Do the Spurs need to shake it up? Why San Antonio shouldn't overreact to NBA Finals disappointment

San Antonio Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson laid it plain in his closing press conference: “We weren’t ready to win an NBA championship.”

The New York Knicks certainly were. They took every first quarter, first-half punch the Spurs threw and responded. Jalen Brunson got the buckets he needed; Karl-Anthony Towns and OG Anunoby filled gaps on both ends of the floor. Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges were timely; Jose Alvarado and Landry Shamet consistently tilted the energy, one drive, 3-pointer, screen, defensive stop at a time. Mitchell Robinson created extra chances, as he always does.

More bites at the (Big) apple, if you will.

There was a resolve with this group; an unrelenting belief that they could overcome anything thrown their way. There was a tactical comfort from Knicks head coach Mike Brown that screamed, “We may not have the answers right now, but we have a bunch of buttons available to find them.”

That’s the spot, the level of know-how, that the Spurs are trying to get to.

Nobody feels good after losing in five games. These Spurs sure won’t.

Getting this close to the mountaintop, only to see yourself falter in short order understandably leaves a rough taste in the mouth. Losing all three games on your home floor, seeing your season end despite holding a lead for a majority of the series is tough to sit with.

But that’s the playoffs for you. Cruel. Quick. Humbling, if you aren’t ready.

Instead of jubilation, there’s noise to shuffle through. Noise about Victor Wembanyama’s readiness; he could never consistently ding a Knicks defense that worked to take away the easy stuff, the Knicks put him in action at almost-never-seen volume, and his response to physicality drew questions about his temperament.

Noise about Johnson and his rotation decisions; noise about De’Aaron Fox’s performance and his status in the hierarchy with Dylan Harper’s star ascension feeling more imminent than hopeful.

(Funny dichotomy that is: “F them picks” on one side, “Would the Spurs need to attach picks in a Fox deal?” on the other.)

There’s room to discuss all of it, but I’d first caution against letting those topics take away from the bigger picture.

Feeling disappointment is fair; feeling or calling for shame, for this run, is a bridge way too far.

These Spurs weren’t supposed to be here; not this soon, or with this level of dominance.

Seeds were planted last season. Per Cleaning The Glass, the Spurs performed like a 47-win team with a top-10 defense with Wemby on the floor. His rim protection, deadly; his rim deterrence, both easy to see and harder to wholly quantify.

Johnson, who took over on an interim basis for the legendary Gregg Popovich, would occasionally deploy Wemby in a zone, but largely unleashed him as a drop coverage monster with the occasional late switch.

That evolved into whatever you call the Spurs defense now. A maze? A labyrinth? We can stick with “headache” for now. As the great Steve Jones detailed, Wemby became a moving, pointing, always-talking, everpresent target.

He might start possessions on a big; he may start in the corner of his choosing; either way, he was able to dictate terms to opposing offenses with a cadre of feisty perimeter defenders flying around to further restrict openings for opposing offenses.

The defense with Wemby on the floor went from elite to darn-near impenetrable. Per Cleaning The Glass, that meant:

That defense jumpstarted an electric transition attack — the Spurs were in transition on nearly 18% of their possessions with Wemby on the floor — that highlighted the talents and athleticism of their guards. The added emphasis on flare screens set early in the clock put defenses in more peril.

Between those flare screens, off-ball screens to set up middle touches, and inverted ball screens set by guards, Johnson worked to move Wemby around the board much like he did defensively.

It was that foundation that allowed the Spurs to not only improve from last year, but to win [checks notes] 62 games while boasting the second-best point differential in the league. The only team ahead of them, that Thunder team, lost the regular-season series to the Spurs, 4-1.

The irony.

Within that, we saw the empowerment of Fox, Harper, and Stephon Castle as attackers and, especially in the case of Castle, full-throttled defenders. Both Devin Vassell and Julian Champagnie opened doors with their shooting, screening, and occasional offensive rebounding.

Keldon Johnson did whatever was asked — shoulder-nudging drives, timely 3-point makes, offensive glass cleaning — en route to winning Sixth Man of the Year. Luke Kornet held down the fort as a reliable backup big, screening and sealing his way into positive impact plays.

