The San Antonio Spurs just pulled off another MASTERCLASS...

Brian Wright and the San Antonio Spurs have just pulled off another masterclass landing stretch big man Kelly Olynyk from the Washington Wizards in a trade that solves two of the Spurs hugest issues heading into this season. We have to discuss exactly what happened in this Kelly Olynyk trade, who's going the other way and why this solves multiple incredible issues for the Spurs as next season is just looking better and better. We got to get into all of it on this episode of Spurs Digest, and we're not going to waste your time straight into it. The Washington Wizards are trading Kelly Olynyk to the San Antonio Spurs for Malachi Branham, Blake Wesley, and a 20-26 second round pick, least favorable of Dallas, Philly, and OKC. Sources tell ESPN. And if we go to Shams here, the deal gives the Spurs another stretch big after the free agent signing of Luke Cornett, and Washington receives two more young players as the Wizards continue to add some talent this offseason, with potential for increased opportunity, along with an expected later second rounder, blah, blah, blah. Look, here's what it is. Look, I wanted to say so deeply that Spurs robbed the Wizards, but I actually think this is really good for both sides. It makes sense for both sides, and it solves multiple big issues for the Spurs, and we're going to start with Kelly because, look, we're all familiar with Kelly Olynyk. Look at that pretty face. 8.7 points per game, 4.7 boards. He can pass the ball to, if you guys actually didn't know, coming off a career-best 42% from the three-point line on pretty high volume. Not to mention, he shot 60%. that's not a typo on corner threes this past year we'll roll the highlight reel again a couple little things here clips of him with the pelicans and you know i mean look he's played for a lot of teams we'll get into his stats in just a bit but this to me again the first big issue this solves with the Spurs and again I'll dive into a second one later because there is this little part of this trade not even little part of this trade this big part of the trade that maybe we're not focusing on as much as the Kelly Olynyk part because getting into Kelly Olynyk's fit welcome to San Antonio Kelly Olynyk looking throughout his career here again 10.7 points with the Pelicans in 20 games where he started last season right he shot 44 from three with Toronto in 24 games before that the dude is just a consistent 10 and 5 machine while shooting around 40 from three and what else could you possibly ask for when we're looking at the Spurs depth chart we've been saying for ages i mean look it's why i brought up Kevin Love in the last video because this kind of archetype of a stretch four or five the guy that could play a bit of both just fits the team so well right now a team in San Antonio that desperately wants some shooting we don't need a yeah i mean look a great starter who can shoot is always a good thing but when we're looking to fill that need for like a third string center or maybe like a third string power forward second string power forward a guy that can just eat 16 20 minutes a game just like Kelly Olynyk did you ideally want him to be able to shoot the three and score the ball of it and that's exactly what Kelly Olynyk does it's a perfect complement to Luke Cornett 7-2 guy who can block shots Kelly Olynyk is 6-11 and can knock down the three so some people are questioning whether Kelly will play the five Victor will play the four I think you're more likely to see Kelly Olynyk play a bit more of the four but like am I crazy and saying this is just an absolute perfect fit for San Antonio having Luke Cornett and Kelly Olynyk being able to come off your bench to eat those minutes if you want to go bigger you can stick Kelly at the four Luke at the five or Wemby at the five of course but i'm talking bench units if you want to go smaller you can play one of them at center or just Victor there you can still run with Harrison Barnes who is who might start this year might be sohan right but just the versatility that it gives this lineup and finally that like yeah we're talking shooting punch this is like an elite one right as far as big men go i mean he plays pretty much all of his minutes at center but like 42 percent again from three this past year 39 percent the year before 39 before 34 the year before that with Detroit but then 34 41 his whole career even in the playoffs he's been a three-point sniper so when I'm looking at this team it is just such a perfect fit but there's also the added benefit that this is the last year of Kelly Olynyk's contract it's 13.4 million dollars we shipped out just under 10 million dollars in this deal so we're bringing in about three and a half million ish in this deal back three and a half to four million back which is more than we can accept or not more than we can accept I should say we can accept more than that based on the amount of money we have to work with here so it makes a ton of sense for San Antonio like honestly the fit of Kelly Olynyk like I said is such a great work from Brian Wright for this team but it's the other aspect of this trade I want to focus on I mean look we talk all about Kelly Olynyk but there's a big part of this too and that's the trading of Branham and Blake Wesley now of course seeing a lot of the reactions a lot of people are not super sad to see uh Malachi Branham go I believe in him but uh it just feels like there was no space for him on the team going forward a guy who's a score first guy with defense that just ends up being questionable not a great fit on the San Antonio Spurs team that is really looking to be i mean you don't really need another one of these scores especially with the amount of guards ahead of you right but Branham gone but also Blake Wesley now i really like Blake Wesley i think he could really carve out a role in Washington like just a hustle guy much better defensively than Malachi Branham but you know they both struggled to score the ball at times but this is where it gets just so good for San Antonio is again looking at the guard depth bringing in Dylan Harper and having Stephon Castle and even having Julian Champagnie there who's going to play a bit of the two bit of the three Devin Vassell you the rotation is just clear now there's no longer those questions of what do we do with Malachi Branham and Blake Wesley that's 10 million dollars that's just going to be stuck behind De'Aaron Fox, Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle maybe Vassell or Champagnie on any given night two guys that are just not going to get the minutes to make them worth five million in an era of the NBA where you know saving money now goes a lot further than it did even three four years ago so having those guys on the team was a huge question mark going forward but that is completely elite and two guys that wouldn't have gotten much run at all like we said this is this is just such a great trade because it's basically just trading a second round pick for a guy in Kelly Olynyk that could still put up 10 and 5 and shoot 40 percent from three who can play back a four back a five be a spot start if you need him to there's a lot of upside in this trade and also again i just keep going through this looking at the cap right now again we now open other roster spots so we could sign maybe some sneakier minimum free agent guys or maybe some guys from the summer league who knows but also we're just straight up giving Dylan Harper the reins because now it's like look Blake Wesley's not coming for your spot Malachi Branham's not coming for your spot look your your guard rotation now is De'Aaron Fox, Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle that's your primary three guards if you're splitting between the one and two you might go get a third string point guard now to fill in which might not be a bad idea my guess is that the spurs will look for someone maybe on a veteran minimum contract to come in and play that third string point guard role um behind Fox and Harper slash Castle just to ensure them just like we kind of did with Cornett and Olynyk but we might go for someone a little lower tier but to me this is giving the reins fully to Dylan Harper which just signifies a new era for San Antonio right like all these questions I feel like just got answered in this one trade it's like okay well where's the shooting well okay we got Kelly Olynyk now he's a 40 percent three point shooter on decent volume incredible from the court okay but where's the shot block where's that backup center because Bianko can't do it we lost Sandro oh well there's Luke Cornett okay cool well we got Luke Cornett too so but what about these guards man we have way too many guards we You have almost $10 million getting eaten up by Malachi Branham and Blake Wesley. Oh, well, they're both gone in the Kelly Olynyk trade Oh, okay, cool. Okay, well, what else did we give up in terms of draft capital? Oh, just the second round pick. Great. So what is the hole now? Just a third string guard? Like, I think right now this roster looks about as good as it can. I think De'Aaron Fox, I don't know if, like, ESPN is weird, though. Again, I know a lot of you comment on Jeremy Sohan being a third stringer. He's probably going to start this year, but just ignore that It'll probably be De'Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, Jeremy Sochan, and Victor Wembanyama coming off the bench will probably be like Dylan Harper, Julian Champagnie, Harrison Barnes, Keldon Johnson, Luke Cornett That's an incredible bench core right there. And then you still have Kelly Olynyk. Like, that's the thing. Harrison Barnes, I don't want to say he becomes expendable because he was such a good three point shooter, too. I don't think you can bring in a guy like Olynyk and then just give up on Barnes. We have versatility here now, and Barnes' contract is also movable. Kelly Olynyk's contract is movable. I think they'll both be very valued come the end of the season, not just for other playoff teams looking for shooting from that four slash five position but also us because we're going to be a playoff team this year having these guys is so valuable at that time of year I am beyond excited for this absolute masterclass by Brian Wright and the Spurs I could not be happier with how this offseason is going so far let me know your thoughts down below maybe some of you really liked Branham and Wesley and you completely disagree with me and I'd love to hear from you as well that's why it's so great we chat with everyone here all you wonderful people but that'll do it for this episode of the Spurs Digest by the way you made it to the end of the video and you're part of the 70 percent that's not subscribed to the channel we have a massive goal of 10 000 subscribers before the season starts so hey you made it almost nine minutes into this video i kept your attention that long i hope we earned it by this point if not hey that's no problem either but i hope to see you back here sometime soon i'm your host Josh Goss and we'll catch you in the next one