Grade the Mock Trade: Spurs land superstar center to support Wembanyama

The San Antonio Spurs struck gold this summer when they landed Victor Wembanyama with the first overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft and nabbed the future face of their franchise. While the prodigious teenager offers the organization a cornerstone to build around for the long haul, their front office has tons of fine-tuning ahead of them before this roster has the pieces to make the leap from full-throttle rebuild to championship contention.

Reports about the Silver and Black showing interest in adding experienced centers to their frontcourt rotation swirled on the rumor mill earlier this offseason. But General Manager Brian Wright never gave credence to those claims as the team sat out of the free agent fracas. San Antonio instead used their abundance of salary cap space to re-sign homegrown players and absorb expiring contracts in deals for tried-and-true veteran leaders.

Barring any monumental last-minute acquisitions, the Spurs will open training camp with Zach Collins, Khem Birch, Charles Bassey, Sandro Mamukelashvili, and Dominick Barlow battling for minutes on the depth chart. Though several promising names across that talented collection of bigs could help Head Coach Gregg Popovich fill out a lineup alongside Wembanyama, this squad lacks a genuine All-Star to take pressure off their prized rookie.

The ball club appears comfortable to exercise patience with this young core as they create a timeline that makes the most sense for Wembanyama. However, a recent article from Bleacher Report pieced together a hypothetical trade that brings a scoring juggernaut to the 2-1-0 for a reasonable price tag. Should the Spurs entertain this proposal?