279 games in four seasons, averaging 5.5 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.01 blocks in 16.5 minutes.

San Antonio’s all-time leader in highest field goal percentage in a single season (.645 in 2018-19), Poeltl is both the first Austrian to be selected in the NBA Draft and to appear in an NBA game.

Spurs guard DeMar DeRozan exercises contract option for 2020-21 NBA season

The San Antonio Spurs today announced that guard DeMar DeRozan has exercised his player option for the 2020-21 season.

Per the San Antonio Express-News, it’s a $27.7-million contract option.

In two seasons with the Spurs, DeRozan has averaged 21.6 points, 5.9 assists and 5.8 rebounds in 34.5 minutes while shooting 50.3 percent from the field and 83.7 percent from the foul line.

More from the Express-News: “With NBA coffers decimated by the pandemic and the salary cap remaining flat at $109 million next season, free agency became a less attractive option for players in DeRozan’s position. Of players across the league with an option worth more than $10 million next season, only one — the Los Angeles Lakers’ Anthony Davis — chose to opt out.”

Last season, DeRozan and league MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo were the only two players in the NBA to average 20-plus points, 5-plus rebounds and 5-plus assists while shooting over 50.0 percent from the field. He is also the first player in Spurs history to total more than 3,000 points, 800 rebounds and 800 assists in his first two seasons in San Antonio.

A two-time All-NBA selection, DeRozan is one of just five players to score 1,500-plus points in each of the last five seasons, joining LeBron James, James Harden, Damian Lillard and Russell Westbrook.

An 11-year veteran, DeRozan was originally drafted by the Toronto Raptors with the ninth overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. For his career, the four-time All-Star has appeared in 820 games, averaging 20.0 points, 4.4 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 34.0 minutes. DeRozan has seen action in 58 playoff games, averaging 21.9 points, 4.6 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 37.3 minutes.

San Antonio Spurs promote coaches Mitch Johnson and Darius Songaila

The San Antonio Spurs today announced that assistant coach Mitch Johnson has been promoted. Johnson fills the position vacated by Tim Duncan.

Additionally, Darius Songaila has been elevated to assistant coach.

Johnson was named an assistant coach with the Spurs in 2019 after spending three seasons (2016-19) as an assistant coach for the Austin Spurs, San Antonio’s G League affiliate, where he helped guide the team to the 2018 G League Championship. Prior to joining Austin, Johnson spent one season as an assistant at the University of Portland in 2016. Before his stint with Portland, he coached in the Nike Elite Youth Basketball League and served as a basketball coaching intern at Seattle University in 2011.

Johnson played collegiately at Stanford University and spent three seasons playing in the G League and overseas in Europe.

Songaila enters his third season with the Silver and Black after spending last season on the Spurs coaching staff as a player development assistant. In his first year with the team he served as a quality assurance assistant in the video department. A native of Lithuania, Songaila spent three seasons as an assistant coach with Žalgiris Kaunas in the LKL and EuroLeague before joining the Spurs.

Songaila played eight seasons in the NBA, averaging 6.9 points and 3.4 rebounds in 495 career games. He also played professionally in Lithuania, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and Ukraine. Songaila made the move to the United States while in high school and played collegiately at Wake Forest University.

Tim Duncan stepping away from Spurs assistant coaching job

Tim Duncan reportedly won’t be a San Antonio Spurs assistant coach in 2020-21. Here’s the San Antonio Express-News:

Tim Duncan is headed back into retirement.

After spending the pandemic-shortened 2019-20 NBA campaign working as an assistant on the Spurs’ bench, Duncan has decided not to return for another tour of duty alongside Gregg Popovich.

The decision did not come as a surprise to those in the Spurs’ organization, who understood the 44-year-old Duncan would be a short-term addition when the franchise cornerstone shocked the NBA world by pausing his retirement to join the staff in the summer of 2019.

“Something tells me it’s not going to be his passion for life,” Popovich said at the start of last season.

It won’t be a surprise if Duncan does continue with the Spurs in some way, perhaps on a part-time basis. Not necessarily immediately, but down the road.

