The stakes of the NBA draft are always high. Each of the league's 30 teams are investing in at least a small portion of their future on draft night, and every pick will eventually be scrutinized to evaluate the work of every team's scouting department and personnel group. But, to be sure, the stakes are higher for some teams than others.
While much of the focus in the lead-up to the 2022 NBA draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, on June 23 (8 p.m. ET, ESPN and ESPN app) will be on the top handful of picks, other teams selecting down the board will face a white-hot spotlight as well. The San Antonio Spurs are one of four teams (Oklahoma City Thunder, Charlotte Hornets, Memphis Grizzlies are the others) with multiple first-round picks -- Gregg Popovich and company have the ninth, 20th and 25th selections. Making all of those picks would mean San Antonio had materially impacted its roster for 2022-23 (and beyond) in a way few other teams can claim.
What would a great night look like for the Spurs? We won't know for sure until a few years down the road, but ESPN draft expert Jonathan Givony put together a plausible list of potential picks that would represent a best-case scenario for San Antonio: