The San Antonio Spurs’ championship dreams are dead.
Sorry. Less dramatic this time.
The San Antonio Spurs’ summer league championship dreams are dead. Cause of death: a 106-81 blowout loss to the Charlotte Hornets.
The summer Spurs were in prime position to make the semifinals of the NBA 2K26 Las Vegas Summer League, coming into the game, needing to win by a decent margin to clinch a spot. After a tightly contested first quarter, the Hornets pulled away on the back of a huge second-quarter run that
the Spurs could not recover from.
It wasn’t all bad news for San Antonio, though. With no Dylan Harper, who was shut down for the rest of the summer league, all eyes were on fourteenth overall pick, Carter Bryant. Bryant has turned heads in the summer league with his defense, but came into the game averaging just 4 points a game on below 20% shooting from the field. He turned the offense on against Charlotte.
Bryant finished with 16 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists while shooting 6-9 from the field and 4-6 from three. The Hornets started the game with big man Ryan Kalkbrenner “guarding” Bryant, or standing in the paint and letting him shoot from three. Bryant quickly knocked down a pair of triples to make the Hornets respect him from three. He had a few solid drives to the rim and a sweet mid-range jumper as well. His defense wasn’t quite as good as it has been in previous games, as he missed a few rotations here and there, and lost track of his man a few times. Bryant left the game after some awkward contact on a screen in the fourth quarter. It was a puzzling decision to re-enter Bryant, since the game was already so far out of reach.
There wasn’t much else doing for the Spurs offensively in the game. Harrison Ingram had an offensive outburst in the fourth quarter to earn him a respectable stat line. He had 17 points, 4 rebounds, and 4 assists, while shooting 5-11 from three. The Spurs’ second-year wing came on strong as the summer has gone along. He’ll be an interesting player to watch for on a two-way contract.
The hero of the Spurs’ summer league team has been David Jones-Garcia. He had his first off-game of the summer, scoring 12 points on 4-14 shooting. He added 9 rebounds and 4 assists in the loss.
San Antonio will have a fifth and final LV summer league game to be announced later this week. It remains to be seen whether Bryant will suit up or if the Spurs will rest the lottery pick after his injury.
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