San Antonio Spurs: 15 players you may have forgot played in San Antonio
No. 7: David Lee (2016-17)
With a 250 lbs hole to fill in their frontcourt following the retirement of Tim Duncan, the San Antonio Spurs went out that offseason and inked three deals to fill the gaps. While we likely have more recollection of Pau Gasol and Dewayne Dedmon’s tenures in San Antonio, David Lee proved to be a strong stopgap as well in 2016-17.
Lee’s career is mostly remembered for its eventful stops with New York and the Golden State Warriors, where he became a two-time All-Star. Serving at one point as the co-Robin to Stephen Curry’s Batman on the pre-dynastic Warriors, a preseason hamstring injury left him out for the first two months of the 2014-15 season.
By the point of his return, new starting forward Draymond Green helped guide the Warriors to a league-best 22-3 record, which, essentially put Lee’s career on ice.
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After brief stops in Boston and Dallas, Lee finished his career out for a 61-win Spurs team. Serving as the “team’s new Boris Diaw,” Lee’s run in San Antonio today is remembered positively, even if for only a season.
Similar to his runs on previous teams, injuries robbed him of his chance to compete for a championship on his own terms. He joined the likes of Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker as San Antonio Spurs who became casualties during the 2017 Western Conference Finals run. He suffered a torn patella tendon in Game 3.
In total, he averaged a respectable 7.3 points and 5.6 rebounds on 59.0 percent shooting in his final year. Credit to him, he survived later than most back-to-basket players did during the analytical wave that left them mostly extinct.