Spurs’ Rapid Ascension To NBA Finals Spells Doom For The Rest Of The League
Led by 22-year-old wunderkind Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs defeated the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on the road in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals on Saturday, 111-103. They're now set to revive the 1999 NBA Finals by facing off against the New Yo
Led by 22-year-old wunderkind Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs defeated the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder on the road in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals on Saturday, 111-103. They're now set to revive the 1999 NBA Finals by facing off against the New York Knicks for this year's championship.
That should send chills down the spines of the 29 other front offices through the league.
Much like the Thunder over the past few years, the Spurs are well ahead of schedule in their rebuild. They had back-to-back 22-win seasons, which netted them Wembanyama with the No. 1 overall pick in 2023 and Stephon Castle with the No. 4 overall pick in 2024. They proceeded to acquire De'Aaron Fox at the 2025 trade deadline and then landed Dylan Harper with the No. 2 overall pick in this past year's draft.
Teams won’t be able to go on that type of a draft run for the next few years. The NBA just passed a massive draft lottery reform , part of which prohibits teams from receiving top-five picks in three straight years. ( Don't ask the Memphis Grizzlies about that right now.)
The Thunder began their takeoff when they landed Chet Holmgren with the No. 2 overall pick and Jalen Williams with the No. 12 overall pick in 2022. With Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a mountain of assets also in place, they jumped 16 wins from 2021-22 to 2022-23, and they jumped another 17 wins the following year.
That’s right. They went from 24-58 to 57-25 in the span of two years. They won a title the following year after going an NBA-best 68-14 during the regular season.
This year should be the Spurs' version of OKC's 57-25 season, two years after their final season of the win-later phase of the rebuild. Except the Spurs went 62-20 in the regular season instead of 57-25, and they just knocked the Thunder out in a hard-fought seven-game series with a trip to the NBA Finals on the line.
Regardless of what happens in this year's Finals, the Spurs' ability to beat two of the toughest teams in the NBA through the Western Conference playoff bracket suggests they should be a fixture in the championship conversation moving forward.
