Spurs' Dylan Harper Selected to NBA All-Rookie First Team

Smooth beyond his years, Harper came off the bench for San Antonio for most of the year and stuffed the stat sheet in his first postseason start against the Thunder on Monday night.

May 10, 2026; Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA; San Antonio Spurs guard Dylan Harper (2) works around Minnesota Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels (3) in the first quarter of game four of the second round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs at Target Center. Mandatory Credit: Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images | Bruce Kluckhohn-Imagn Images

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The NBA announced on Wednesday evening that Spurs rookie Dylan Harper earned a spot on the All-Rookie First Team.

Harper came off the bench for San Antonio for most of the year, and made his first postseason start on Monday night due to De'Aaron Fox's injury. The rook scored 24 points and stuffed the stat sheet with 11 rebounds, 6 assists, and 7 steals in the game.

"Means the world," Harper said after the thrilling double-overtime win. "I feel like not a lot of people get this experience to be a part of such a great organization, a great group of guys, and the locker room is great... I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I think this is kind of where I'm supposed to be, and just keep on just taking step after step."

In the regular season he averaged 11.8 points, 3.9 assists, and 3.4 rebounds per game, and in the playoffs he's up to 14.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 1.7 steals. Cooper Flagg, Kon Knueppel, V.J. Edgecombe, and Cedric Coward round out the top five, but Harper is the only one still playing.

The youngest part of the Spurs' three-headed guard monster alongside Fox and Stephon Castle, Harper and the rest of the NBA world knows that he could have been putting up bigger numbers on a worse team as a rookie. He found himself in the unusual position of being drafted to a great team as an extremely talented and NBA-ready teenager, and has flourished in the opportunities he's earned. What others saw as a logjam at guard, Harper saw as an opportunity to learn and grow.

"Being around two great point guards and Steph and Fox, and kind of just picking their brain," he said. "Earlier in the season, when everyone kind of didn't see the vision, I kind of saw to double down on it, so just wanting to win, I mean, I kind of never been in this position, but you got to embrace a position like this if you want to help the team."

That mature outlook matches his smart, smooth playstyle that looks more like a seasoned veteran's than a rookie. It's one of the things that impresses his coach the most about him

"The patience and the trust," Mitch Johnson said. "We're starting to see that now, he didn't just get this talented or this good, and so for him to buy into the role that was in front of him, for him to do what was asked and be held accountable and learn what it took, what we needed to win games and be a part of it, while probably suppressing some of his individual capacity and capabilities. For a 19 year old, for him to be able to do that and grow as a winning team player, and then have his individual talent pop as well, it's hard to do this thing any time, to do it as a rookie in the playoffs is ridiculous."