Why the Spurs shouldn't pursue a buyout market addition

The San Antonio Spurs' 2024-25 season has unraveled rather quickly. And all things considered, their current position is rather unexpected given how things played out for the first part of the season. If we rewind to just over seven weeks ago on Jan. 3, the Spurs were in a solid position. They held an 18-16 overall record and had just defeated the Denver Nuggets on the road behind 35 points and 18 rebounds from Victor Wembanyama.

At that point, San Antonio had risen to eighth in the Western Conference standings, their most favorable positioning of the entire season. The odds of them making the play-in were looking extremely good, and things were looking up without a doubt. Fast forward to now, and everything has changed.

Victor Wembanyama has now been sidelined for the remainder of the season with deep vein thrombosis in his shoulder. It may not be expected to affect him for longer than this season, but it is still a rare and concerning injury nonetheless. But if that were not enough, Saturday night's breaking news revealed to us that Gregg Popovich is not expected to return to the sidelines for the rest of this season. His future as the coach of this team in the long-term is uncertain as well.

Adding a buyout player makes no sense at this point

These are some heavy updates to come in the same week for the Spurs, and they obviously completely change the trajectory of this team. San Antonio has been holding on to the 12th spot in the standings since the middle of January, hoping to make a run and earn their way to the play-in by April. With these updates dropping back to back, it shows us that there would be virtually no point in the Spurs adding a player via the buyout market at this point.

Getting another contributor via buyout would have made sense before Wembanyama's injury update. There was still a chance that he, De'Aaron Fox and Stephon Castle could have banded together and played some really solid basketball over the course of the next seven weeks to outdo their competition in the West. Now, without Wemby at the helm, the ceiling of this group feels much lower.

On top of that, there are still various potential fallout effects of Victor being done for the season as well. There is always the possibility Chris Paul could get bought out, and De'Aaron Fox must now consider when he wants to get his hand surgery. The Spurs feel lottery bound, and making any new additions to this roster would simply be a waste of time.