Harrison Barnes headed back to the Spurs on $8 million deal<\/a><\/p>\nMinnesota, whose collection of variably-skilled giant bodies had posed a challenge to San Antonio until it didn\u2019t, parted ways with Julius Randle and Naz Reid and chose instead to push the tempo with Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball.<\/p>\n
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Portland traded for Ja Morant, and even though the Blazers appear to have way too many point guards when one considers that Damian Lillard, Jrue Holiday and Scoot Henderson already are there, might a trade for Jaylen Brown give them some of the offensive firepower they lacked against the Spurs?<\/p>\n
And if LeBron James really is set to join Stephen Curry in Golden State, there\u2019s no guarantee that either of them will stay healthy long enough to recreate the 2024 Paris Olympics next spring. But that\u2019s the kind of pairing that could test how much Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper have learned about how to close out playoff games.<\/p>\n
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San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama (1) tries to block a shot by Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry (30) during the second half of an NBA game in San Antonio, Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. After the Spurs’ surprising run to the NBA Finals other Western Conference contenders are gearing up in free agency to topple them. In Golden State, the prospect of pairing Curry with LeBron James could be a strong opposition for the Spurs.<\/p>\n
Marvin Pfeiffer\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
Then there are teams like the Nuggets, Rockets and Lakers, who undoubtedly are brainstorming \u201cSpurs stopper\u201d lineups of their own. The good news for Wright is that he doesn\u2019t have to make a separate signing to cover each one.<\/p>\n
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Most of the smartest counter moves already reside in his locker room. We haven\u2019t seen the best of Wembanyama, Castle or Harper yet. Carter Bryant stands to benefit immensely from an extra year of weight-training and know-how. De\u2019Aaron Fox, presumably, will begin next season with two healthy ankles.<\/p>\n
Throw all that together, and it might be enough to keep the rest of the West from catching up.<\/p>\n
But as some contenders get taller, others get quicker, and others get older?<\/p>\n
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They all know who they\u2019re chasing now.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama (1) goes up to block a shot by Oklahoma City Thunder guard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697606,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-770833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=770833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/770833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=770833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=770833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=770833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}