San Antonio Spurs
After missing the playoffs last season for the first time since the 1996-97 season, the San Antonio Spurs entered the year with a lot of questions surrounding their roster. With plenty of young talent on their roster, the Spurs began giving more and more opportunities to their young players at the expense of some of their older players.
Eventually, LaMarcus Aldridge asked the Spurs to be traded or bought out of his contract and there were a lot of NBA trade rumors about what the future held for both Rudy Gay and DeMar DeRozan, especially since DeRozan is in the final year of his contract and is set to become an unrestricted free agent in the offseason.
Ultimately, the Spurs were unable to find a trade partner for Aldridge, so they bought him out of his contract and they held onto both DeMar DeRozan and Rudy Gay in attempts to make the playoffs this year.
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Not finding a trade partner for Aldridge will definitely eat at the Spurs cap space, but keeping DeRozan and Gay could end up being two bad moves by the San Antonio Spurs that they will regret, especially if they miss the playoffs this year and lose DeRozan in free agency.
They could have at least received a young talent and a first-round pick for the former All-Star, but now, all of their hopes cling onto them potentially making the playoffs this year. The Spurs find themselves 23-20 and the 7-seed in the West right now, but with seven teams all within a few games of each other, things could get really interesting at the bottom of the Western Conference.