They dispatched of the Portland Trail Blazers, a versatile defensive group (8th in 2026) almost tailor-made to disrupt the Spurs’ offense with their personnel and penchant for cross-matching, in Round 1 of the postseason.

Next came the Minnesota Timberwolves, led by a hampered-but-deadly Anthony Edwards off the backs of consecutive Western Conference finals appearances.

They knocked off the defending champion Thunder in a seven-game thriller. The Thunder weren’t at full strength either, but coming back from a 3-2 deficit — having to win Game 7 on the road — is no small feat.

You’ll have to excuse me for not thinking the Spurs should blow things up because of their blown leads in the Finals. The leap from last year to this one was too great to overreact in that matter.

That’s not to say there’s no room for criticism, starting with Wemby. Part of the Spurs’ offensive inconsistencies in the Finals start with his lack of a go-to move or area. There are plenty of contexts in which he can be successful; there wasn’t one that the Spurs felt they could consistently go to and generate something fruitful.

Cries for Wemby to jump on the Giannis Plan of body-buidling — seriously, we have to stop saying this for incredibly obvious reasons (they don’t have the same frame, nor did they have the same pre-draft living context) — are unreasonable.

Wemby does have to strengthen his lower body so he isn’t pushed off his spots as easily. He must take another step as a screener. His shot decisions and overall game feel must get better. Considering he’s only 22 and seems to have the right mentality about self-improvement, it’s hard not to bank on him achieving those goals in the near future.

That’s also not to say there’s no credence to looking at roster moves, specifically around Fox as his contract extension is set to kick in. The four-year pact, estimates courtesy of Spotrac, is a hefty one:

If you believe Harper and Castle are ready to be the backcourt of the present, I understand the logic of moving on if you can fill a need elsewhere. Is there a reasonable Fox-for-a-4 move out there?

I have my doubts.

Most of the league is either comfortable with who they have at point guard, or in position to draft one in a class projected to be pretty deep at the position.

For the teams with some wiggle room — either with a veteran stopgap at the position, or a youngster that isn’t an obvious blue-chipper — how interested would they be in Fox without a sweetener? I’m sure the Spurs could talk themselves into a deal centered around, say, a Fox-Michael Porter Jr. swap; I’d guess the Nets would hang up the phone pretty quickly unless they were being incentivized.

There are other 4s that would make sense — Aaron Gordon and P.J. Washington chief among them — but I’m not sure how you get there without incentive, a third team, or both. Nothing’s impossible, but the Spurs would have their work cut out for them.

Beyond that … while there’s logic to explore a Fox move, is it really smart to move him now? He’s coming off a Finals series where he mostly underperformed, but also clearly wasn’t 100%. This doesn’t seem like an ideal leverage play, and with Castle and Harper still on rookie-scale deals, it’s not like the Spurs absolutely have to do something now.

This is still a guy that averaged 18 & 6 while converting 58% of his 2s (!) during the regular season. The Spurs generated over 1.2 points per possession on trips featuring a Fox-Wemby pick-and-roll, the second-best mark in the league among 118 duos to run at least 200.

I don’t think you sell low on that.

And while Mitch Johnson didn’t press enough of the right buttons during the Knicks series, that shouldn’t be confused with him not pressing them at all.

He continued to search for avenues to unlock Wemby more offensively, particularly in pick-and-roll. There was a willingness to toggle coverages and assignments with Wemby defensively as the Knicks increasingly sought him out. After understandable critiques of Wemby’s 44-minute Game 4, we saw a bunch of rest-stealing substitutions during Game 5 in hopes of keeping him fresher for the closing stretch.

This was a learning period for Johnson — an extensive one considering how deep the run was, but a learning period nonetheless. He’s more than earned the opportunity to build on what this season was. Heck, this season should be enough proof for why the Spurs hand-picked him to take over to begin with.

The Spurs put the NBA world on notice this year. While they didn’t get the ultimate job done, they certainly proved that they’re closer to pulling it off than many outside of their building gave them credit for.

If not the fanfare, they should at least have the respect of the league. It’s now up to them to not only maintain their newfound heights, but to climb even higher.

The world’s watching.

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