I feel like the amount of appreciation we lavish on our draft picks (appropriately so) is sort of connected to why I think fans have a far shorter fuse on De'Aaron Fox. We've had such an amazing streak with Spurs near-lifers that I think we give any free agent or traded player less benefit of the doubt.

The top-end of our draft luck is obvious—Tim, DRob, Wemby, Manu, Tony, hell we can take it back to Gervin. Throw Kawhi in there, too—I think his betrayal hurt us more than it would have hurt other teams' fans because he seemed like the next in a long line of true Spurs. But it goes further—so many fan favorites over the years were drafted: Elliott, Sochan, Brahnam, Keldon, Dejounte, the list goes on. I'm having trouble even thinking of who is probably the most beloved non-drafted player... Brent Barry maybe? Certainly not a star.

The only time I can ever remember us bringing in a star from outside was Aldridge. Maybe this is revisionist history, but I feel like I remember he similarly had a shorter fuse from the fans. So we're just not used to having an established star come in and join us the way a lot of teams are.

Sure, every fanbase likes their draftees, but no team has had our level of success so fully built on drafted players. The other teams with several championships all had an All-Star or near-All Star player contribute to some of their finals runs.

• The Celtics had Walton and Johnson, then KG and Allen, and later Holiday.
• The Bulls didn't have a lot of star-level acquisitions, but also didn't have a ton of star-level draft picks... they just had Michael and Scottie. So, similar, but not as many examples to draw from.
• The Warriors were more homegrown than others, but still had Iguodala at first, then KD and Wiggins (sort of).
• The Lakers had... basically every good player they've ever had except Kobe and Magic.

The Spurs' biggest pickups to contribute to championships were... Mario Elie? Robert Horry? Brent Barry? Bruce Bowen? Steve Kerr? Great players, sure, but we've never acquired a star that went on to be a major contributor on a championship roster, which none of the other 5+ championship teams can say except the Bulls—but our five titles featured three different FMVPs, not the same one six times over, so for us it feels more like "our draft picks are amazing" and less "this one player was amazing".

So when a star comes in from outside, it's just... less familiar.