Earlier than the 2022-23 season, I wrote a bit concerning the significance of the Spurs studying from losses. The title was “Awaiting small victories in a season that received’t characteristic many Spurs wins”. I ended the piece with this:
In our lives, and watching this Spurs workforce wrestle by means of this season, let’s all attempt to embrace the small victories, even when they don’t all translate into wins within the standings.
In fact, that season of considerable losses ended with an enormous victory on the draft lottery when the Spurs obtained the highest choose within the NBA draft. They then cleverly selected a tall French participant as an alternative of Scoot Henderson. Quick forwarding to earlier than the beginning of the 2025-26 season, I ended a bit concerning the power of the Western Convention with this:
Whereas the 2025-26 Spurs can not realistically count on to problem the highest 5 from final yr, they will set their sights on the following three, together with Play-In losers Mavs and Kings.
Let’s intention for that 6-spot. And possibly face the Clippers in Spherical One. Does that sound about proper?
Which may have sounded proper in September 2025, and it was not simply me. The Vegas over/underneath for the Spurs was 43.5 wins, barely over a .500 file. The precise 2025-26 standings reveal that 43 or 44 wins would have gotten the Spurs the seventh spot within the West. Which means if the theoretical 43-win Spurs received their Play-In sport, they’d have matched up with the 2nd seed within the West.
Wanting once more on the standings because the season truly performed out, our 43-win Spurs workforce would have performed the primary spherical of the playoffs towards … the San Antonio Spurs, who went 62-20, not the 43.5 wins predicted by Las Vegas. In that theoretical first spherical match-up, I’d undoubtedly have picked the Spurs to win. In spite of everything, they’d have home-court benefit for all 7 video games, if it went that lengthy.
In fact, this Spurs workforce was the 62-win workforce juggernaut, not the hardly over .500 workforce that will have needed to win a Play-In sport to even make it into the “actual” playoffs. And the juggernaut workforce needed to survive a Victor Wembanyama concussion towards the Blazers within the first spherical, a Victor ejection towards the Timberwolves within the second spherical, and a 3-2 deficit towards the defending champs — together with a “win or go house” Recreation Seven in OKC — to even attain the NBA Finals.
So why do I really feel so horrible now? The reply is simple — the Spurs may have and may have received all of it. They didn’t, and it hurts. As soon as they made the Finals, all the way in which too pessimistic preseason predictions, all of the playoff hardship, all of the “they’re too younger” pundits went out the window. The Spurs have been within the NBA Finals, led each sport by double digits, and the Finals may have simply been a 5-game Spurs coronation as an alternative of what truly occurred.
For me, essentially the most ache was after Recreation 4. When Recreation 5 and the Finals ended, I spotted I had spent all my angst not sleeping Wednesday evening. I merely couldn’t summon up the identical quantity of angst so quickly after the Recreation 4 slowly unfolding nightmare. I slept OK after the Finals ended method too quickly Saturday evening, obtained up Sunday for my Sunday morning hoops, and misplaced myself on the court docket —passing, capturing, attempting to defend, simply hanging with my hoops buddies. My protected spot, my sanctuary. It felt good to be on the basketball court docket.
On the drive house after the Sunday morning sport, my mom known as from Oregon. We attempt to speak each Sunday morning. She mentioned she learn a bunch of stuff criticizing Mitch Johnson. I instructed her two issues.
First, I instructed her I had not learn something — not even Pounding the Rock — after Wednesday. I had watched Recreation 4 and didn’t have to (and didn’t wish to) examine all of the issues that went mistaken on Wednesday evening that led to that end result.
Second, I instructed her that I discover it amusing/infuriating when arm-chair pundits criticize teaching selections. I’ve been in locker rooms, coaches’ conferences, a whole lot of practices, intense halftime technique periods, and on the bench throughout video games. I don’t perceive how individuals who haven’t had any of these experiences imagine they know higher than the individuals who have — with this Spurs workforce — and who do that as their full-time jobs.
Even ex-players, some who’re Corridor-of-Famers, have this illness of “figuring out higher”. At halftime of Recreation 5, a kind of Corridor-of-Famers mentioned that the Spurs mustn’t play De’Aaron Fox within the second half. What does that even imply? Have been Stephon Fort and Dylan Harper supposed to every play 24 minutes within the second half? In fact not. In associated information, one of many two guards Chuck apparently thought ought to play all 24 minutes within the second half had zero baskets within the first half of that very sport and didn’t make a single basket within the first 47 minutes. Keep on with being a commentator, Chuck. Teaching is difficult.
One last thought: The Spurs’ most painful loss, even worse than Recreation 4 in Madison Sq. Backyard, was the Ray Allen sport in 2013. Absent missed free throws by Manu Ginobili and Kawhi Leonard within the final minute, some funky bounces on Warmth bricks, and Allen’s back-pedaling three from the nook, the Spurs would have been champions in 2013. What did the workforce do to re-tool for the following season? They introduced again your entire workforce.
This yr’s workforce would have been champions in 2026 absent some missed free throws and lay-ups, quite a few loopy threes from the Knicks, Victor’s “back-pass” to Fort, OG Anunoby’s block on Fox, KAT’s fingertip on Harper’s cross to a large open Fort on the finish of Recreation 4, and too many different bizarre issues to listing right here. What ought to the workforce do to re-tool for subsequent season?
