Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs are already in the Finals, and who in the world can possibly catch them? The team’s six best players are all under 30, and Wembanyama might be the most game-changing defender since Bill Russell. This unlikely trip to the Finals is just the beginning of the Spurs’ run. 

That’s what many thought 12 months ago, when the reigning MVP, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, led the Thunder to 68 wins and a title. GM Sam Presti had done it. He built a sustainable juggernaut.

Or two years ago, when Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, and the Celtics broke through with their first title since 2008. The league had gone the way of the wings, and no team was better suited for the modern game than Boston. 

How about three years ago, when the Denver Nuggets’ championship crowned Nikola Jokic the unabashed best player in the world. Want a ring? You’d have to figure out a way to slow him down. 

Rinse, repeat. Every year, the team that wins the NBA Championship looks invincible, and everyone starts assuming future titles. Call it the Championship Recency Bias Fallacy, because not since the Warriors of Steph Curry and Kevin Durant has a team won back-to-back titles. The Warriors in 2019 were the last team to even win their conference in consecutive years. 

Well, the Spurs just ended the Thunder’s title defense in the West finals, and Oklahoma City suddenly has tough decisions on the horizon. The East runs through Boston? Not quite. Jokic hasn’t been out of the second round since Denver’s 2023 title. 

Championship contention windows are shorter than they once were — much shorter than from 2015 to 2022, when the Warriors went to six NBA Finals in eight seasons and won four championships. That kind of dynasty was already rare, but it may be on the verge of extinction. 

The league has bent rules to prevent such dominance by introducing a set of restrictive team-building measures that disproportionately affect high-paying owners and their high-performing teams. The league’s collective bargaining agreement has over-indexed on the NFL’s myth of parity (at least one of the Patriots, Chiefs, or Eagles have played in nine of the last 10 Super Bowls) and dismissed dynastic intrigue; the teams that are around for longer and always vying for championships are the ones who develop rivalries, become villains, and seep into the zeitgeist. 

Specifically, the second apron acts as a hard cap, which makes it difficult to assemble a super team of star players — even homegrown ones — and harder yet to keep one together.

Take the Thunder. They’ve built a juggernaut as smartly and methodically as any club in recent memory, making sharp trades and amassing a treasure trove of young players and assets around their prime core. But they’re already at the point of possibly having to shed productive players like Lu Dort, Isaiah Hartenstein, Aaron Wiggins, or Kenrich Williams or stare down a $200 million luxury tax bill. They’re in such a spot because two of their best players, Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams, are set for massive pay raises as their rookie max extensions kick in for 2026-27. 

The Celtics had a similar payroll crunch this season. A year after their title defense went sideways against the Knicks in the second round, they let Al Horford, Kristaps Porzingis, Jrue Holiday, and Luke Kornet walk in order to clean their books. They could pry their championship window back open, but they’ll have to do so with a different roster. 

Oklahoma City is about to get expensive, and so too will the Spurs in two or three years.

The cost of crafting a dynasty has gone up. The roads to building a perennial contender are closing too. 

With the league’s recently approved “3-2-1" draft lottery reform (opens in new tab), teams won’t be able to win the top overall pick twice in a row or select in the top five in three consecutive drafts. The Spurs as currently constructed wouldn’t be possible under those rules. San Antonio picked Wembanyama first in 2023, Stephon Castle fourth the next year, and Dylan Harper second in 2025. The “3-2-1" system goes into full effect for the 2026-27 season. 

On the court, the rise of the 3-point shot has introduced more variance into playoff series, making even the most dominant teams more vulnerable. The Thunder shot 41.5% from deep in their three Western Conference Finals victories, versus 29.4% in their four losses. 

The confluence of circumstances is killing could-be dynasties before they blossom. 

This makes it easy to marvel at the Warriors’ five straight Finals trips from 2015 to 2019. Curry, for one, was initially playing on a four-year, $44 million rookie extension that was possible only because of the ankle issues that plagued his first couple of seasons. Golden State hit the jackpot with Draymond Green in the second round. Steve Kerr modernized the offense to crash through their ceiling. The team also benefitted from a once-in-a-lifetime cap spike in 2016, allowing them to add Durant. 

The Warriors were inevitable for years. No franchise has come close since. Eight different teams have hoisted the Larry O’Brien trophy in the past eight seasons. 

Maybe the Spurs buck the recent trend and change that. Perhaps Wembanyama is so special, so generational, that he can carry the young Spurs to the Finals every year for the rest of the decade. 

But the system is rigged against it. For some reason, the NBA doesn’t want another golden-era Warriors.