4 Reasons the Spurs have been the biggest winners of the NBA offseason

2.) Signing promising young players to long-term deals

With the looming end of the NBA's television contract, many expect the salary cap to jump by as much as 10% every season for the next several years, beginning in 2024. That, in combination with the new collective bargaining agreement, could threaten the Spurs' ability to build a championship team around Wembanyama down the road.

After all, in 2027–28, Wembanyama will likely be starting the first round of a big contract that will pay him at least $250 million. The Spurs are clearly trying to get ahead of that by being careful about handing out big, long-term deals. Instead, they recently signed several promising young second-round or undrafted prospects to cheap multi-year contracts, hoping to find cheap future rotation players.

Charles Bassey, Julian Champagnie, and Sidy Cissoko are each under contract for at least three years, giving the team a chance to further evaluate those players and see which are worth keeping around. In Cissoko's case, he would be a restricted free agent after this third year, allowing the team to potentially retain him for even longer on an affordable deal similar to what they did with Tre Jones.

With San Antonio's history of finding value in the second round and from undrafted players, the team's offseason moves hint that they plan to do this more going forward. Doing so could be a way for the Spurs to keep costs down as the salary cap continues to rise.