The case for the Spurs to stick with Tre Jones and Blake Wesley at point guard

It seems like just about everybody believes that, when the NBA Draft is upon us, the San Antonio Spurs need to draft one of the top point guards on the board. The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor has had them taking Kentucky’s Reed Sheppard and currently has them selecting Serbia’s Nikola Topic with their first pick and North Carolina’s Elliot Cadeau in the second round. Tankathon has them tied to Topic as well, and ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo give them Kentucky’s other star freshman, Rob Dillingham. It’s not hard to see why. The Spurs are the worst team in the Western Conference and haven’t invested the same amount into their point guards that they have the other four positions.

When you get into it, though, should PATFO hand over their draft card to Adam Silver with one of those above names on June 26? Is point guard actually the team’s biggest need this coming offseason? I don’t believe they should, and I don’t believe it is. There are many more pressing matters the team needs to address when this dismal year comes to a close, but point guard is not one of them. I wrote about this just recently to highlight how good the Spurs’ five best players have been when they’re on the court together. One of those five is Tre Jones, the Spurs’ 24-year-old fourth-year point guard, whom people were clamoring for to become the starter.

Tre has been a steadying force on the spaceship resident alien Victor Wembanyama has been piloting. Nothing highlights that more than his on/off numbers. The Spurs are 11.4 points better when he’s on the court, which is five points better than Wemby. That’s not to say he’s solely responsible for his numbers being that way — 1,158 of his 1,934 minutes have been alongside Wemby, and 806 of those have been with Wemby and Devin Vassell. That combination has a total +/- of 178. At face value, the least you can say is that when you pair Tre with the team’s two best players, the team succeeds in those minutes.

So if Tre has the starting PG position locked down, what about drafting or signing somebody to back him up? Well, that’s where the conversation about Blake Wesley begins.

The second-year guard entered the year looking at spending another chunk of time with the Austin Spurs as he continued his development into an NBA-caliber player. In fact, before the calendar turned to 2024, Blake appeared in 11 of 32 games and played more than 10 minutes in three of them. Since then, he’s played in all 44 games and didn’t crack 10 minutes a mere five times (two of which he was seconds away from getting to 10 minutes).

Now, Blake’s numbers aren’t going to blow anybody away. In those 44 games, his averages are 4.6 points, 1.6 rebounds, 2.9 assists, and 0.5 steals while shooting 48.8% on 3.6 attempts. His job isn’t to light up the scoreboard, though, just to provide as much of what Tre provides as possible, and when you break it into per-36 numbers, he generally does just that (minus his three-point shooting woes). Just look at the table below.

Not only are those numbers similar, but out of all PGs with at least 751 minutes played (Blake clocks in at 745), Tre ranks 1^st in defensive matchup difficulty, 11^th in potential assists per 100 passes, and 3^rd in defensive miles per 75 possessions while Blake ranks 3^rd, 12^th, and 2^nd in those same metrics.

Tre is currently the much better player offensively, and Blake doesn’t have the experience or calm demeanor that makes Tre the on-court leader he is. But that’s not to say Blake, who just turned 21 a few weeks ago, won’t get there. Plus, he provides length and athleticism that Tre doesn’t have. It’s pretty evident that Blake has improved as the year has progressed, even if there are still some rough moments. With what we’ve seen, he deserves the chance to live up to being a first-round pick, but the clock is ticking. After next season, the Spurs can decide whether to pick up his option or let him walk.

It’s hard to imagine moving Tre back to the bench after how he’s played, as well as giving up on a player who’s finishing his second season and has only played 1,414 minutes over 92 career games. But roster construction is fluid, especially when a team is in the position the Spurs find themselves in, and they could decide the best option available is to draft, sign, or trade for a PG. However, the assets they’ve accumulated would be better spent on improving their wing depth, shooting, and fixing the other (many) woes the team dealt with this year.