The New York Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs Saturday night to win the NBA Finals in five games and clinch the franchise’s first championship since 1973. Jalen Brunson was named Finals MVP and will be part of a Knicks squad next season that will be among the top title contenders.
The losing Spurs were not supposed to be in this position going into the season, when their title odds were +6600, tied for No. 15 in the NBA, per BetMGM—the Knicks were tied for second-best at +750 behind the favorites, the Oklahoma City Thunder at +250. But the Spurs, behind NBA Defensive Player of the Year Victor Wembanyama, finished with the NBA’s second-best record at 62-20 and knocked out the Thunder in the Western Conference finals.
The Spurs best days might be ahead of them on and off the court.
San Antonio had the second-youngest Finals roster in NBA history, based on postseason minutes played. The only younger one was the Bill Walton-led 1977 Portland Trail Blazers, with the 2025 Thunder ranked third. De’Aaron Fox, 28, is the oldest player seeing regular time, and Wemby (22) is the eldest in the young-star trio of Stephon Castle (21) and Dylan Harper (20).
Wembanyama, Castle and Harper are all under contract next year for a combined $40 million, while the Spurs have a $3 million club option for 24-year-old small forward Julian Champagnie. The club will ultimately need to pay these young stars within the NBA’s apron system that impacts roster construction, but the Spurs have made moves off the court to make sure the team doesn’t have to cut any financial corners.
In November, Bexar County voters approved a funding measure for a new $1.3 billion arena in downtown San Antonio. The county and city committed a combined $800 million, with the NBA club on the hook for $500 million and any cost overruns. The Spurs are also planning a privately funded development around the new arena worth about $1.4 billion. The building is expected to open in the early 2030s.
At the end of the 1990s, the Spurs flirted with leaving San Antonio before voters approved funding a $175 million arena in 1999. The vote famously came the day after the Spurs raised the franchise’s first championship banner following their 1998-99 title. The tax increase overwhelmingly passed with 61% of voters in favor, while the 2025 funding measure got 52% of the vote.
In 2002, SBC Center, now Frost Bank Center, opened, and the team would win four more titles over the next 12 years with Hall of Famer Tim Duncan leading the roster. The new arena also catapulted the club from the bottom of the NBA’s revenue rankings to the top quartile.
The Spurs have slowly moved down the revenue rankings, as teams in other cities got new arenas. San Antonio ranked No. 22 on revenue during the 2024-25 season, with a franchise value of $4.5 billion, No. 21 among NBA teams.
The Holt family has controlled the Spurs since Peter Holt led a group that bought the team at a $76 million valuation in 1996. The team’s cap table has added a pair of well-heeled investors in recent years. In 2021, investment firm Sixth Street bought 20% of the franchise, and tech billionaire Michael Dell bought 10%.
Sixth Street has $130 billion in assets under management, while Dell is worth $225 billion, according to Forbes, and ranks as the sixth-richest person on the planet.