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...
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 🡒]