Mitch Johnson’s first full season running the Spurs ended with a result nobody saw coming: 62 wins and an NBA Finals appearance. That kind of debut would buy almost anyone a runway.
But in San Antonio, the conversation around Johnson has still carried a hint of trial period. One thing, though, is becoming hard to miss: the players believe in him.
Julian Champagnie made that plain with the kind of answer teams love and fan bases should pay attention to: "I don’t care. Starting, not starting, I just like being here. I trust coach.”
That’s not the response of a player clinging to a lineup spot. It’s the reaction of someone who knows the ground may be shifting and isn’t interested in making it louder than it needs to be.
Before De'Aaron Fox came up sore, Johnson had already reshaped the starting group with an eye toward opening things up for Dylan Harper. The group he went with was Harper, Fox, Stephon Castle, Devin Vassell, and Victor Wembanyama. That move, if it sticks, would push Champagnie out of the opening five after he started 68 games during the run to the Finals.
And that’s no small change for him. Champagnie wasn’t just filling in.
He posted 11.1 points and 5.6 rebounds per game across all 82 games, hit 38.1% from deep, and set a franchise single-season record with 195 threes. His on/off net rating finished at plus-8.5, second on the roster behind only Wemby and good for the 94th percentile league-wide.
He also just signed a three-year, $45 million deal, the kind of contract that can make a player feel entitled to a fixed role. Champagnie didn’t go that route.
He didn’t turn a possible demotion into a scene, and he didn’t leak frustration to the media. That matters in a locker room where there are only so many minutes to go around.
There were always going to be casualties in this setup. Tobias Harris has yet to play because of a left calf strain.
Keldon Johnson, a Sixth Man of the Year, could be pushed even deeper into the bench rotation. The Spurs see Harper as their second-best player and are close to starting him in his second season.
Carter Bryant needs minutes. Harrison Barnes is still there.
Somebody was bound to lose out.
The danger for a second-year head coach is simple: one unhappy player can make the entire room uneasy. Champagnie didn’t do that. Neither did Barnes, who handled a similar shift last season when he moved from longtime starter to bench option and sometimes barely played.
The usual response in these spots is the standard line about doing whatever the team needs. Champagnie went a step further.
He said he trusts the coach. That’s a meaningful statement about Johnson, especially considering how recently he was an unknown assistant to most of the league.
For Spurs fans still sizing up Johnson, that trust from the locker room should carry real weight.
In Other News...
Spurs Just Added A Camp Body And The Next Cut Matters
The Spurs filled the open spot on their preseason roster by bringing in free agent forward Terry Taylor on a non-guaranteed training camp contract, a move that gets San Antonio to the preseason maximum of 21 players. To make room, the team waived RJ Davis, and Taylor is widely expected to land with the Austin Spurs, where he can remain in the organization and keep working through camp.
For San Antonio, the transaction is less about the immediate rotation than about the next round of roster trimming, since camp bodies often become the first domino to fall. Taylor brings NBA experience from stints with multiple teams, and the Spurs will also be watching how other clubs manage their own depth, including Sacramentos recent decision to bring back center Viktor Lakhin on an Exhibit 10 deal as injury concerns continue to shape frontcourt plans. [Read more 🡒]
Spurs Rookie Battle Is Heating Up After A Brutal First-Round Setback
The Spurs entered camp with plenty of rookie intrigue, but the early picture changed quickly when Jayden Quaintance, the No. 20 overall pick, was expected to miss most or all of his first season after meniscus surgery. For a team already trying to sort out rotations and sharpen its depth, that kind of setback puts extra attention on the rest of the rookie class and how quickly it can help fill in the edges.
Tarris Reed Jr. and JaKobi Gillespie have both flashed in preseason, giving San Antonio something to evaluate as the lineup takes shape around a group that is expected to keep improving. Mitch Johnson has already singled out Gillespies energy and competitiveness, and with Carter Bryant expected to make a leap in his second year, the Spurs have more developmental pieces to monitor than answers locked in place just yet. [Read more 🡒]
De'Aaron Fox Just Changed How Spurs Fans Will View His Finals Struggles
De'Aaron Fox has been around long enough to know how quickly the conversation can turn in the postseason, and he made it clear he does not spend much time swimming in it. After Game 4 of the NBA Finals, Fox said he steers clear of basketball chatter on social media and does not entertain the negative opinions that tend to pile up when a stars production dips at the wrong time. For fans trying to make sense of his struggles, the bigger context now matters: the guard said he was battling through a high ankle sprain he suffered in the Western Conference Semifinals.
Foxs revelation changes the way his playoff run should be judged, especially for a player whose reputation has been built on speed, toughness and staying on the floor. He stressed that he kept competing anyway, even as the injury clearly affected him deep into the postseason. For San Antonio observers, it is the kind of detail that reframes a rough stretch without erasing it, and it leaves the broader discussion where it often ends up in the Finals: somewhere between what the box score showed and what the body was quietly enduring. [Read more 🡒]