Rising draft prospect would be a classic Spurs second-round steal

The Spurs weren’t invited to the NBA Draft Lottery party (not that they needed it), but they still have a busy draft season ahead of them. The 20th, 35th, 42nd, and 44th picks currently belong to the Silver and Black. Time will tell if they actually use all of their selections or trade some, but either way, they have the opportunity to bolster an already incredible young core this June.

One prospect San Antonio should target with one of their second-round picks is Trey Kaufman-Renn from Purdue. Kaufman-Renn’s stock is on the rise after a strong G League Combine performance that earned him a call-up to the NBA Combine, and the Spurs need to take notice, because he’d be a good fit on this team.

Trey Kaufman-Renn would be an ideal Spur in multiple ways

Kaufman-Renn’s biggest selling points aren’t directly tied to his on-court contributions. The Boilermaker legend is a smart player and a winner. Longtime Purdue head coach Matt Painter has also raved about his character. TKR feels like the type of prospect who will throw his ego completely aside and grind to improve himself and his team.

The Spurs tend to value traits like this in the draft. Now that they’re winning again, it makes extra sense to seek out experienced players who know what it takes to succeed at a high level.

In his college career, Kaufman-Renn was a part of two Big Ten regular-season champions and two Big Ten tournament champions. He also made the NCAA tournament in all four of his collegiate campaigns, even appearing in a national title game in 2024.

Don’t worry, Kaufman-Renn can actually hoop, too. He was a key offensive weapon for Purdue in his junior and senior seasons, when he averaged 20.1 points and 14.2 points, respectively. The 6’9” power forward is an excellent roll man threat with an unshakeable floater that he torched every single team in his conference with at least once.

He knows how to put himself in position to get easy buckets inside. He’d make San Antonio's interior scoring attack even better.

TKR is also an awesome rebounder and a decent passer for his position. For the future, his shooting is something to keep an eye on—he has some touch and made a couple triples at the G League Combine that showed he’s been working on that part of his game.

San Antonio should be watching Kaufman-Renn closely this week

There are certainly some concerns with Kaufman-Renn that have kept him largely out of draft conversations until recently. He’s limited athletically for NBA standards, and that hurts him on defense specifically.

He dunked 16 times in 37 games this past season—most of his play finishing is more finesse than power. If he can’t develop some form of a consistent outside shot, he could get stuck in the positional tweener black hole.

But, the college star has continued to make strides both throughout his career at Purdue and at combine week so far. He’s putting himself firmly on second round radars, and he could find himself in a Spurs uniform before he knows it.

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