With No. 11 pick, Spurs may like NBA draft prospect Precious Achiuwa

With the 2020 NBA draft just over three weeks away, here’s the San Antonio Express News on a prospect the Spurs may have interest in:

Freshman forward Precious Achiuwa was thrust into the limelight at Memphis last season, after would-be star James Wiseman announced in December he was leaving school to focus on the NBA draft.

The decision could end up paying dividends for both players.

Wiseman, a freakishly talented 7-foot-1 center, is in the mix to be drafted No. 1 overall.

Achiuwa, meanwhile, played well enough in Wiseman’s absence to position himself as a potential lottery pick.

The high-energy 21-year-old is among the players the Spurs are known to be considering with the 11th pick.

Multiple Jazz stars will miss Friday game vs Spurs

Friday at 1 p.m. ET, the Jazz face the Spurs. But Utah will do so while giving plenty of rest to a number of key players. Here’s the Salt Lake Tribune reporting:

Of course, with Thursday afternoon’s injury report, we may surmise that where the Jazz are going is to an immediate loss against the Spurs on Friday morning.

After all, with four starters — Rudy Gobert, Donovan Mitchell, Mike Conley and Royce O’Neale — slated to sit out due to rest, left peroneal (ankle tendon) strain, right knee soreness, and right calf soreness, respectively, defeating even ninth-place San Antonio would take some doing.

Anyway, that’s the bad news. Now, a look back at the previous pretty good, really bad, somewhat less bad, and somewhat kind of good news …

After the Jazz opened up with a win against the Pelicans, some observers wondered if Utah was potentially capable of securing the Western Conference’s postseason No. 3 seed. Then, after back-to-back losses to the Thunder (wholly dispiriting) and Lakers (merely disappointing), the panic brigade began disseminating widespread missives on the inevitability of the seventh seed. And after a victory over the Grizzlies that was discouraging for how competitive it was, but also encouraging for the signs of progress evident within, the general assessment of the Jazz now is …

Who knows?

Leading scorers for the Jazz this season:
Donovan Mitchell 24.0 PPG
Bojan Bogdanovic 20.2
Rudy Gobert 15.1
Jordan Clarkson 15.0
Mike Conley 14.4

And for the Spurs:
DeMar DeRozan 22.2 PPG
LaMarcus Aldridge 18.9
Patty Mills 11.6
Bryn Forbes 11.2
Derrick White 11.0

With the Jazz also without Bojan Bogdanovic (injured), this is a good opportunity for the Spurs to snag a win and keep their playoff hopes alive. But they face an uphill battle in a crowded West.

Meanwhile, Utah sits 4th in the West and already clinched a postseason spot.

Spurs forward Trey Lyles out for remainder of season

San Antonio Spurs forward Trey Lyles underwent an appendectomy earlier today in Orlando, Fla.

In his first year with San Antonio, Lyles averaged 6.4 points to go along with a career-high 5.7 rebounds while shooting a career-best .387 from the three-point line. The fifth-year forward had appeared in all 63 games thus far and made 53 starts.

Lyles will miss the remainder of the 2019-20 season.

Spurs sign 7-foot center Tyler Zeller

The San Antonio Spurs have signed center Tyler Zeller.

Zeller, 7-0/255, holds career averages of 7.0 points and 4.4 rebounds in 17.6 minutes, while shooting .509 from the field in 412 total games. The former UNC Tarheel was selected by Dallas with the 17th overall pick in the first round of the 2012 NBA Draft before being dealt in a Draft night trade to Cleveland (2012-14), where he spent his first two seasons. A seven-year NBA veteran, Zeller has also spent time with Boston (2014-17), Milwaukee (2017-18), Brooklyn (2017-18), Atlanta (2018-19) and Memphis (2018-19). In 2014-15, his first year with the Celtics, he averaged career-bests in scoring (10.2 ppg) and rebounding (5.7 rpg) while playing in all 82 games.

Zeller will wear No. 40 for the Spurs.