Well thankfully Pop is back on a three-year deal. We did lose two assistants so that has to be addressed. RC touched upon it in the post-draft presser, saying that they have a list of candidates, but there are steps to address before then (draft, FA, Pop's Team USA commitment this summer). I'm sure it's an ongoing process.
What would be fair for us to pay Rudy and for it to be enticing to stay? I think $12M-$13M (tops) range, around 2 years or 2+1? He is eligible for up to $17M/yr in Early Bird rights, but oh my God, wow:
Since he’s been with the Spurs for two seasons, the Spurs now have Early Bird rights to Rudy. That means they can offer him a deal starting at 175 percent of what he made last season (would be roughly $17 million) and up to four years in length, with eight percent annual raises. That is a lot of money. Now, Gay is not going to get the maximum in years and likely not the max yearly sum either, but there’s one thing that is non-negotiable: in order to use Early Bird rights to him, the minimum the Spurs can offer him is a two-year contract, as is stipulated in the collective bargaining agreement.
Interesting possibilities are outlined in the article. Worth a read.
https://www.poundingtherock.com/2019/5/27/18640042/re-signing-rudy-gay-could-be-tricky-for-the-spursIt looks as if we are not (since we have not yet) signing and bringing over Nikola Milutivov:
Could this be related to Rudy? If we retain Rudy, we will have 14 players on the roster. Our bigs rotation consists of LMA(4/5), Rudy (3/4), Davis (4), Jakob (5), Drew (5 - he's been working on his range this summer, hitting 3s with ease - in practice), and Metu (4), though he might need more seasoning (had the worst stats among him, Lonnie and Drew last season - have to look the details again). Perhaps Luka gets some minutes, but I'd expect most of his time will be developing in Austin.
We had a glut of guards going into the draft, and with our last two picks we chose Johnson who is a 2/3 (can guard 1-4, if it's small ball 4, and said he played 2,3,4 in UK), and a combo guard in Quinndary. So instead of relieving our guard glut, we added to it but in interesting ways. It looks as if in the future we will no longer go with a Hobbit back court. Quinndary is 6'4" and is the shortest of the three. What I think happens is these guys develop in Austin and when they're ready to step up we'll have many options with Bryn, Marco, Davis.
We still do not have a true 3, so if we stand pat, it'll be 3-by-committee. Rudy can be one, but his starter role is likely behind him. We have to tender a QO to F Ben Moore, who was injured and rehabbed and played in Austin, so we'll see how that progresses. There's been some speculation about Spurs and Pacers FA Bojan Bogdanovic, but we cannot afford him unless we trade players away and free up cap space (where the guard glut speculation comes in; then again, it's always great to have back ups for backs, as the last couple of years have taught us). He's a Spursy type of player, but at 30, does he fit our timeline? I wouldn't say no outright based on age alone, but as with all things, it's about counting the cost. It's interesting that Luka and Bojan both being Croatian may make for a great learning and assimilation environment for our young forward, too, while filling a needed position.
We have some interesting Summer League signings like F Thomas Robinson, G Kenny Williams, and French C Darel Poirier. It'll be interesting to see how we choose to fill out the Austin roster and who makes it up to the big club (I think Drew and of course Lonnie are the likeliest candidates).
So much off season work to be done even though most of the roster is filled out.
