The Spurs had some tough times in the first half of 2025, but the last few months have been great. What has been your favorite part of the ride so far this season?
Marilyn Dubinski: Although I am usually an optimist, I made sure to temper my expectations coming in just because there were still so many question marks. While I felt the media were overblowing the “too
many guards” narrative, we still hadn’t seen what a healthy De’Aaron Fox would look like for the Spurs, if their new center depth would pay off, etc. Because of that, I was saying they could be a top 4 seed at best but kept my official highest expectations as top 6. They’ve proven me wrong. Despite ongoing injury issues, they’ve built a team with depth that can outlast those issues, even to Victor Webmaynama. If you had told me he, Fox and Castle would have missed so many games, I would not have guessed they’d still be the 2nd seed in the West to start 2026.
Mark Barrington: While Wembanyama had to sit out nearly a month with calf soreness, it was amazing to watch how the team was able to keep winning with different players stepping up from game to game. But for drama, it has to be the wins over the Thunder. The first win was amazing, as Wembanyama somehow propelled the team to a win despite limited minutes. You could see the entire team raising their games after his first half stint, and the trend continued in the second and third games as the Silver and Black became more dominant each time they faced their nemesis.
Bill Huan: Definitely the development of Castle and Harper. I fully admit that I was dead wrong about Castle, who I thought actually hurt the Spurs when he was on the court last year, and thought that the ROY was more the product of one of the worst rookie classes ever, rather than a sign of potential stardom. Well, he’s completely proven me wrong this season and looks like a surefire All-Star in the making, and someone who could be the third-best player on a contender at the very least.
On the other hand, I couldn’t have been higher on Harper, and he’s been even better than I expected. The driving and finishing are already among the best in the league, and he’s already a positive contributor on an elite team, which is extremely rare among rookie guards. I would still pick Harper over Castle if forced, but the good news is that we can have our cake and eat it too (not to mention also having a 7’5” alien as well).
Devon Birdsong: For me, going 3-0 against the NBA Champs has to be *the* highlight. The Thunder have continued to be brutally efficient and are on a 60+ win pace, so it’s not as if they fallen off in any real way, and the Spurs have somehow proven to be their foil in spite of health and related lineup fluxations. Yes, there’s still so much fluctuation with this team, but to see them consistently play their best against the best? No, I wouldn’t have bet on that yet. I would have been thrilled if they gone 2-1. And while I already felt certain that this Spurs team would win 50 games barring catastrophic injury, they might do that and more if they can keep showing up like that against Western contenders.
Jeje Gomez: Sorry for being unoriginal, but it’s Wembanyama for me. After the DVT diagnosis, fears that he would take a long time to return to form and continue to progress were reasonable. He did miss the second half of the 20224/25 season, after all. Fortunately, he’s been as good as anyone could have hoped for this year. When he’s on the court, anything feels possible for the Spurs. There are only a handful of players every generation who can elicit that level of optimism. Wemby is one of them, and he has wasted no time returning to form.
Looking at the schedule, which features some tough stretches, what do you think a realistic record and place in the standings are for the Spurs at the All-Star break?
Dubinski: They have already shown they can handle a brutal travel schedule, and oddly this recent stretch may have shown they’re more focused on the road than at home. I think they’ll remain in a similar win/loss percentage, and they shouldn’t fall any lower than 3rd, considering the Lakers are barely hanging on with Luka Doncic’s defensive limits and LeBron James seemingly checked out, and the Nuggets should fall off a bit with Nikola Jokic and Jonas Valanciunas out. The Rockets are their only real threat, and there are a couple of matchups in there to help create separation or make things tighter.
Barrington: As usual, the All-Star break is more than halfway, after game 54, which is about 2/3rds of the way through the season. Advanced stats show the Spurs’ wins total slightly outperforming their expected record, and that trend might revert to the mean a bit, especially if Wembanyama misses significant time with his hyperextended knee. I’m still wildly optimistic, and I think that the win/loss record will be something like 38-16 after they face the Warriors on February 11, a game that I predict the Spurs will win. That means that they’ll surpass last year’s win total well before the break, which is a great outcome for Coach Mitch and the team. That record should keep them in the top four in the Western Conference, which would guarantee them a home playoff series if they can keep it up for the rest of the season after the break.
Huan: It would take a catastrophic stretch for the Spurs to fall out of the top 3 in the West, considering Houston is the only threat for the #2 spot, now that Jokic will be out for a month. With the Rockets two games behind, I would still bet on the Spurs to hold on to the 2-seed, but I can see the battle coming down to the wire, given Wemby’s uncertain health in the near future.
