How Spurs Can Succeed Next Time: Be More Like the Knicks

Jared Weiss - The Athletic

The New York Times - Martedì 16 giugno 2026

Pagina 29

SAN ANTONIO — The Spurs are close to greatness, but they are not there yet. They thought they could outrun their inexperience, but in the end, the N.B.A. finals ended in a gentlemen’s sweep.

In many ways, the Spurs are in the same spot the New York Knicks were in a year ago, the same spot most contenders need to live in before reaching the next level. Failure comes before acing the test. They ran into a team that could stretch them thin and force them to play on their opponent’s terms. Just about every game, that identity crisis broke the Spurs.

They were right there, so close to breaking through, but came up short. The Spurs aspire to be better than this. They haven’t far to go. But success is binary in the N.B.A. finals.

The Knicks beat the Spurs, four games to one, to win their first N.B.A. championship in 53 years, a monumental moment for the league and the sport. As unforgettable as this season was for the Spurs, a team well ahead of schedule featuring a potential great in the making, it is now the biggest footnote in the Knicks’ run for the ages.

The Spurs kept forgetting just how long an N.B.A. game is.

They let their foot off the gas as the Knicks cut them off and sped away, game after game.

The Knicks are everything Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs want to become: a deep, resilient team, orbiting around a singular, unflappable force.

At the beginning of the season, with the Spurs coming off a 34-win campaign, Wembanyama made waves when he said the team’s goal was to be a sixth seed in the N.B.A. playoffs. It did not take long for the Spurs to show they had a chance to make a run at the title.

In one season, Wembanyama went from the next big thing to a most valuable player finalist. The Spurs got healthy and became a juggernaut. They outlasted the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in a thrilling seven-game series, but ultimately succumbed to the Knicks’ rope-adope act in the finals.

Now the Spurs must figure out how to optimize the roster around their centerpiece as they start paying some of their young rotation players. So how does Wembanyama get to that final level, and how can the Spurs improve to get him there?

The Wemby Rules 

The Spurs became the fourth team in N.B.A. history to go from the lottery to 60-plus wins in a season. Wembanyama may have become the face of the league, with his play on the court and his bold stances on various on-and off-court topics. This was a year of change and emergence.

But that part is over.

The Spurs spent much of this season free from expectations.

Their ascension to the top tier of the league was swift and surprising, but this is now a championship-or-bust team.

With that, the novelty of Wembanyama will wear off. For the most part, the public fell in love with his on-and off-court approach over the course of the season. But now that the expectations have been set at the highest level, every time he appears to be coming up short, the pressure will ramp up.

Wembanyama struggled at times to handle the spotlight in the playoff run, particularly when the Spurs were going down to the Thunder before coming back in the Western Conference finals. He could not consistently impose his will on the game, which is not surprising for a 22-year-old in the postseason for the first time.

But the expectations cannot be any higher at this point. So how will he deal with increased scrutiny for the first time in his career?

The next evolution as a team starts with strengthening the link between Wembanyama and the ball. The Knicks won this series because the defense made it impossible for him to get the ball in his comfort zone consistently. His catches rarely came with momentum and balance. He could not roll through the lane reliably. Drives were walled off effectively, to the point that he was not able to step through all the way to the rim.

This summer, Wembanyama will need to get in the lab and build out a post game he can carry with him to the N.B.A. finals. Missing throughout the series were the faceup jumpers and running hooks that belong to most great 7-footers. Just look at how Jalen Brunson owned the midrange, fighting tooth and nail to get to spots he would own regardless of defense. Wembanyama needs the kinds of shots that Tim Duncan and Carmelo Anthony could get to consistently, which would have been the antidote to the Knicks’ coverages. He has a bunch of actions he can get to, but not quite a known spot in the post or the perimeter where he has an inevitable signature shot.

Can Wembanyama drive into a comfortable jumper? Can he get the ball on the elbow and develop a reliable separation move to get to a step-through to the rim?

When is the turnaround jumper right off the catch in the low post going to take shape?

Only by doing so consistently can Wembanyama force the Knicks to start double-teaming his catches so he cannot touch the ball. That’s when the open shots start opening up on the other side consistently. There were too few moments in the N.B.A. finals when Wembanyama looked as if he was dictating the shot and was confident going into his decision. He has to become a more proactive scorer rather than a reactive one.

Fortifying the Identity 

Wembanyama’s scoring package was only half of the equation.

The Spurs guards could not reliably crack the Knicks’ stout perimeter defense with the proper timing to find Wembanyama inside, particularly during the second-half collapse in Game 4. Execution and timing were the biggest things the Knicks’ defense took away. The Spurs rarely drove with comfort and often looked unsure of when they should take a shot instead of passing.

Wembanyama’s dives toward the hoop typically were not in sync with the guards being in a position to throw him the ball.

Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper will have to improve their feel for how to set up the offense and get more comfortable as 3-point threats to help mitigate those coverages, though they made significant strides this postseason. They are good bets to turn into the exact players the Spurs need to take their offense to the next level as they improve.

Then there is the overall team identity. The Spurs do not have a deficiency. They simply were not the Knicks. As forward Julian Champagnie put it after Game 4, the Knicks were the more desperate team. The Spurs were not quite there, missing the blend of defensive experience and offensive fearlessness that the Knicks got from Brunson and OG Anunoby.

Wembanyama spent this season proving to the world he was worthy of the hype. Now, what does he do with it?

He is becoming more famous on a global scale now after this playoff run and is likely to become a bigger face of Nike and the N.B.A.’s marketing next year.

How does he handle the exposure? How does he respond to the way this playoff run went — and ended? Can he maintain his principles while pushing even further forward?

Wembanyama’s “ethical” center will continue to be tested.

When variables like pressure and disappointment are introduced, the leaguewide perception of a budding superstar can change.

How will he respond now that he is no longer the shiny new toy without the burden of expectation?

He is as safe a bet as anyone to handle it well, but this will be a test nonetheless.