The San Antonio Spurs exercised 2027-28 contract options on Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper and Carter Bryant on Saturday. Jared Weiss of The Athletic reported it first and the team announced the moves the same day. None of it was a surprise, and all of it matters.
Castle’s fourth-year option is worth about $12.7 million. Harper’s third-year option is $13.6 million. Bryant’s third-year option is $5.4 million. That is roughly $31.7 million in guaranteed money for three young players two seasons from now, and every dollar of it is a bargain.
All three were already under contract for this season. These decisions were about 2027-28, and San Antonio locked them in with two days to spare before the October 19 deadline.
The Numbers Are the Whole Point
Castle went fourth overall in 2024 and won Rookie of the Year in 2024-25. He improved across most major categories in his second season. He becomes eligible for a rookie scale extension next offseason, and any new deal would not start until 2028-29, so the Spurs have him on rookie money through his fourth and fifth NBA seasons.
Harper was the second pick in 2025, made the All-Rookie first team, and was better in the 2026 playoffs than he was in the regular season. He is 20 years old. Thirteen point six million dollars for a lead guard entering his third season is the kind of contract that wins you a tax bill you can actually pay.
Bryant was the 14th pick in 2025, the final lottery selection, and he averaged 11.5 minutes across 71 games off the bench as a rookie. San Antonio expects more from him this year. At $5.4 million two seasons out, he only has to be a rotation player for the option to pay for itself.
What It Means for the Spurs
This is cost certainty arriving at exactly the right time. Harper opens his second season alongside Castle, De’Aaron Fox, Devin Vassell and Victor Wembanyama, and the hard part of building around a franchise center is paying everyone else. San Antonio just fixed three of those salaries at well under market for the 2027-28 season.
Think about what that does for the front office. The Spurs can absorb a bad contract to grab an asset, or chase a real free agent, without blowing past an apron, because the cheap end of the rotation is already priced. Teams that lose their flexibility usually lose it one guaranteed year at a time, and San Antonio keeps avoiding that trap.
The one thing to watch is Castle’s extension conversation next summer. He is a former Rookie of the Year coming off a jump, he will have a full third season on the record by then, and his camp has every reason to push for the max. That is the first real negotiation San Antonio has to win, and it starts in July.
For now, this is housekeeping executed well. Nobody is going to write a column about three option exercises, which is sort of the point. The teams that stay good for a decade are the ones that handle the boring paperwork correctly while everybody else is cutting veterans to dodge a tax bill.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.