Wembanyama and Spurs, ready to return to the playoffs in the NBA?
The Spurs start a new season with a main mission: return to the playoffs. Will they do it?
The San Antonio Spurs They start a new season with a main mission: return to the playoffs.
After six years of not getting the postseason, and with several reinforcements, plus the maturity and experience gained from Victor Wembanyamait seems that the foundations of the Renacer of the franchise are placed.
1- Reality or fiction: Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs are ready to make noise in the west.
Reality: Wemby, Deaaron Fox, Dylan Harper and Chris Paul? Outside Denver and Oklahoma City, there is no team in the west that has such a powerful offensively speaking group. Of course, the NBA became a “Big Three” league to having one or two stars with complementary players, but San Antonio’s bet of having Fox and Harper like her star bases, and handling Paul’s minutes, a veteran who continues to look for her first ring in a race that will surely end her induction to the Hall of Fame, looks extremely intelligent to clothe Wenbanyama.
With Thunder last year, we already saw what can happen when a team full of young star star at the right time. San Antonio has to get among the five best in the west since now, and begin to compete with other young campus of the conference such as Houston and Minnesota. –Eric Gómez
Fiction: The 2025-26 season of the Spurs will be transition with a view to becoming a legitimate contender of the West Conference in the future; To begin with, it will be the first to begin without Gregg Popovich on the bench since 1997-98 and Mitch Johnson must begin to impose their own vision and demonstrate that it can be the driver of the long-term franchise.
Victor Wembanyama will undoubtedly be one of the great stars of the NBA in the next decade, but the last time he used the San Antonio uniform was February 12, so he must take pace gradually as the calendar progresses; In addition, its complement, De’aaron Fox will start the campaign on the injured list, therefore, in Texas it must be another year of learning to make noise, but from 2026-27 with a young block, full of talent. –Juan Pablo Sánchez
2- A spurs number to the season …
177-284. accumulated record of the Spurs in the past 6 seasons. Will the trend continue or begin a new era in command of Mitch Johnson? After the game Kawhi Leonard and the withdrawal of the last of the historic Big 3, Manu Ginobili, San Antonio had a year of resistance in 2018-19 when they lost in the first round of playoffs supported by veterans such as Lamarcus aldridge, Pau Gasol, Marco Bellli and a rookie Derrick White coming out of the bank.
A year later, the first losing season of the era of Gregg Popovich arrived and a difficult renewal stage that had its first great moment in June 2023 with the arrival of Victor Wembanyama, a unique talent that aims to mark a before and after here.
Wembanyama was the rookie of the year in 2023-24. A year later, the fourth pick of the draft Stephon Castle captured the award and Dylan Harper is the bet of several experts to receive the award this season. In the third year of the Wemby era, they have a team with potential of the playoffs, with youth, experience (De’aaron Fox, Luke Kornet, Kelly Olynik), a new face in the direction and omnipresence of ‘The Chief’ Popovich, so it can be anticipated that the years of most defeats that victories will end for a good time in 2025-26. –Hiram Martínez
3- The best / worst version of the team …
The best: San Antonio Spurs is a reconstruction team both in its template and in its bank after the departure of Gregg Popovich. In that sense and after several years without reaching the playoffs, the best version for the season that is about to start would be one in which they are again contenders or at least be in the first places of the West Conference. Victor Wembanyama in his role as a franchise player and entering his third year he has to lead the supporting team of the people of experience like D’Aaron Fox and shelters young people. While the West Conference has contenders and favorites to the title as OKC, Nuggets, Warriors among others, the Spurs have a team to have a season that gives them to fight perhaps by the Play-In area.
The worst: One with injuries or similar to the previous one, where at times the team had controlled the games and at the end of these they let the result not finding a way to handle their rotations well, have ball losses at key moments or make forced shots that ended away from the basket or in the hands of the rival that capitalized the failures. The advantage for the Spurs is that they have nothing to lose and much to win for a future that looks encouraging for a young team. –Rolando del Bosque
4- What is Mitch Johnson’s biggest challenge as Coach?
Mitch Johnson has the challenge of supplying as Coach of the Spurs to Gregg Popovich, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, who won five championships with San Antonio in the 29 seasons that directed them and has the record of more victories in the history of the NBA. It is said simply but it is a titanic task.
Because the Spurs were from Popovich – they are still relatively because he is the president of basketball operations – and Johnson’s first challenge is to return to San Antonio to the playoffs after six years of not classifying. –Luis Salazar
