The 2026 Western Conference Finals feature three very particular players: (1) a tall, lanky unicorn of a player who can move like a guard and shoot lights out from long range; (2) an explosive point guard (drafted fourth overall in his class) who is a triple-double threat on any given night; and (3) a left-handed, six foot five guard (drafted in the top 3 of his class) who comes off the bench but immediately makes an impact when he steps foot on the floor. Did we just describe the 2012 Oklahoma Thunder
or this latest iteration of the San Antonio Spurs?
If you look closely enough at anything, you can often cherry pick eerie similarities between two different things. Give me an hour with a cup of coffee, and I can absolutely mirror The Godfather to Gabby’s Dollhouse: Cakey Cat is such a Fredo Corleone. Of course, the 2026 Spurs are not exactly the same as the 2012 Thunder. However, it shouldn’t be too uncanny to see the type of players NBA GMs prefer (e.g., height and length, athleticism, work ethic, basketball IQ, etc.). If anything, Stephon Castle is more DJ Catnip than Michael Corleone, but if you try to convince me that Victor Wembanyama isn’t Sonny Corleone with the way he threw them sharp elbows in the last round then don’t bother reading my modernized Godfather fan fiction where Google Maps takes Sonny on a faster, alternate route and he avoids the tollbooth massacre.
All of that is to say teams (and good front offices, at least) gravitate toward certain types of players and roster constructions. In the case of both the Spurs and the Thunder of the 2000 teens (I’m workshopping that one, it’s not the best. Life was easier when we could just say the ’60s, ’80s, and ’90s), they gravitated toward a generational centerpiece player who forced mismatches based on his very unique physical build and offensive skill set. Next, it only seemed natural to pair this rainbow unicorn with a point guard that can get him the ball and be their own scoring option when need be. The rising star that comes off the bench who happens to be left-handed is just a happy coincidence that both the Spurs and Thunder share. But if Dylan Harper shows up next season in a full on lumberjack beard, all bets are off that we aren’t living in a mirror universe designed to irritate big market NBA teams like the Lakers and Knicks.
At least that’s where I hope the similarities end. The infamous breakup of the big three in OKC reads like an NBA Greek tragedy in terms of “what could have been.” Sure, they ran into the Heatles, but what if Harden never left for the Rockets? What if Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook buried the hatchet and instead buried more teams in the playoffs? Watching every iteration of the Spurs from the ’99 Twin Towers to the 2014 Beautiful Game/Foreign Legion, you see the different types of teams they faced, defeated, lost to, etc. Of those teams, the Durant/Westbrook/Harden Thunder were particularly scary. Guarding them was a nightmare that I’m sure kept a lot of head coaches up at night. When Kawhi Leonard clawed the ball away from a screaming down the lane Russell Westbrook in the final moments of overtime in Game 6 of the 2014 Western Conference Finals, I let out a guttural cry of glee, relief, and sports exorcism. Revenge against the Miami Heat cannot happen without going through this scary Thunder team just like Michael couldn’t take revenge on the other crime families without going through his own family betrayal (looking at you, Salvatore Tessio).
Mind you, this is year one of this current iteration of the San Antonio Spurs. At the time of this article, they are tied 1-1 with the 2025 defending champion Oklahoma Thunder. They are the underdogs (like their mirror-verse 2014 Thunder counterparts), and while the series already is and will be memorable, at this current trajectory it does not look like this will be the last time these two teams meet. Sure the pieces around the main characters might change, but given what we’ve seen so far from both teams, both the Spurs and the Thunder are destined to clash again. Two of the smallest market teams consistently rising to the top is no accident. Ping-ponging lottery luck does help a lot. Castle falling to fourth helps a lot. But what teams do when certain basketball players are available to them plays a significant part in their success.
It goes to say how much nature (player skills and talents, draft lottery position) and nurture (team culture, front office) both having to coalesce just right to produce the perfect product we see on the court. Even if 2012 doesn’t seem that far away (oh my goodness, it’s 14 years ago!), it was a different time then—whereas it seems today we have more access to players’ thoughts, opinions, and feelings thanks to social media. Maybe the tension between the Thunder’s big three were obvious to teammates and people around the team, but we just weren’t as aware because “clickbait” and “engagement farming” weren’t as prevalent yet. Maybe it was all a nothing burger in that the tension was trivial because in the end a player might just want more money, a different environment, or be the main character on his own team—all of which are reasonable reasons to leave a team.
Knowing how the Spurs operate and based on what fans see from this current Spurs team, we are mostly (cautiously optimistically) confident that these players will be together for a while. And as a personal fan of De’Aaron Fox, don’t take this article to be De’Aaron Fox erasure. We’re seeing how his absence impacts the team because his presence would certainly help decrease turnovers, stabilize the offense, provide another body to match the insane depth of the Thunder, and be the closer that the Spurs need. Fox is 28 years old. He’s on his own personal basketball journey. He led the plucky but fun 2023 Sacramento Kings team against the Golden State Warriors in Round 1 where they ultimately lost a Game 7 to the Warriors. Now, he’s on the same ride with these young Spurs hoping to punch a ticket to the NBA Finals. This team has already out-kicked its coverage in terms of playoff expectations, and there are still obstacles like Fox and Harper’s health, but the biggest obstacle remains the same: the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The more things change, the more they remain the same. That’s a direct quote from CatRat. If your six-year-old daughter doesn’t make you watch Gabby’s Dollhouse, then you can just take my word for it and not bother fact-checking me.
