San Antonio is back in the NBA Finals. The Spurs beat the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals on the road, ending a six-year playoff drought and sending a young roster into the league’s last series of the season.
That is why the Spurs starting lineup is drawing attention now: the franchise that missed the playoffs for six straight years has gone from rebuilding mode to the Finals in a single spring. The win also set up a series against the New York Knicks, giving the Spurs a chance to turn a breakthrough run into a title race against one of the league’s most watched teams.
De’Aaron Fox framed the moment with the kind of confidence that can carry a team through a long postseason, saying fans should picture the group holding the trophy at the end. He also pointed to the grind ahead, noting that the playoffs add another 30 games on top of a regular season already spent traveling, recovering and testing legs. His point was plain: the Spurs do not just believe they belong here, they believe they are built for this kind of stretch.
That belief has been reinforced by the shape of the roster. The Spurs won the 2023 draft lottery and chose Victor Wembanyama, then added Stephon Castle with the fourth pick in 2024 and Dylan Harper with the second pick in 2025. Around Wembanyama, the team built with defense, ball movement and athletic, physical wings in mind, and the mix has now pushed San Antonio farther than a lot of older teams have gone.
There is still a statistic hanging over the run that makes it stand out even more. The Spurs reached the Finals as the second-youngest team by average age weighted by postseason playing time, which is a reminder that the roster is still learning even as it wins. Harper said the team’s confidence is through the roof and that the players are trusting each other, the biggest thing when a group tries to get over the kind of hump the Spurs just cleared.
This version of San Antonio also still carries the shadow of its championship past. Tim Duncan, David Robinson and Manu Ginobili have been around playoff games, Brett Brown is around the team, and R.C. Buford is now more involved on the business side as CEO of Spurs Sports and Entertainment. Gregg Popovich has stepped aside amid health issues and remains the team’s president of basketball operations, linking the new roster to the era when the Spurs won five titles from 1999 to 2014.
The next test is immediate and unforgiving. The Knicks will wait in the NBA Finals, and for a Spurs group that has already beaten the defending champions on the road, the question is no longer whether it belongs on the stage. It is whether a team this young can keep its nerve when the series becomes about adjustments, endurance and the final possessions that decide a season.
