The Spurs Devin Vassells $135 million contract is the NBAs new normal

As the NBA salary cap rises in coming years due to projected revenue from the next national television deal, a number of contracts signed for dollar figures will provide real shock value. On Monday, the San Antonio Spurs gave out one of those deals.

San Antonio signed 23-year-old fourth-year wing Devin Vassell to a five-year contract extension that is guaranteed to pay him $135 million, with an additional $11 million in incentives. The deal has no options, meaning Vassell is locked in as a Spurs building block for the next six years along with Victor Wembanyama. The Spurs structured this deal to descend over its duration, with the first season (2024-25) being the most expensive at $29.3 million, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks.

Advertisement

Vassell has had as strange and low-key a path to a guarantee like this as any player coming off a rookie-scale contract, so it’s worth exploring how he went from an off-the-radar high-school player to a potential NBA All-Star — with a contract that pays him like one — in the last six years.

Vassell is epitome of a late bloomer. He was barely ranked in the top 200 of his recruiting class after playing on an independent AAU circuit for former NFL corner A.J. Bouye’s team. When Florida State got involved in his recruitment, he was a 6-foot-4, 160-pound wing who only held offers from North Florida and Presbyterian. After growing two inches and putting on weight, he went from being a likely redshirt to a rotation player as a freshman, then leapt to All-ACC status while averaging 13 points per game for a balanced Florida State team. He went 11th overall in the 2020 draft, looking like a classic Spurs upside selection.

When he was picked, he was considered “the epitome of a 3-and-D prospect,” as I wrote in my 2020 NBA Draft Guide. He was a monster team defender at Florida State, with outstanding anticipation and positioning. On the ball, he was quite good at fighting through screens and using his length to contest, particularly against opponents at the one through three positions.

On offense, he was viewed largely as a shooter, with everything he got coming off the threat of his jumper. He hit 42.4 percent from 3 off the catch, then also took about 2.5 midrange jumpers per game, most of which were one- or two-dribble pull-ups off heavy closeouts. On the other hand, Vassell also got to the rim less than one time per game in half-court settings, only took about two free throws per contest and did not put much pressure on opponents with his passes. While I still ranked him at No. 11 on my 2020 draft board, exactly where the Spurs took him, I wrote in my draft guide that he “doesn’t look to have much upside as a creator.”

Advertisement

But his game has changed drastically from that pre-draft scout, to the point that I would consider it a misevaluation on my part to believe he didn’t have much creation upside. Can he go up yet another level, particularly offensively? Let’s dive in.

GO DEEPER

Spurs embark on a new era with Victor Wembanyama in the limelight

Vassell’s on-ball breakout

After a quiet rookie season with positive flashes and a gradual step forward as a sophomore, Vassell broke out in his third year, averaging 18.5 points, 3.9 rebounds and 3.6 assists in 38 games before a knee injury sidelined him in January and February. Beyond the production, it was how he started to create shots, both for himself and teammates, that showcased signs of his all-star potential. More than 25 percent of Vassell’s possessions in 2022-23 were out of on-ball screens (25.4, to be exact), double the percentage in those scenarios in his first and second seasons. Even at Florida State, when he was the best player on the team, Vassell only took 16 percent of his possessions in on-ball screens.

More importantly, Vassell was quite successful in these actions given his inexperience. He took 158 shots out of ball-screens in 2022 23 in just 38 games, making them at a 50.6 percent clip. Given his shot diet, that is an absurd number. Here is Vassell’s shot chart out of ball screens last season, according to Synergy.

The big takeaway from that graphic: Vassell only took 30 shots at the rim and 32 from 3. The other 96 shots — more than 60 percent of them — came from the midrange areas, particularly in the middle of the court and the left elbow. Vassell’s preferred move on a high ball screen at this stage is a little rhythm inside-out dribble to side step into a 16-foot pull-up he makes with regularity.

This clip from last season showcases Vassell’s bread and butter on the ball while offering a glimpse of his upside as he grows even more into his body, gets stronger and continues to tighten his handle. After two patient between-the-legs dribbles to see how on-ball defender Naji Marshall will play Jakob Poeltl’s screen, Vassell rubs off it and uses a nasty inside-out dribble to drive into the drop coverage of Jonas Valančiūnas. Instead of shooting the first time, Vassell makes the cross-wing kick-out pass, cuts to the corner and gets the ball back when it is reversed from the wing. From there, Vassell throws the ball to Poeltl, takes a dribble-handoff and again showcases a level of patience to allow Poeltl to flip the screen back to Vassell’s left, using a behind-the-legs dribble to set up a nasty side-step 17-footer.

