NBA 2016 Re-Draft: Spurs' Dejounte Murray in Top 5?
The 2022 NBA Draft is set to begin in Brooklyn Thursday and the San Antonio Spurs are in a position to be major players for multiple top-level prospects. With three first-round picks, there's a handful of options to choose from in the draft pool or in a draft-night trade scenario.
Regardless of what SA general manager Brian Wright chooses to do, the goal is to prepare for the future, even if any of the success isn't immediate. So with the future in sight, it's fun to look at drafts from years past to see how teams might've picked differently if they had a time machine.
FanDuel had some fun with this on Twitter Friday, presenting its take for what a re-draft of the top 10 picks from the 2016 NBA Draft might look like.
As Spurs fans can remember, this is the year San Antonio selected guard Dejounte Murray with the 29th overall pick out of Washington. He just completed his fifth full season with the team as a 2022 All-Star and the NBA's steals leader to go along with near triple-double averages of 21.8 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 9.3 assists.
But in this redraft, the Spurs don't get a chance to land Murray, as FanDuel has him going to the Denver Nuggets at No. 7 overall. The pick was originally made for star Nuggets guard Jamal Murray from Kentucky.
This particular re-draft includes just four players from the original top 10 and only predicts what the first 10 picks would look like. It leaves out Spurs center Jakob Poeltl, who was the No. 9 pick of the Toronto Raptors in 2016. His absence is understandable, as the top 10 in this re-draft has some elite star-level talent.
The Spurs headed into the draft in June 2016 with the looming retirement of Tim Duncan after a franchise-record 67-15 regular-season finish. The Spurs were bounced in the second round in six games by the Oklahoma City Thunder, who would go on to blow a 3-1 series lead to the 73-9 Golden State Warriors in the Western Conference Finals.
San Antonio's successful regular season resulted in a low first-round pick, but the Spurs selected their star of the future with Murray.
And if his perennial development continues, we might look back at a 2016 re-draft in a decade or so and put Murray right at the top of the board.
You can follow Zach Dimmitt on Twitter at @ZachDimmitt7
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