With Tony Parker getting older and out injured for eight months, the time is now for the San Antonio Spurs to find their next point guard. Here are five potential options in free agency.
The San Antonio Spurs have a Tony Parker problem. Not the kind of problem that normally comes to mind with star players and future Hall-of-Famers who grow disenfranchised with their team, but rather, the kind of problem that eventually ails every NBA player: Father Time.
Even before his season-ending quadriceps injury, TP was starting to show signs of his age at 35. Though he drastically elevated his performance through his first eight playoff games, he was coming off a season in which he averaged 10.1 points and 4.5 assists per game — the lowest numbers since his rookie year.
With Parker losing the ability to regularly penetrate and put the ball in the hole, the Spurs’ offense relied upon Kawhi Leonard to carry the load. He succeeded in an MVP-caliber season, but with LaMarcus Aldridge‘s game also dropping off at an alarming rate, San Antonio needs to start thinking about finding a successor for the greatest point guard in their franchise’s history.
Now, to be fair, the Spurs may have been doing just that when they drafted Dejounte Murray in 2016. The rookie showed very promising flashes this year and could be the long-term answer for a team that continually strikes gold at the end of the first round.
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However, Murray’s time won’t come for at least a few years, and with Kawhi and Aldridge, the Spurs can’t afford to sit and twiddle their thumbs, waiting for him to become a star. Parker won’t be back until around January, making this the perfect time to ease into the process of finding of the next starting point guard.
The question is, what options will the Spurs have available to them this summer in free agency? And what must be done to free up the necessary cap space to sign a star floor general that can bridge the gap between Tony Parker and Dejounte Murray?
Here’s a look at five possibilities, but first, we need to address one honorable mention in Derrick Rose, since ESPN‘s Ian Begley reported the Spurs could be interested in the former MVP:
When you see rumors floating around about the Spurs' interest in Derrick Rose: pic.twitter.com/xJptonQ0qJ
— Quixem Ramirez (@quixem) May 24, 2017