When the 2024–2025 season begins, the San Antonio Spurs could be fielding a very different-looking team. Whether they choose to revamp the roster or stand pat, most fans won't be too surprised. That's because the reports about the direction of the franchise have been, at the very least, contradictory. Most of that is likely by design. The Spurs are notoriously tight-lipped. They just go about handling their business in silence and let the results speak for themselves.
That makes it frustrating and exciting to watch from the outside. You want your team to be active and make every aggressive move possible to show they want to go for it all but fans also want their team to make intelligent decisions and sometimes that means not making any moves. But this is one opportunity that the Spurs should jump at for many reasons.
Jonas is the perfect addition to San Antonio's young roster
Valanciunas is a 6'11, 265-pound veteran center at 32-years-old. He's at the perfect age to come off the bench and take on the role of a player who will only start due to injury or matchups but will play significant minutes most games. The game has gone away from traditional big-man play but that doesn't mean there isn't still a place for it and with guys like Joel Embiid and Nikola Jokic out there, it helps to have another center with good size.
Adding Jonas to the bench gives the team more flexibility in their attack because of his skill around the basket. Zach Collins gets his paint touches with mixed results and Valanciunas isn't Shaq down there but his size allows him to bully people more than Zach could.
Spurs fans are familiar with the soon-to-be free agent for other reasons, though. Jonas is a career 13-point, 10-rebound per game player but in his last 10 games against San Antonio, he has averaged 20 points, 11 rebounds and 3 assists. Over his career, he has shot a 64% field goal percentage and 43% from three against the Silver and Black.
It would be nice to get this guy out of the Spurs' hair. It's hard to understand why certain players turn into habitual line-steppers when playing against specific teams but this is one of those circumstances and San Antonio should try to end it. The 12-year veteran brings a load of experience that the youngest roster in the league could use.