Offseason Report Card: Spurs get five As, three Bs and two Cs for summer moves

The San Antonio Spurs fully embraced their rebuild and it landed them the No. 1 pick and French phenom Victor Wembanyama. How else did they do with their busy offseason this summer?
Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs
Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio Spurs / Jamie Squire/GettyImages
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9. Drafted Sidy Cissoko

Drafted G League Ignite wing Sidy Cissoko with the 44th pick in the 2023 Draft

While NBA draft experts (and certainly the Spurs) were familiar with Victor Wembanyama for years, his coming out party for the general NBA population came last fall when his French club team, Metropolitans 92, came to Las Vegas for a pair of exhibition games against the G League Ignite. While Wembanyama was incredible in the two games, the other team had a French prospect of their own.

Sidy Cissoko, a 6'8" forward from France, was playing for G League Ignite. He would play 28 games altogether for the Ignite before the San Antonio Spurs selected him with the 44th pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. A month later, the Spurs officially signed Cissoko to a contract.

Cissoko is a raw player who will need a lot of development to become an NBA contributor. The Spurs are the kind of team who can be patient with such players, so the Cissoko pick makes sense on that level. The problem is that his offensive game is very nascent; it will take a lot of work just to get to competent on that end. His defense will need to be elite even once his offensive game improves; this isn't a diamond in the rough. The Spurs are just hoping for quartz here.

Grade: C