The Spurs got lucky in the lottery and will pick fourth and eighth, as the Raptors first-rounder they acquired in the Jakob Poeltl trade has conveyed. They will get a big infusion of young talent from a draft class that is not heralded as a great one but has intriguing prospects.

Having two picks, though, could really change how the Spurs approach this offseason. They have already said they will take things slowly but are now much better suited to having a quiet summer than they would have with just one pick.

If we assume the Spurs will use both picks, as the fans want them to, those selections will eat into their cap space. If they keep both, they will likely have around $21.4 million in cap space, assuming they waive everyone on a non-guaranteed contract, including Julian Champagnie, and renounce all their free agents. The rookie scale deal for the eighth pick is $6.3 million, so without the Raptors pick, San Antonio would have had around $27.7 million in cap space. If they had also stayed at fifth instead of jumping to fourth they would have had another $600,000 at their disposal. San Antonio could have had over $28 million in cap space if things had gone differently in the lottery. Seven extra million might not seem like much, but every penny would count if the Spurs were hoping to be active in free agency.

Beyond just taking up more cap space, using both picks means using two roster spaces. San Antonio already has 10 players under contract for next season, and with the two rookies, they would be at 12 players. Six players — Victor Wembanyama, Devin Vassell, Keldon Johnson, Jeremy Sochan, Tre Jones and Zach Collins — are already penciled into the rotation. Assuming the two lottery picks get playing time right away, that’s eight rotation spots taken, and that’s not even counting Blake Wesley, Malaki Branham and Champagnie, much less Sidy Cissoko. Not only would the Spurs’ roster be almost full, but also the rotation would be hard to crack for any new addition. Again, trades could change how the roster and the rotation look, but they would have been crowded adding just one rookie expected to get minutes, never mind two.

So the Spurs lack cap room to make huge moves upright in free agency and seem to have close to a full rotation if we assume the two rookies get minutes from the get-go. If the rumors are correct and the franchise is fine with having a quiet offseason, adding two lottery picks, bringing back Dominick Barlow, Sandro Mamukelashvili, or both, and making a prudent, short-term free agency signing to plug a specific hole (like Tyus Jones) seems like a possibility. It’s not exciting by any means, but it would be in tune with San Antonio embracing a rebuild through the draft and focusing on internal development from its younger players, at least for another year. Again, having two lottery picks simply makes that path more enticing, as it would represent both continuity and a talent upgrade.

The quiet path is not the only one possible, of course. San Antonio hasn’t traditionally been aggressive on draft day deals, but facing a questionable class, the front office might decide to trade one or both of the picks for a star or immediate help. It shouldn’t be hard to work a sign-and-trade for a free agent out of their price range by including non-guaranteed contracts and a sweetener. The extra picks the Spurs have could also allow them to unload Zach Collins’s contract on a team with cap space to create more room. And if they really want to meaningfully change their roster, they have young veterans on good contracts in Tre Jones and Keldon Johnson and a few projects still on their rookie deals that they could use on trades. A big shakedown is possible and wouldn’t be too hard to implement.

The question is, is it worth it this offseason when the Spurs could have two quality rookies joining a young core that arguably still needs time together to figure things out? Continuity would be a tough sell to the fanbase after a 22-win season that featured some extreme lows, but adding two lottery picks and possibly a veteran piece to plug a hole can’t reasonably be called inactivity. And it wouldn’t mean ignoring the riskier path, it would mean just postponing it.

The Spurs, once again, find themselves at a fork in the road. They can continue to be patient and focused on development, or try to be a respectable team as soon as possible. They also know from the DeMar DeRozan years that attempting to do both simultaneously doesn’t normally lead to success.

Fortunately, the difference this time is that they have a superstar in place to make everything easier and plenty of extra assets to course-correct if they choose poorly.