Vassell is a patient, probing player. His basketball processing ability that stood out on defense as a prospect is starting to translate to the other end of the floor. On plays like that, Vassell looks quite smooth and polished as a ballhandler. It would be wrong to call him “sudden,” but he’s shifting gears and changing angles on defenders at both the first and second levels of the pick-and-roll. These are the moments where you can see the path toward him becoming the Khris Middleton to Victor Wembanyama’s Giannis Antetokounmpo. Vassell’s high release point and arcing shot augers continued success as a midrange gunner.

Advertisement

On top of that, Vassell is keeping his eyes up much more often and nailing his kick-out reads, alleviating a pre-draft concern of mine. At Florida State, he did not seem to possess enough control over the ball or the vision necessary to make threatening passes to his teammates. He didn’t turn the ball over, but he’d often get stuck and have to throw the ball back out and reset. Now, his handle is tighter, enabling him to keep his dribble alive. That inside-out dribble Vassell is so fond of using to get to his side-step jumper? He’s developed a counter off it, using that dribble instead to string out his defenders and draw them closer to him, opening up more options for teammates.

Here’s a prime example against the Clippers, who send Vassell’s side ball screen to the baseline in a coverage often known as ICE. By extending that inside-out dribble really far on Clippers big Ivica Zubac while maintaining control, Vassell is able to separate from his primary defender, Nicolas Batum. Then Vassell drives baseline and notices Jeremy Sochan sneaking behind Tre Jones’ defender for a flare screen to set up an open 3. Vassell is a big fan of the jump pass, using it to create angles to find his teammates.

Vassell’s on-ball improvement, paired with his off-the-catch shooting skill, has given the Spurs a player who can be useful on and off the ball. Vassell drilled 43.3 percent of his nearly five catch-and-shoot 3s per game last season, which ranked 14th-best among the 262 players to attempt at least 100 catch-and-shoot 3s. That was an improvement on his 38.4 percent mark on nearly five a game in 2021-22, which still ranked 94th out of 256 qualified players. Vassell has also improved his ability to attack closeouts and get into dangerous areas to create shots inside the arc.

As is, Vassell is a valuable, versatile player to put next to Wembanyama. The combination of his improvement on the ball and nearly elite shooting off it makes him someone worth betting on in a big way. Players this young who have already developed multiple ways to beat defenders through shooting and ball-screen dexterity tend not to stagnate because they can develop counters off the skills they have already, as opposed to building from the ground up.

Rim pressure remains the main concern

The player I’m describing sounds like a max-contract player in the making, but he will require further improvement to get there. Where are the areas for growth that Vassell hasn’t showcased yet? The most significant one is rim pressure.

Vassell doesn’t quite have enough juice to consistently get all the way to the cup. He’s patient and changes his pace well with straight line drives, but he’s not yet explosive enough to get all the way to that third level to really pressure the lower help defenders. He can’t break down defenders in isolation situations regularly and struggles to turn the corner on bigs. In 38 games, he only took 68 shots at the rim in half-court settings last season, less than two per game despite having the ball in his hands a lot.

When he is able to get to the hoop, he lacks the level of craft to finish at a high rate, making just 48.5 percent of his shots at the rim last season. The reasons why are easy to pinpoint: He struggles to create an angle to get all the way downhill, which leads to a lot of slow, unbalanced two-foot load-up leaps into rim protectors.

Advertisement

This is a great example from a game against the Houston Rockets and Alperen Şengün, not exactly the league’s most imposing guy at the basket. Look at how far away Vassell takes off from here and how he leaps awkwardly off two feet. He puts that left foot down eight feet away from the rim and feels like he just needs to go up with it, even if that footwork left him out to dry in midair. He has long enough arms to be able to get closer to the rim and use length-extension finishes if he can sequence his steps on drives better. Instead, he wastes time loading up, and by the time he gets into the shot blocker’s body, he’s already left his feet and can’t easily create the necessary separation to finish.

It’s a reckless style of drive that doesn’t fly against the league’s best. On plays like this, Vassell would help himself by developing some Euro-step moves that cause rim protectors to hesitate enough to create easier finishing angles. He doesn’t have a ton of upward burst, having notched only seven dunks in half-court play last year, and doesn’t play with a ton of force around the rim, so his best bet is to fine-tune his footwork. It’s work that is doable, given his overall patience and rate of improvement, but work nonetheless. (Better spacing around him will help too — the Spurs were one of the worst perimeter shooting teams in the league last season.)

