3 Best undrafted talents to ever play for the San Antonio Spurs

The San Antonio Spurs are one of the most storied organizations in the history of the NBA. With five NBA championships and the greatest power forward to ever play the game to their name, they are very clearly among basketball royalty. They may be on the bottom now, but their history is filled with nothing but greatness.

While the Spurs' excellence has been achieved over the years through excellent scouting and drafting, they have also done a solid job of picking up great undrafted players, something that is exceedingly difficult to do. It is something that helped keep them one level above their competitors throughout the Tim Duncan-era dynasty.

Some would even argue that the Spurs have a few of the greatest undrafted talents of all time. These types of players were not outright stars, but they each played a valuable role in San Antonio and made their own unique contributions to winning basketball.

3. Jonathon Simmons

Jonathon Simmons found his way to the Spurs and to professional basketball as a whole in the most atypical of ways. After not being selected in the 2012 NBA Draft, Simmons attended an open tryout for the Spurs' minor league team, then called the Austin Toros, of the NBA Development League in 2013.

After making the Toros' training camp roster, he earned his way to the standard roster for the remainder of the D-League season in 2013-14. During his time with the Toros, Simmons nearly gave up on basketball entirely.

But after playing with San Antonio's Summer League team in 2015 and earning the league's championship game MVP, the Spurs decided to bring him on and sign him to a standard contract. Few players have ever put in as much work to earn an NBA contract as Simmons did.

With the Spurs, Simmons was a two-way spark plug, shooting 50% from the field in 55 games played in 2015-16. But where he truly shined was the next season, when he was an integral piece off the bench for a team with championship aspirations. No Spurs fans will ever forget his chase-down block on Stephen Curry in the 2016-17 season opener, or the countless posterizing dunks he recorded.