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.
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Thunder Can Offer Otega Oweh Something Few Teams Ever Could
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LeBrons Move East Says Plenty About The Thunder Right Now
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James also gave the Thunder their due, acknowledging their talent and even floating the idea of a Western Conference Finals rematch with the Spurs. Add in the wave of other players heading East, and the Thunder find themselves in a West that could look different around them, with more room to defend their status but also a new kind of attention on every step they take. [Read more 🡒]
Chet Holmgren Now Carries A Huge Question For OKCs Offense
As the Thunder get set for the upcoming season, Chet Holmgren is once again central to the conversation because of what he can add to Oklahoma Citys offense from the perimeter. With roster changes around him, the big man could spend even more time working away from the paint, and that puts his 3-point shooting into sharper focus as the team looks for spacing and balance around its core.
Holmgrens last taste of the postseason left him with criticism after the Western Conference Finals, but he has kept the same message about moving forward rather than dwelling on that series. Now the bigger question for Oklahoma City is how much of its offense can flow through his outside game, and whether that added perimeter responsibility becomes a strength the Thunder can count on. [Read more 🡒]