Birdsong: Well, they’ve already proven they can beat the best teams in the league with some degree of consistency, and they’ve rolled along despite missing key contributors, so at this point I think only a season-ending injury for Wemby could keep them out of the top 4 in the West. However, with Jokic missing significant time, the top of the West just got a little less competitive. I honestly think the #2 seed is realistically within reach. Based on the current winning percentage (.714) the Spurs are on pace for 58 wins this season, but they’re still working out some things as they continue to gel, so I’m going to say 54 wins feels realistic. Last year, that still would have landed them 2nd in the West over the Rockets.
Gomez: The Spurs have struggled against bad teams, but realistically, they should win more than they lose from here to mid-February. The back-to-backs could be tricky to navigate, but the team has proved to be deep enough to win without some of its better players. I could see them holding on to the second-best record in the West with the Nuggets missing Jokic and, at worst, finding themselves still in the top six if things go awry.
The good has been great, but there have been some weaknesses. What is this team’s ceiling, and what is the biggest area that needs improvement for the team to reach it?
Dubinski: Technically their ceiling is the top seed and a shot at the finals, although at this point, they’ll need to be more consistent and get some help to surpass the Thunder (on a side note, OKC has had one of the easiest schedules so far, but it gets harder for them from here as well). The 2nd seed is probably more realistic. The biggest area that needs improvement is consistency. That’s a lot to ask from a young team, but they can be a bit Jekyll and Hyde from game to game and even quarter to quarter, and a lot of that has to do with the three on both ends of the floor. They overhelp and therefore leave shooters open too much on D, and on the other end, they need their own shooters to be more consistent. Beyond Julian Champagnie’s 11-three outburst against the Knicks, having both him and Harrison Barnes in a slump at the same time has been taking a toll on the offense.
Barrington: The team’s biggest weakness has been the inability to limit other team’s three point shooters, but that seems to be more related to the scheme than an inherent weakness. Against the Knicks, the Spurs rolled out a zone defense for much of the second half, which seemed to disrupt the Knicks’ offense and help fuel the comeback. They will need to continue to use a flexible approach based on matchups on defense to beat the top teams, because against opponents with elite shooting, you can’t just play a generic defense all of the time, even with Wembanyama’s ability to erase mistakes at the rim. It looks like the team is continuing to improve, and by the end of the season, they might be an even better defensive team than they are now, and better prepared for the playoffs.
It would be great for the team to win a playoff series in their return to relevance after missing the playoffs for the last six seasons, but the only players on the roster who have been significant contributors on a team that won a playoff series are Harrison Barnes, Luke Kornet, Kelly Olynyk, and Bismack Biyombo.* My expectation is that the Spurs aren’t going to make it out of the first round, but if they do, they’ll be a threat to go even further, because this team is made up of fast learners.
* I’m not counting Lindy Waters or Jordan McLaughlin, who barely played for their teams in the playoffs, and De’Aaron Fox, who played really well for the Kings, but never made it out of the first round.
Huan: This might get me kicked off PtR, but I still don’t see the Spurs as legitimate title threats. To be fair, I only have the Thunder and Nuggets in that tier, and San Antonio may very well be the third-best team in the league. A realistic ceiling is probably the West Finals with a series win over one of those two juggernauts, but I don’t see them making it all the way to the finals since the road will likely go through both OKC and Denver. Next season, though? We could win the whole thing.
Birdsong: They still don’t have enough quality long-distance shooting to weather any streakiness, and they only managed to snap their most recent losing streak at the behest of an all-time breakout from one of their sharpshooters. This is the real problem. They just don’t have a player who’s big enough to serve as extra rim deterrence and rebounding at the 4, who can also knock it down from three. To be fair, it’s about the rarest (and most expensive) combination of traits in the NBA right now, but I just don’t see the Spurs taking home the title without filling that void (barring a face-melting prolonged hot streak), and I don’t think they’re going to be able to trade for it. Their best bet is probably hoping that the Hawks’ free-fall continues, and they get one more serving of draft luck. In a twist of great irony, this team would be perfect for a Kawhi Leonard-type player right now (especially the version from 2014), which is almost as ironic as this team’s weakness being at Power-Forward after a very prominent 19-year stretch of fundamental excellence at the position.
Gomez: The Spurs’ ceiling is championship contention, but only if they make a great trade that solves their weaknesses. As currently constructed, their shooting is not good enough to win three Western Conferece playoffs series, unless they get lucky, and the defense has holes. But if a bargain appears, injury luck goes their way, and the Thunder continue to struggle against them, they could come out of the West. After that, anything is possible.