Rim pressure may seem like a luxury skill given Vassell’s shooting touch, but it’s actually quite important for him to develop. If he’s going to continue playing a substantial amount on the ball, which his new contract indicates, he needs to be able to generate easier baskets and make his game more efficient. Vassell’s true shooting percentage was about five points below the league average last season, even though he was a terrific high-volume 3-point shooter and one of the better midrange marksmen. Among shooting guards, Vassell’s true shooting mark only rated in the 45th percentile, according to DunksandThrees.com. It’s quite hard for anyone that accurate from 3 on high volume and that proficient from the midrange areas to be that inefficient an overall scorer. Poor finishing isn’t the only thing that causes that low true shooting mark, either: Vassell only drew 2.6 foul shots per game, one of the lowest rates in the league for someone who scores this much.

Vassell’s defensive upside: the metrics vs. the film

Despite his reputation, there is more cause for concern with Vassell’s defense than his pre-draft scouting report might indicate. He was good defensively for a rookie and solid as a second-year player. But as his offensive usage has gone up, his defensive value has dropped off. Advanced statistical metrics almost universally rated him as a negative last year. I don’t think I’d go quite that far after watching his film, but I don’t think he provided any solutions for a bad overall Spurs defense last season either. The best way to describe him right now is active but not yet effective.

In particular, he’s lost a lot of strength battles with opponents. He allows his man to get where they want a bit too easily in several different situations but especially on screens. He gets clipped too easily, then doesn’t seem to recover well enough to get back into the play. It’s rarely due to a lack of fight; he doesn’t automatically concede switches and honestly works hard to get rear-view contests. It’s more that some of the NBA’s stronger guards and wings can keep him on their back so he can’t battle his way back to impact the play. Here’s a good example against the Orlando Magic’s Franz Wagner, who cuts off Vassell’s angle on the drive after getting past him with the screen and is unbothered by his contest from behind.

Vassell may not have the tools right now to hold his ground at an elite level on the ball. He’s not overly quick, big or strong, and he doesn’t drop his hips well enough when he has to change direction. Vassell is just 6-foot-5 and 200 pounds, so without elite-level quickness and sudden change of direction, the best NBA players can take advantage of him in a way college stars couldn’t. I wouldn’t be all that enthused about him acting as my team’s perimeter on-ball stopper in a playoff series against the best players in the league.

But the reason I can’t dub him a negative defender, as some advanced metrics do, is he remains quite sharp off the ball. Many of the anticipatory instincts he flashed in college are still there. He rotates early and contests shots well. He generally has a good idea of when to gamble and when to stay home, or when to dig down to try to rip the ball off a post player or driver. He brings a level of disruptiveness that can scare opponents. I think the best potential synergy for the Spurs is to use Vassell as an off-ball havoc-inducer while hoping Sochan develops as a primary on-ball defender.

Advertisement

Regardless, as this Spurs core grows together, I expect the defense’s overall infrastructure to improves drastically. The elite rim protection of Wembanyama will help, but so will the overall continuity of smart defenders like Wembanyama, Vassell and Sochan learning one another’s tendencies.

Is Vassell worth this deal? Yes

It says a lot about the NBA’s financial strength that high-upside players who still have sizable questions can command $135 million guaranteed over five years, but that is where we’re at with the salary-cap’s trajectory. Based on current projections, Vassell’s contract will be worth approximately 15 percent of the salary cap in 2027-28 and 2028-29, years where he’ll be firmly in his prime in his late-20s. At the contract’s highest point in 2024-25, Vassell will be making just 20 percent of the salary cap; 50 players in the league are making that portion now.

Frankly, I don’t think the Spurs care if Vassell is worth that deal next year, given their rebuilding status and Wembanyama’s rookie contract. Vassell’s deal doesn’t impact the Spurs’ flexibility to attract free agents: They can still have an enormous amount of cap space depending on their decisions with some expiring contracts.

GO DEEPER

It's time we start discussing NBA contracts in a different way

The real hope is that Vassell exceeds this contract’s value in the back half of the deal. To compare those years to current-day salaries, 15 percent of the cap is about what Bruce Brown, Mikal Bridges and Myles Turner make. In total, 70 players league-wide make at least 15 percent of next year’s salary cap. That means Vassell doesn’t have to be an all-star to be worth this contract. He merely has to be an above-average NBA starter. If he’s a top-40 player in the NBA in those years — not quite an all-star, but close — the Spurs will be quite happy with this deal.

This extension may seem like a lot of money, but it isn’t that big of a bet for the Spurs. Vassell isn’t a finished product, but he’s gotten substantially better in each of the last six years. Even if that rate of growth slows down, his contract will probably end up looking OK.

(Top photo: Ned Dishman / Getty Images)

ncG1vNJzZmismJqutbTLnquim16YvK57k3JpbXBkaXxzfJFsZmpoX2WCcLDEr6CnZaaWwLSxy6VkrKilp8Bur86nq6uZk6l8