SPURS DON’T HAVE TO TRADE

Surprise playoff contender shouldn’t feel need to dump veterans on expiring deals

Let’s say you’re an NBA general manager, and let’s say you think LaMarcus Aldridge or DeMar DeRozan or Rudy Gay might help your team. That seems reasonable. Why wouldn’t you believe that?

Then let’s say you drop a line or send a text to Brian Wright, your counterpart in the Spurs’ front office. Let’s say that if you do, not only will he listen to your proposal, he might even counter with one of his own. After all, if you can try to make your team better, then why can’t he?

None of this would be surprising, would it? Of course there are going to be inquiries made between now and the March 25 trade deadline, and of course the Spurs will have discussions, because each of the aforementioned three veterans have contracts that expire this summer, as do Patty Mills and Trey Lyles.

But if you’re planning to call Wright this month, it’s probably wise not to assume he’s going to jump at the first offer he gets, or even that he’ll feel obligated to take the best one. At this particular deadline, for this particular team, something isn’t necessarily better than nothing, because the Spurs’ outlook has changed in the last three months.

The future is closer than it once appeared.

If the first half of the Spurs’ season hadn’t gone as well as it did, the next steps would be simpler. If their youngsters had disappointed, if their veterans had faded, if they still had giant holes to fill with no realistic hope of competing anytime soon, there would be no hesitation.

If they were 6½ games out of last place in the Western Conference instead of 6½ games out of first, they’d dump DeRozan, Aldridge and Gay for anything that wouldn’t tie them to a longterm contract in return, and they’d angle for a second consecutive lottery pick. Wright might have been the busiest general manager in the league this month.

Instead, Dejounte Murray took not only the next step, but a leap. Keldon Johnson kept giving off the vibes of Kawhi Leonard with a personality. Each of the Spurs’ other first-round picks from the last five years provided more reasons to believe they can be foundational pieces of a winner. Meanwhile, DeRozan, Gay and Mills showed how well they fit into the picture now.

Does this mean the Spurs think they can win a championship this season, or next? No, but that’s not the point. The point is they now know that what they’ve already started building has potential, and that they might not have to wait until the back half of this decade for the potential to pay off.

That means winning — and winning now — has value. Too often, outsiders are tempted to think of NBA seasons as all-ornothing propositions, where an early-round playoff exit is of no more use to a building franchise than a ninth-place finish.

But postseason experience matters. If players like Murray, Johnson, Lonnie Walker, Derrick White and Devin Vassell can get some of it this spring, might it win the Spurs a bigger series down the road? And if the difference between getting that experience and falling short of the playoffs comes down to the decision between letting a couple of veterans walk away for nothing or trading them for a couple of second-round picks?

Again, Wright shouldn’t feel like his hand is forced here.

This isn’t to say he, Spurs CEO R.C. Buford and coach Gregg Popovich will sit pat, or that they should. Considering how well the team has played without Aldridge in the lineup, and how increasingly unlikely it looks like he’s a part of the Spurs’ future, it makes all the sense in the world to investigate what dealing him might look like.

The problem, as it has been for a while, is that in most cases the Spurs would be required to take back more than $20 million in salary to make an Aldridge trade work, and if any of that money carries over into next season or beyond, the deal does them more harm than good.

Still, there might be a creative solution, and it wouldn’t be a total shock to see something develop involving Aldridge, Gay or the other looming free agents. Considering how integral DeRozan has been to the Spurs’ success this season, though, a potential suitor probably would need to blow them away for the should-have-been All-Star.

And if Wright reviews all of those calls and texts and decides to do nothing before the deadline? Last fall, that would have sounded like a disaster.

But that was before we knew how close the future was.

Billy Calzada / Staff photographer As the best player on an 18-14 team, DeMar DeRozan probably has more value to the Spurs as a keeper than as trade bait.