Spurs Exit Playoffs Early, Remain Title Favorites for Years

In fairness they weren't even supposed to be here. Not yet. Not this soon. No one outside San Antonio thought the Spurs would be in the NBA Finals this season, and if they're being honest no one in San Antonio could have reasonably believed it either.

Their age alone made it extremely unlikely. Victor Wembanyama is 22. Stephon Castle is 21. Dylan Harper is 20. When your core is embryonic, playing for a championship ought to be unattainable. This marked the Spurs first postseason since 2019. It was the first time they'd won a series since 2017. It was the first time they reached the conference finals in nine years and it was their first NBA Finals appearance in 12 years. You have to go all the way back to Bill Walton's Portland Trail Blazers in 1977 to find a team that young and inexperienced that ended up winning it all.

The Spurs, of course, did not win it all, despite entering the Finals against the Knicks as the favorites to do so. That will make for an uncomfortable summer in San Antonio. Ahead of schedule or not, the Spurs had every opportunity to jump the line and win a championship when no one saw them coming. That won't be the case next season. Next season, they'll be a popular pick to win the title, led by the guy who will be the favorite to be MVP. The Spurs are betting co-favorites to win the 2027 championship, tied with the Thunder with +250 odds at FanDuel . That comes with entirely different pressure than just being a bunch of talented young guys who exceeded expectations and got deeper into the playoffs than anyone could have predicted.

With NBA Finals loss, Victor Wembanyama is experiencing painful lesson once learned by LeBron, Magic, Dirk Sam Quinn

This one, the championship they could have grabbed but watched the Knicks snatch instead, will give the Spurs plenty to stew over between now and next season. And probably for a long time after.

Why Spurs came up short vs. Knicks

If we're looking to place blame, there are plenty of candidates. After the historic Game 4 collapse, Mitch Johnson said he was there to help, support and give clarity to Wembanyama. Bad news about that, Mitch. He got badly outcoached by Mike Brown in the series, from riding De'Aaron Fox in Games 1, 4 & 5 down the stretch when Harper was playing considerably better, to the not-so-great final shot he drew up for Wembanyama in Game 2, to failing to adjust in Game 4 when the Knicks started their epic second-half comeback and the Spurs couldn't get any shots to fall as they let a 29-point lead slip away.

If Johnson did a better job in any of those situations, the series might have been different. The Spurs led for the vast majority of all five games . The Spurs had double-digit leads in all five games. And then they lost in five games. That's hard to do, and it should give them plenty to think about.

While we're assigning blame, Fox stands out for failing to step up. He shot 34.3% from the field and 25% from deep in the Finals. Worse, the 28-year-old was brought in to be the veteran presence the team lacked and sorely needed, the adult in the room who would be cool under pressure. He wasn't. His glaring miscues at the end of Game 4 doomed the Spurs and went a long way toward losing the series. First, he made a critical mistake by not pulling the ball out as time ticked down late in the fourth quarter, instead opting to race OG Anunoby to the basket -- where he was blocked.

> Just before his game-winning putback to complete the Knicks' NBA Finals-record 29-point comeback... OG Anunoby delivered a CLUTCH block on the other end. TWO-WAY IMPACT ON DISPLAY 💯 https://t.co/IcOqBvvOyh pic.twitter.com/CWmlQVckuA — NBA (@NBA) June 11, 2026

Afterward, Fox explained that "I just thought I'd be able to outrun him." Which was the exact wrong thing to think at that moment. As a vet, he should have known that time and possession were far more valuable than going up three by making the bucket — which he didn't. Had he dribbled the ball out, he would have wasted more time and eventually gotten fouled. If he makes both free throws, they're back up three. If he misses both, they're up one which is where they ended up after the Anunoby block anyway — only in the alternate scenario the Knicks theoretically have much less time to set up their attempt at a game-winner.

Which leads us back to the second critical error by Fox in that pivotal game. For reasons surpassing understanding, he decided to help on Jalen Brunson 's 3-point heave, even though 7-foot-4 Wembanyama had a giant extended hand in his face. That should have sufficed. As a consequence of Fox's decision, Anunoby was left unchecked and went shooting down the lane for the put-back that will be remembered forever in Knicks and NBA history.

Seen from another angle, Fox doesn't even consider staying with Anunoby. It almost looks like he forgot about him entirely . Then he followed that up with a needless flagrant foul on Josh Hart in Game 5. They were all inexcusable mistakes in a series that featured several regrettable miscues by the Spurs. Add Fox's brain lapses to some of Wembanyama's, particularly his head-scratching Game 2.

> OH NO! Victor Wembanyama TURNS IT OVER and fouls Jalen Brunson 🤯 Brunson would make a free throw to give the Knicks the lead! pic.twitter.com/td6USYGPld — ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) June 6, 2026

Wembanyama said "I threw that one away" and admitted "I messed up." Then he took an ill-advised mid-range jumper that clanged off the rim as time expired . It was another big moment that he and the Spurs failed to meet. Same goes for him missing two massive free throws late in Game 4, which the Knicks won by one.

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Why the Spurs will be back

There were any number of disappointments for the Spurs in the finals. At one point Wembanyama said he had regrets and would use them to fuel him going forward. It will be interesting to see how that manifests itself. He's not someone who seems to lack motivation. He's already the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in NBA history, someone who just a few months ago openly made the case for why he should have been MVP as well. Less confident players might have blanched at the prospect of challenging the then-defending champions for Western Conference supremacy so early in his career. Instead, Wembanyama welcomed the challenge, beating the Thunder eight out of the 12 times they played each other during the regular season and playoffs, while also embarrassing a rival who made All-NBA and finished runner-up to him in the DPOY race.

An even more focused Wembanyama should terrify the league, as should the reality of the Spurs gaining valuable postseason experience and the way-ahead-of-the-curve timeline of their best players. Wembanyama is the youngest player in NBA history to make first-team All-NBA and reach the NBA finals. Harper became the youngest player to go for 20-plus points in an NBA Finals game (which he did in both of the last games of the series), and Castle is a two-way dynamo who had a fantastic postseason on the whole. Both Harper and Castle are already more valuable than Fox (which is good news for the Spurs on one hand, and awful on the other considering they owe Fox $221 million over the next four seasons). How good will that main trio be next season -- let alone three years or five years from now when they're all in their prime and fully aware of exactly how talented they are and what they're capable of achieving?

This marks the eighth straight season that a new champion has been crowned. The last back-to-back titles went to the Warriors in 2017 and 2018. Along the way, it looked like the Celtics might be able to pull off the repeat. They didn't. Same goes for OKC. Knicks fans are riding high right now and will no doubt believe that New York can retain the Larry O'Brien trophy next season. And hey, this iteration of the Spurs haven't won a championship yet. But as we're evaluating the NBA landscape, San Antonio appears to be the organization that is best positioned for the future over the long haul. The Spurs have the guy who looks like he'll be the best player in the world for years to come, along with two big, strong, physical, athletic guards who are excellent at both ends of the floor and project to be All-Stars (or better) for much of their careers. And they're all in their early 20s.

That alone is enough to make them the fashionable frontrunners until further notice. They're already installed, along with OKC, as the favorites to win it all next season . That's not nothing. But they'll also go into the season with the nagging thought in their heads that they should have been the favorites to win it all, again .

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_Originally reported by [CBS Sports](https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/spurs-ahead-of-schedule-season-title-favorites/)._