After weeks of hypothesis, the San Antonio Spurs picked Dylan Harper with their second general choose within the 2025 NBA Draft.
Dylan Harper’s expertise was by no means doubtful because the Rutgers star even earned reward from Stephen Curry earlier than the 2025 NBA Draft.
But it surely was extra of what the San Antonio Spurs needed to do with their No. 2 general choose. The Spurs had been rumored to be among the many favorites to land Kevin Durant earlier than he was drafted to the Houston Rockets.
Furthermore, the Spurs additionally felt that the Phoenix Suns’ asking worth for KD was too excessive. Consequently, the Spurs caught to their plan of drafting Harper.
In his sole yr with Rutgers, Harper donned the #2 jersey for the faculty basketball program. Now, the 19-year-old will put on the identical quantity for the Spurs.
There’s just one drawback – the #2 jersey was final worn by NBA legend Kawhi Leonard when he was a member of the Spurs.
This led to a fan calling out Dylan, stating: “D Harp lowkey lame for taking it within the first place.”
Contemplating the Spurs allowed Harper to put on this quantity, it signifies that the group is on board with the choice.
Protecting that in thoughts, Dylan’s father, Ron Harper, slammed the NBA fan with a two-word response on X.
“Shut up,” Ron wrote.
Whereas the 5x NBA champion isn’t mistaken in defending his son, Spurs followers are merely stunned by the choice. In any case, they anticipated to see Leonard’s #2 jersey hanging within the rafters when the present LA Clippers star retired from the NBA.
The choice at hand Kawhi’s quantity to Dylan was pretty controversial, and even NBA reporter Michelle Beadle weighed in on the identical.
She identified that Leonard is ‘not bothered’ by the choice as time has handed since he left the Spurs.
“Kawhi’s not bothered. We’re not bothered. The respect was broken a bit. Time has handed,” Beadle wrote on X.
She added: “Issues are cool now for many. However we don’t have to retire each jersey. Let the child have his second. Rattling!”
For context, the explanation why Leonard left the Spurs was because of his camp’s perception that the group was mismanaging his accidents.
Regardless of being a comparatively reserved particular person, Kawhi couldn’t tolerate that. However as Beadle talked about, seven years have handed since Leonard’s feud with the Spurs, and the 2 sides have seemingly moved on.