The 2026 NBA Finals are over, and so too is the San Antonio Spurs\u2019 dream of raising a sixth championship banner in the rafters at Frost Bank Center \u2013 at least for now.<\/p>\n
If Victor Wembanyama had his way, the Spurs\u2019 next game would be Game 1 of the 2027 NBA Finals.<\/p>\n
The Spurs can\u2019t skip ahead to next June, but Wemby\u2019s belief that the team will return to championship contention by then speaks volumes about his confidence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not satisfied with not winning,\u201d Wemby said. \u201cThis is the biggest lesson of my life. As a team, there is no better experience than what we just lived.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, what lessons will resonate with the Spurs the most as they head into the offseason? Following their disappointing NBA Finals loss, here are five takeaways from those who lived it.<\/p>\n
Throughout the season, much of what the Spurs heard was that they were too young and inexperienced. They proved that narrative wrong \u2013 until the NBA Finals, when their youth and naivety finally caught up with them. \u201cExperience comes from making mistakes,\u201d Wemby said. \u201cWe don’t lack talent. We don’t lack ability. We just make too many mistakes. I make too many mistakes.\u201d Now, with 23 playoff games under their belt, hopefully the Spurs can reflect on the battle scars they\u2019ve earned and know what it will take to finish the job.<\/p>\n
Wemby said he plans to use the emotional pain he\u2019s feeling from the Finals loss as fuel to motivate him for what he covets most \u2013 an NBA championship. It\u2019s something coach Mitch Johnson told the team in the locker room after the game. \u201cI want them to feel all the emotions,\u201d he said. \u201cWhatever they feel, that\u2019s real. That\u2019s competitiveness. That\u2019s what makes you better. That\u2019s what pushes you to continue to improve in the dark, long hours when nobody\u2019s around.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been a wild first postseason for Wemby \u2013 from suffering a concussion to getting ejected to hitting a logo three \u2013 but all of it has made him a better leader. \u201cI think [his leadership] has grown tremendously,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cI think he stepped into every moment with the appropriate amount of fearlessness and respect for the moment and being exactly who he is. He\u2019s bringing his teammates and everybody else along with him. It\u2019s been fun to observe and be a part of.\u201d<\/p>\n
If the Spurs learned anything about a specific player this postseason, it\u2019s that their rookie Dylan Harper is ready for the spotlight. \u201cI think we all knew he was talented, [but] I don\u2019t know if anybody knew he was this talented \u2013 besides himself,\u201d Devin Vassell said. \u201cWhen we needed him most, he stepped up. We have a star in the making.\u201d Coming off the bench, Harper averaged 18 points in the Finals, the second most on the team after Wemby (26 PPG), and shot 49% from the field.<\/p>\n
Wemby said the biggest lesson he learned about the Finals was that the margin of error was much thinner than the first three rounds of the playoffs. \u201cWe absolutely dominated for most of the series, but our mistakes [were] punished so hard,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the reason we lost.\u201d Vassell added that their self-inflicted errors cost them multiple games. \u201cEvery possession matters and every little detail matters,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can mess up some stuff in the regular season and kind of get away with it, but obviously in the Finals \u2013 with everything being amplified \u2013 one mistake can cost you.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2026 NBA Finals are over, and so too is the San Antonio Spurs\u2019 dream of raising a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[87604,87602,87603,820,82,84,83],"class_list":["post-336233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-mysapuro","tag-mysasports","tag-mysaspurs","tag-mysastaff","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}