SAN ANTONIO — The NBA draft is on Thursday night and this is a doozy for San Antonio as the Spurs will have the No. 19, 29 and 49 overall picks. Thanks to the Kawhi Leonard trade, the organization has to reconfigure what this team is going to look like in the future.
Who knows how many more years the Spurs have left with the R.C. Buford-Gregg Popovich tandem, but this is a pivotal draft for the Spurs.
Now when it comes to finding gems, the Spurs organization is the gold standard. Here are a list of them since 1989 (when the draft was reduced to two rounds):
Manu Ginobili - No. 57 overall
Tony Parker - No. 28 overall
Tiago Splitter - No. 28 overall
George Hill - No. 26 overall
(Amazing draft day trade flipping Hill for Kawhi Leonard and Davis Bertans)
Dejounte Murray - No. 29 overall
Derrick White - No. 29 overall
Kyle Anderson - No. 30
There are a lot to go through...
With the pressure absolutely on, fans know they can trust team brass with this decision.
Now, I scoured 10 different mock drafts ranging from ESPN, CBS Sports, NBC Sports, the Ringer...yada yada yada and I came across three guys who came up multiple times.
Goga Bitadze - Georgia (the country)
He'll turn 20 years old in July. It's no surprise this name is popping a lot because the Spurs need some length. The 6-foot-11 big has huge two-way potential.
He was named the EuroLeague Rising star in 2019 with a pair of MVP awards. He's a guy to look out for.
Luka Samanic - Croatia
The Spurs are typecast at this point to pick international prospects and they consistently do well in that arena, so why not?
The 19-year-old Croatian crushed the combine. He crushed it so well he shut it down after one game.
He's also 6-foot-11, so he checks that box. He's very athletic for someone his age and size, but scouts question his offensive consistency.
Dylan Windler - Belmont
He comes out of the same conference as Ja Morant. He's not as big as the previous guys listed, standing at 6-foot-7, but he was an awesome deep threat, shooting roughly 43 percent from beyond the arc back-to-back seasons.
We heard rumors the Spurs are interested in Bojan Bogdanović. That's not a bad comparison for him.
Now there are a handful of other guys who popped up.
PJ Washington out of Kentucky is definitely a guy to look out for. He's recovering from an injury and didn't do many workouts, so it's hurt his stock a bit.
Matisse Thybulle, the Pac-12 player of the year had 100 steals and 70 blocks in a season. Unheard of.
Rui Hachimura is probably out of San Antonio's range, but the All-American out of Gonzaga is Japan's favorite son. He's still a bit raw, but lots of potential here.
Keldon Johnson is a great two-way player out of Kentucky.
Grant Williams out of Tennessee is drawing comparisons to former Spur and fan favorite Boris Diaw.
Finally, Bol Bol is the absolute high-risk, high-reward pick. The Spurs at one point in time wanted Kristaps Porziņģis badly. He's has that kind of ceiling, but defensive issues are a problem and he's recovering from a fractured foot.
San Antonio could also package both the No. 19 and No. 29 pick to move up into the Top-15, so a lot could happen and this is just the appetizer until free agency officially gets underway in in two weeks.
MORE SPURS NEWS: