The Harrison Barnes trade shows the Spurs’ front office knows what it’s doing

The Spurs are still in the middle of their rebuild and will eventually need to make some big moves, but for now, nailing the smaller ones is enough.

The day the NBA’s July moratorium ended, the Spurs made a move. San Antonio used its cap space to facilitate a trade that sent DeMar DeRozan to the Kings and got Harrison Barnes and a 2031 unprotected pick swap for their troubles.

The trade doesn’t alter the direction of the rebuild and might not result in many more wins in itself, but it does prove that the Spurs’ often-beleaguered front office not only has a plan for the long term but also the present.

We’ll get to what Harrison Barnes can do for the Spurs, but first let’s look at how they got him. There were reports about San Antonio being a potential destination for DeRozan, but it always felt more likely that they would use their tools to facilitate sign-and-trades instead of arranging them themselves. The front office carved out potential cap room by trading the eighth pick and was careful to offer Chris Paul a contract that could fit into their cap space and the mid-level exception to operate as either an under-the-cap team or an over-the-cap team. As a result, they had the opportunity to retain free agents or pounce on an opportunity to get immediate help or a draft asset. They pulled off the latter, securing a rotation forward who should help in the now while also getting a future swap that could pay off in the future. Patience and cap flexibility are the best friends of rebuilding teams and Brian Wright knows it.

By now most people realize that the Spurs know what they are doing with this rebuild, but most if not all their moves were geared toward the long view. Avoiding albatross contracts and getting pick swaps is great, but the product on the floor had not been good, even when featuring the best prospect in decades. This offseason’s moves, however, show that San Antonio is ready for phase two. Getting Chris Paul, even this late in his career, to mentor Stephon Castle and bring order to an offense that often lacked it was a good move. But the Silver and Black still needed another shooter with size to replace and hopefully improve upon the duo of Cedi Osman and Doug McDermott. By getting Barnes, the front office accomplished that elegantly and efficiently.

Barnes is not going to be the difference between the lottery and the playoffs, but he’s a great fit for the 2024/25 Spurs. He could slot perfectly next to Jeremy Sochan at the forward spots, providing valuable outside shooting after connecting 39 percent of his outside shots in Sacramento last season. Sochan, in turn, could help cover up some of the decline Barnes has experienced on the defensive end. The duo can swap between who’s the perimeter-oriented one on offense and defense, with Barnes taking on bigger forwards while also spacing the floor. The former Warriors’ lottery pick transitioned into becoming a low-usage player since becoming a King, so he won’t take away many touches from others, but he can punish a mismatch. There’s a lot to like about his addition.

The main concern with bringing in veterans to a young team would be splitting the timeline, as the Spurs found out during the DeRozan era, but right now San Antonio is in a unique place to be able to juggle improving now while not compromising the ultimate upside of its roster. Even if this group wins, say, 37 games and lands a late lottery pick, the franchise should have at least one more 2025 selection thanks to the Dejounte Murray to Atlanta trade. Other extra picks might convey and they have multiple swaps that could pay off, along with second-rounders that could be used to get out of any contract. The Spurs didn’t waste the last two years hoping for stars to fall in their lap but instead built safeguards so that they could try to be good in the short term while retaining the ability to be great in the future.

Paul and now Barnes are not the flashiest of win-now moves, but they represent a shift for a Spurs team that was happy to lose to get Victor Wembanyama and willing to experiment to see what they had last year. After what was at times a painful performance in the 2023/24 season, San Antonio has built a solid rotation without taking on long-term contracts or sending out first-rounders. Their ceiling right now is probably the play-in, but that’s not a bad place to be for a team that won a combined 44 games in the last two seasons and still has the assets to draft or acquire a star.

The Spurs are still in the middle of their rebuild. The league doesn’t give out banners for good offseasons. Until San Antonio is a contender, the job won’t be done and the worst thing the front office could do is get complacent after making clever but small moves.

At some point, however, good work should be rewarded. A front office that had lost the benefit of the doubt before the beginning of the rebuild has now more than earned it back.