Back when it looked like the San Antonio Spurs were willing to sit and wait for the best possible package for Kawhi Leonard, the team that everyone tagged as having a potential leg up was the Philadelphia 76ers. If they wanted, the Sixers could put together a package with young players, guys with a little more seasoning, and draft picks that no one else could match without doing something totally over the top.
Ultimately the Spurs decided to go in a different direction — instead of a deal that looked to the future, they acquired a package centered around DeMar DeRozan that will keep them in win-now mode for what is expected to be the final years of Gregg Popovich’s career. But perhaps the most interesting detail that came out in the aftermath of the Leonard trade was exactly what the Spurs wanted to get from Philly in a deal.
It already has been revealed that San Antonio wanted Ben Simmons or Joel Embiid for Leonard, which was never going to happen. Now, Zach Lowe of ESPN let it be known that the Spurs actively did not want one of the Sixers’ best young pieces: Markelle Fultz.
“There is no evidence that the Spurs wanted (Markelle) Fultz,” Lowe said around the 28:20 mark the latest edition of The Lowe Post with J.J. Redick. “I’ve been told the Spurs never asked for Fultz and actively didn’t want Fultz and in fact wanted one of the two big guys.”
This could be read in a few different ways, but the deal the Spurs eventually made packaged with the desire to get one of Simmons or Embiid makes the logical way to read it that they didn’t want Fultz because he wouldn’t help them win right now. Fultz, despite his rookie struggles, still has a bright future, but that doesn’t mean anything if a team wants to compete for a championship immediately. San Antonio obviously wants that, and as such, Leonard isn’t in Philadelphia.
