As recently as two weeks ago, it felt like the San Antonio Spurs were a shoo-in to not only win the NBA Finals but to become a dynasty in the coming years thanks to their roster of elite young talent built around Victor Wembanyama. However, after the disheartening performance the team registered in their five-game loss to the New York Knicks, many are questioning if the Spurs will ever even reach that stage again.
The Spurs didn’t simply lose in a gentleman’s sweep, which would have been bad enough given how heavily they were favored at the start of the series. They lost in a way that changes the direction of a franchise. The Spurs held double-digit leads and near-certain win probabilities in each game they lost, and perhaps the most damning stat of all was that they led for 72% of the series in terms of minutes played.
Wemby Not Ready
For as much praise as Wembanyama received for beating the Oklahoma City Thunder, he pretty much erased all of that goodwill with his behavior in the Finals. And while De’Aaron Fox is wearing most of the egg on his face for throwing San Antonio’s chances away down the stretch, the reality is that Wemby’s shaky demeanor and late-game disappearing acts are an even bigger reason why he’s starting his career 0-1 in the Finals.
Unfortunately for this young Spurs group, their first trip to the NBA Finals was so bad that it has people way more down on them than if they had lost Game 7 to the Thunder. Sort of like the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl, the fact that they made it that far and met an opponent who could expose them in such a systematic way has given everyone cold feet about the entire operation. In just two weeks, this group went from being compared to Duncan’s Spurs to the early 2010s Thunder teams that everyone thought would be NBA Finals mainstays throughout the decade until they weren’t.
Panic Time?
Now, is it fair to hit the panic button if you’re a Spurs fan? No, not at all frankly.
It’s absolutely true you can’t just assume you’ll make it back to the NBA Finals as a franchise, but the Spurs were so far ahead of schedule this season that the holes caused by their inexperience didn’t really manifest until they ran into a Knicks team that was perfectly equipped to exploit them. Wembanyama is only going to get better offensively, and despite his unanimous crowning as Defensive Player of the Year, these Finals proved that he still has plenty of room to improve on that end of the floor as well.
The magnitude of this NBA Finals certainly doesn’t help Wemby’s perception right now, but lost in all of the New York celebrations is the looming truth that the player we saw wearing No. 1 in black was still very raw and nowhere near the player he can become if he manages to stay healthy throughout his 20s. And perhaps the most daunting reality for the league’s 29 other franchises is that this is the last year Dylan Harper will be the green 20-year-old finding his footing in the league. These NBA playoffs showed that Harper is ready to be star material right now, so it’s not hard to imagine the kind of resume he could run up with this crew of teammates.
Stocks Down
Coach Mitch Johnson is another member of the Spurs organization who saw a considerable stock drop with his performance in the Finals. I’ll be honest, that one is a lot harder to defend and a lot harder to find a silver lining about. His refusal to turn away from Fox or even simply call a timeout while his team handed game after game away was questionable to the point that it’s a fireable offense. Will the Spurs fire him? Probably not, but if the aftermath of this loss continues to hang over the team next season then he’ll almost certainly be the first to go.
It also seems like a De’Aaron Fox trade is more unlikely than not, if for no other reason than the fact that no team is going to throw themselves in front of the proverbial bus that is Fox’s $220 million contract. He’s tracking toward becoming the most expensive sixth man in NBA history, since his days of starting over Harper are all but over.
There is plenty to unpack with this Spurs' meltdown, but the sting could one day be a distant memory for this youthful bunch if they learn from their mistakes.
