The Spurs will begin the 2026-27 season with a heavyweight test and a familiar one. San Antonio hosts Oklahoma City on Tuesday, Oct. 20, with tipoff set for 8:30 p.m. CT on NBC and Peacock, the final game of the league’s opening-night slate.
It’s a Western Conference finals rematch, and the last time these teams saw each other, San Antonio walked out of Paycom Center with a Game 7 win and a trip to the NBA Finals. The Spurs beat the Thunder 111-103 on May 30 behind 22 points and 7 rebounds from Victor Wembanyama, who also picked up the Magic Johnson Trophy as conference finals MVP. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander finished with 35.
That series had plenty of twists before it reached the final night. San Antonio took Game 1 in Oklahoma City, 122-115 in double overtime.
Oklahoma City answered by winning three of the next four and moved ahead 3-2 with a 127-114 victory in Game 5. The Spurs forced the decider with a 118-91 win at home in Game 6, then finished the job on the road in Game 7.
The matchup was already well worn by then. Before the conference finals, the teams had met five times during the regular season, and San Antonio won four of those games, including a 111-109 victory in the NBA Cup semifinals in December. Game 7 was their 12th meeting of the 2025-26 season.
The rivalry has deep playoff roots, too. Since 1982, the franchises have met in seven postseason series, with San Antonio winning five of them.
Across 41 playoff games, the Spurs own a 23-18 edge. Three of those series came against the Seattle SuperSonics, the franchise that moved to Oklahoma City in 2008.
San Antonio beat Seattle in a five-game Western Conference semifinal in 1982, took a first-round series 3-2 in 2002 and won another semifinal in six games in 2005.
There’s also a long list of more recent postseason clashes between the two. In the 2012 Western Conference finals, San Antonio won the first two games before dropping the next four.
In 2014, the Spurs closed out Oklahoma City 112-107 in overtime in Game 6 on the road and went on to win the championship. Two years later, the Thunder knocked out a Spurs team that had gone 67-15 in the regular season, winning the conference semifinals in six games.
Both teams arrive with major hardware attached to last season. Gilgeous-Alexander won his second straight MVP on May 17 after averaging 31.1 points and shooting 55.3% from the field, and Oklahoma City finished 64-18.
Wembanyama was named Defensive Player of the Year in April on all 100 ballots, becoming the first unanimous winner since the award was introduced in 1982-83. He averaged 25.0 points and 11.5 rebounds, and his 197 blocks led the NBA.
San Antonio finished 62-20 and ranked third in defensive rating.
The Spurs also already know two more dates on the calendar. Houston visits Frost Bank Center on Friday, Oct. 23 at 8:30 p.m.
CT on Prime Video, and San Antonio plays at New York on Christmas at 11 a.m. CT on ABC and ESPN.
Oklahoma City opens its season at home against Denver on Thursday, Oct. 22.
In Other News...
P.J. Washington Trade Buzz Puts Mavericks Forward Situation In Focus
The Spurs are weighing a familiar kind of deadline question: whether to keep most of their roster intact or use the market to find a cleaner fit around what they already have. In that conversation, Dallas forward P.J. Washington has surfaced as a player who would make sense for San Antonio because he brings defensive versatility and enough shooting to help a team looking to raise its level without blowing up its structure.
One proposed framework has Washington coming back in a deal centered on Harrison Barnes, which gives the idea some texture even if nothing official has been reported. For the Spurs, the appeal is obvious, but so is the caution, since deadline talks often begin with the kind of match that looks simple on paper and then gets complicated once teams start asking what the real price should be. [Read more 🡒]
Spurs Young Core Is Earning Attention Behind Wembanyama
Victor Wembanyama already sits at the center of everything the Spurs are building, but the rest of the young core is starting to draw real attention of its own. A Bleacher Report projection that looked ahead to 2030 pegged Wembanyama as the leagues top player, while also slotting Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper into the mix as rising talents whose development will matter just as much to San Antonios long-term picture.
Castle came in at No. 27 and Harper at No. 15 in that projection, a sign that both are being viewed as more than supporting pieces even if neither is expected to match Wembanyamas franchise-player ceiling. The Spurs can live with that distinction, because the bigger question is how much each can sharpen the rough edges in their games and turn promise into dependable production around the player who changes the ceiling for everyone else. [Read more 🡒]
Dylan Harpers Rise Just Turned Up A Real Spurs Debate
Dylan Harpers rookie year already had people in San Antonio talking about how quickly he was climbing, and now the conversation has spilled into a different lane entirely. In the upcoming NBA 2K27 game, Harper has been rated 85 overall, a number that places him ahead of some established names and underscores how much his stock has risen after a strong postseason showing.
For the Spurs, the rating is less about a video game number than what it hints at heading into the next season: a young player who may already be pushing into a bigger role sooner than expected. Harpers playoff line of 14.1 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.7 assists on 52.5% shooting only adds to the sense that his development is moving fast, and with NBA 2K27 set to release soon, the debate around where he belongs in the pecking order is only getting louder. [Read more 🡒]