San Antonio Spurs rookie Dylan Harper hit an alley-oop to Victor Wembanyama for a two-handed slam with 44.3 seconds left in the first half of Friday night’s 134-130 overtime win over the Utah Jazz.
Spurs’ Dylan Harper played 18 minutes against Jazz
Harper, an early NBA Rookie of the Year candidate after being taken No. 2 overall in this year’s draft, recorded a game-best plus-minus of 22 in 12½ minutes and finished on 4-for-5 shooting for nine points with two assists.
The former Rutgers star added another dime in the third quarter before finally settling with 6:23 remaining due to a minutes restriction.
Dylan Harper finds Wemby for the alley-oop 🤯
WHAT. A. PASS. pic.twitter.com/bPB0zoj2nn
— NBA (@NBA) October 11, 2025
all corners 🤩 https://t.co/cOrOGiTRWE pic.twitter.com/gnmXWtWrDA
— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) October 11, 2025
Dylan Harper played 18 minutes and finished with a plus-minus of 20.
The 19-year-old completed an alley-oop to Wembanyama and followed that with a pass around the edge to Luke Kornet for his first two assists.
“It’s good to be on the field with him,” Wembanyama said. “He looks ready and already feels comfortable making these types of passes, so I have a lot of confidence in him and am very happy to spend some time with him on the pitch.”
Harper scored his first basket midway through the first quarter
Harper scored his first bucket 10 seconds after checking into the action with 6:12 left in the first quarter after running past his defender on a cut to the basket for a layup following an assist from Harrison Barnes.
“Just being on the field with those guys again, just getting the chemistry going before the season starts, it just felt good to be playing again,” Harper said.
“My teammates do a great job of giving me strength, and they’ll let me know what I’m doing wrong. But at the end of the day, they’re here to help me and I’m here to help them. Just having that confidence behind me helps a lot.”
Harper admitted after the game that he will probably have to “turn things around.” [my] brain” when estimating how to accurately hit his new 8-foot-2 teammate on alley-oop passes.
‘I should have done that [thrown] higher, much higher,” Harper said. ‘It’s weird. No one has ever played with someone that big. Get out of there. You throw it up and you think you threw it too high. But then he catches it and you think, ‘It’s a little too low.’ So, [it’s] just little things like that. Just throw where no one else can get it but him.
Harper was nervous about his NBA preseason debut
Harper said he had “jitters” during the first game, but it didn’t take long for him to get used to playing in front of NBA fans. His exhibition outing should be a confidence boost for the New Jersey native.
“It’s just another step for him and his young career as he continues to grow. Obviously he’s made some plays that hopefully he’ll feel good about,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said.
“But just to be able to do it in front of the fans and in the bright light, whether it was the plays that people talk about when he scored, made a shot or made a good pass. Just to be able to go through the team defense and run down the field, it’s an invaluable experience.”
Harper sat out the first two games of Spurs’ preseason as a precaution after undergoing surgery in September to repair a partially torn collateral ligament in his left thumb.
San Antonio visits the Dallas Mavericks on Oct. 22 to open the 2025-2026 season.
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