The ascendant San Antonio Spurs are the gift the NBA needed
I’ve seen enough: Give the San Antonio Spurs the keys to Santa’s workshop. He puts Stephon Castle in charge of assembling the toys. Let De’Aaron Fox throw presents into chimneys, from whatever distance he chooses. Devin Vassell can customize Christmas cookies. Harrison Barnes covered the elven army. And, of course, Santa’s sleigh must immediately be downsized for a taller, thinner driver, so that the imposing Victor Wembanyama can ride it comfortably. The sensational Spurs defeated the Oklahoma City Thunder three times in two weeks, thus revitalizing this NBA season. I now have more faith in Spurs’ ability to deliver joy to the masses than any Christmas legend of the past.
For a while the situation there seemed terrible. The Thunder may have won the Larry O’Brien trophy in June, but they have started this season in even more disturbing form. They earned 24 wins in their first 25 games (the only loss was a fortuitous 20-point comeback). In most of them, Jalen Williams, their second-best player, was on the sidelines recovering from wrist surgery. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, their best, rarely had to play in the fourth quarter. The Thunder beat the Sacramento Kings by 31 points. The Los Angeles Lakers, who some expected to be a plausible rival, lost by 29 points; their basketball expert Luka Doncic seemed to be playing against ten men. The value of the Phoenix Suns earned them a close defeat for the first time, by just four points. When they met again 12 days later, the Thunder won by 49. This game caused all the remaining leaves to fall from the trees and started winter 10 days earlier than expected. Oklahoma City seemed capable of destroying anything in its path, even the Golden State Warriors’ legendary 2016 regular season record of 73-9.
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The Thunder don’t play a particularly appealing style of basketball. They cleverly exploit the officials’ dilemma over which fouls to call (a constant whistle interrupts the flow of the game, an absent one lets players get away with blatant violations), often resulting in Gilgeous-Alexander shooting free throws after whistles that would be better to swallow, while the swarm of mosquitoes personified Alex Caruso seems to have free rein to do what he wants on defense. Some claim to appreciate, or admire, Gilgeous-Alexander contorting his body to draw light hits from defenders; I can only assume that those same people also like getting kicked hard between the legs. Not to mention the man-mountain Luguentz Dort who flies away and collides with his opponents after a series of suspiciously light touches. This cheating allows haters to entertain the fantasy that in a world with ideal officiating, the Thunder would be a mediocre team. True basketball fans know it’s far more infuriating than integral to the Thunder’s success, but the overall irritation is enough to push some otherwise neutral fans to root for Oklahoma City’s downfall.
Domination can be coldly thrilling to watch, but a historically great performance tends to inspire less awe the more times it is repeated. How many times does anyone really want to see one team beat another by 35? Eventually you remember that the drama is the point. The Thunder were draining the season of suspense, building leads on other teams in the standings and on the field.
For 21 minutes of the first Spurs-Thunder game this season, San Antonio trailed by 16 and seemed likely to go the same way as every other team. Instead, they’ve unleashed hell on the Thunder ever since.
Against the Spurs, the Thunder look deadly. Every member of their core deserves immense credit for this, but this is Victor Wembanyama’s team, and the Thunder know it. “There’s this guy on their team who’s 6-foot-5 and takes up a lot of space on the court,” Jalen Williams said, with some exasperation, when asked what made the Spurs so tough. Thunder pro Beanie Chet Holmgren, at 7 feet 1 inch, is the tallest player on the court in most games, free to grab rebounds and block opposing shots. Compared to Wemby he is short, rough and even shy. Wembanyama’s disdain for Holmgren is evident in the way he celebrates every time Chet misses a free throw, as if he’d won the lottery; the way it hits him with a little extra venom; the way he told reporters he doesn’t consider Holmgren a rival. (Indeed there is no debate about which player is better.) At this rate Holmgren must expect Wemby to burst out of the closet, speaking loudly, when he reaches for a snack.
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Wembanyama and the Spurs made their most definitive statement yet on Christmas, beating the Thunder by 15 at home. San Antonio once again took the inevitable early blow well, recovering to pile up 41 points on the league’s best defense in the first quarter. Fox effortlessly found the tiny holes in that defense for a total of 29 points. The Spurs even held Gilgeous-Alexander to a season low of 22. He tried to make up for it by making quick passes to open up teammates behind the arc, but they let him down by blocking nearly every single attempt.
A Thunder optimist would say that next time enough of those three will produce a closer win or loss, but I found the missed attempts symptomatic of a flaw. Thanks to the strength of his fluid stepback, Gilgeous-Alexander is the most stable scoring engine in the league. It is difficult to protect and impossible to stop. (LeBron James recently offered some advice on how to slow him down: “You’ve got to keep him away from the free throw line. Which is tough.”) But even he can’t carry an offense entirely on his own. The Spurs put so much pressure on Gilgeous-Alexander that he had to delegate more than usual, and his supporting parts broke under the heavier load. Caruso and Dort are good for the occasional triple, but rely on them to hit the long shot is the last place the Thunder want to be.
Spurs’ surge couldn’t have come at a better time. Not only have they emphatically established themselves as title contenders — some say they’re too young, and inexperience has actually ruined many a fabulous team in the playoffs, but the 23-7 Spurs are no contenders, almost none are — but they’ve allowed fans to see the Thunder in a higher definition that other teams couldn’t come close to revealing. Oklahoma City, potentially the best team in history two weeks ago, is simply outstanding. If you take Gilgeous-Alexander’s word for it, the Spurs are better right now. 74-8 is out of the question. With the Spurs just two and a half games behind, OKC has its hands full just holding onto the lead in the Western Conference. Even if only against one team, the Thunder have taken on the unusual role of chasers, trying to solve a team that torments them the same way they torment so many others. In their newfound vulnerability, the Thunder are a little easier to like and a little harder to hate. And any future victory against the Spurs will be that much more significant.
They will have some, maybe (or probably, but it’s thanks to the Spurs that choosing a word is difficult) already this season. The Thunder are too good to stay down for long. When they move back up, the Spurs will eventually have to make their own adjustments. How about terrifying: Wemby is probably still a few years away from its peak. Christmases and NBA seasons can blend together, with only the most significant ones sticking in your memory years later. Whatever happens next, the Spurs have given me enough reasons to look back at these and smile.