Victor Wembanyama isn’t talking like a team satisfied with progress. He’s talking like a player who expects the San Antonio Spurs to keep climbing until they’re sitting on top of the Western Conference.
And he made the bar unmistakably clear.
“We have some goals between us that we're going to keep between us as teammates. We won the West last year.
We don't want to do anything less this year. We want to be the first seed, and then we want to keep fighting for this top spot," Wembanyama declared.
That’s the kind of message that lands loudly in a conference already crowded with heavy hitters. The Oklahoma City Thunder, led by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, remain in the mix, and the Minnesota Timberwolves’ new duo of Anthony Edwards and LaMelo Ball adds another layer to the race.
But Wembanyama’s point was simple: San Antonio isn’t thinking about staying in the conversation. It wants to set the pace.
The Spurs have plenty feeding those expectations. Wembanyama is coming off a taste of the NBA Finals before a loss, and coach Mitch Johnson has more talent to sort through this time around with Stephon Castle, Dylan Harper, Devin Vassell, and De'Aaron Fox all in the guard mix. Add in Tobias Harris as a veteran presence, and the roster suddenly looks loaded enough to demand bigger things.
The projections are backing that up, too. Johnson guided the Spurs to 62 regular-season wins, and current forecasts have them landing at about the same number in the 2026-27 regular season. TeamRankings gives San Antonio an 82.1% chance of winning the Southwest Division and a 98.8% chance of reaching the postseason.
There’s more than just a playoff berth in those numbers. The Spurs carry a 35.8% probability of grabbing the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference, ahead of the Thunder and Timberwolves. Their postseason outlook is strong as well, with an 82.7% chance of winning their first-round series and a 59.4% chance of advancing out of the second round.
From there, the path gets tougher, but the Spurs are still projected to have a 35.8% chance of making the NBA Finals. Against the rest of the league, their title probability sits at 23.8%.
Those projections are built on past performance and expected growth, with no injuries or other factors included. Even so, they paint a picture of a Spurs team with real ambitions and the profile to match them.
If Wembanyama and San Antonio come anywhere close to that ceiling by the end of the 2026-27 season, the Thunder and Timberwolves could be looking up at a very different Western Conference.
In Other News...
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For the Timberwolves, it is another reminder of how fragile draft projections can be, especially for smaller guards who have to prove they can hold up on defense while still translating their scoring touch. NBA draft analyst Rafael Barlowe and other scouts have revisited Dillinghams evaluation, wondering whether the pre-draft optimism overshot his long-term ceiling or whether the leagues patience with developmental players has simply thinned. Either way, the next landing spot, if it comes, will have to answer a brutal question about what kind of NBA player he can still become. [Read more 🡒]
Joan Beringer Is Giving The Wolves One Big Reason To Worry
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The problem is that Beringer has also been living on the edge a little too often, and the fouls are the part that could keep him from turning those flashes into real rotation trust. Averaging three fouls in about 17.6 minutes is the kind of detail that can shrink a coach's patience quickly, and for a Wolves team that could use more depth inside, foul trouble would undercut the value he is trying to build. [Read more 🡒]
Tim Connellys Latest Wolves Swing Just Changed The Pressure On Everyone
Tim Connelly has never been shy about pushing Minnesota forward, and since arriving in 2022 he has made a habit of reshaping the roster with a big swing every season. The Timberwolves built around deals for Rudy Gobert and, more recently, LaMelo Ball, while the franchise kept climbing into the West mix with back-to-back trips to the conference finals in 2024 and 2025.
Now the pressure around the roster looks different after the Wolves fell in the second round in 2026 and Connelly moved Julius Randle and Naz Reid to get Ball. Jaden McDaniels has also flashed in preseason, giving Minnesota another reason to feel encouraged, but the bigger question is whether this latest overhaul finally settles the team or just sets up another round of hard choices as the Northwest picture keeps shifting around them. [Read more 🡒]