Keeping Up With Wemby’s Success

The Thunder and Spurs were the only two West teams to win even 55 games during the regular season this year. The Spurs won 62, while the Thunder won 64.

The Thunder are led by Gilgeous-Alexander, who just won his second straight MVP award, and they also have a pair of other All-Star-caliber players in Williams and Holmgren. The Spurs are led by Wembanyama, who became the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in league history this year, along with a triumvirate of dynamic guards in Castle, Harper and De'Aaron Fox.

If both the Thunder and Spurs were top-heavy squads with thin benches, other West teams would have hope in the near future. That isn’t the case though. Both are teeming with depth and future draft picks allowing them to replenish their supporting cast as they begin to shed talent for financial reasons.

Nothing is set in stone in the NBA, particularly in the second-apron era. But the Thunder and Spurs appear poised to dominate for at least the next few seasons.

That raises some uncomfortable questions for the rest of the West, particularly after some demoralizing playoff beatdowns.

Is The Parity Era Already Over?

The second-apron era was designed to create parity in the NBA. The Thunder and Spurs are thumbing their noses at that.

The Thunder will begin to feel the financial crunch this offseason when Williams and Holmgren begin their max contract extensions. Gilgeous-Alexander also has an extension starting in 2027-28 that begins at 35% of the salary cap.

They've already begun to plan accordingly.

It's no coincidence that the Thunder have team options on Isaiah Hartenstein ($28.5 million), Lu Dort ($18.2 million) and Kenrich Williams ($7.2 million) in 2026-27 along with Isaiah Joe ($11.3 million) and Jaylin Williams ($7.8 million) in 2027-28. They won't have much financial flexibility to add to their core moving forward, but they've built themselves enough escape hatches to avoid the second apron for now.

The Spurs are further removed from those concerns. Wembanyama becomes extension-eligible this offseason and will undoubtedly receive a max contract that could rise as high as 30% of the 2027-28 salary cap, if he wins MVP, Defensive Player of the Year or gets named to an All-NBA team next year. Castle still has two years left on his rookie-scale deal, while Harper has three.

The Spurs have Devin Vassell locked up for three more years on a contract that descends by $2.35 million right as Wembanyama's new deal kicks in. They also have Keldon Johnson on a $17.5 million expiring contract and Luke Kornet on a three-year deal with only $2.5 million in guaranteed money remaining after 2026-27. They have a $3.0 million team option on Justin Champagnie in 2026-27, too.

Both the Spurs and Thunder will have to reconfigure their supporting casts in the coming years as contracts expire and role players get priced out. But both are sitting on a mountain of future draft picks that should allow them to replenish the talent around their star-laden cores.

Other teams around the West in particular have to ask themselves how—or if—they can get on the Spurs' and Thunder's level anytime soon.

"You've either got to be a problem or have a solution," Minnesota Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch told reporters after the Spurs knocked his squad out in the Western Conference Semifinals. "You've got to either be built in a way that troubles your opponent, that's something they don't have, or you've got to have a counter to what they do have, so I'm sure GMs across the league, these are things that they wrestle with all the time."

Teams already wrestled with that question during the height of the Golden State Warriors' dynasty in the late 2010s.

"It's the only thing we think about," then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey told ESPN Radio's Ryen Russillo in 2017. "I think I'm not supposed to say that, but we're basically obsessed with 'How do we beat the Warriors?'

"Last year, the Spurs knocked us off, so we're very worried about the Spurs. They're always one step ahead of every organization and guard us better than anyone. But we calculated it -- it's like 90 percent if we're gonna win a title, we've gotta obviously beat the Warriors at some point. So we're extremely focused on that. A lot of our signings and what we do during the year is based on that."

Morey and the Rockets weren't afraid to take the Warriors head-on back then, but other teams punted on even trying to bother. And that was just when there was one superteam in the West. What happens when there's two?

Again, the Thunder and Spurs won't be able to retain everyone on their current rosters. The Thunder in particular may start hemorrhaging bodies from their supporting cast this offseason. The Spurs won't be far behind.

But the rest of the league may need to adopt Morey's mindset from 2017 if they're hoping to contend for a championship anytime soon. Building a roster is no longer a question of "how do we put the best talent together?"

It's now "how do we beat the Spurs and/or Thunder in a seven-game series?"

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

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