Spurs: the offseason so far
the record
The desk keeps a day-by-day record of everything that happens to the San Antonio Spurs: results with the players who decided them, injury changes, roster moves, reports, milestones and the schedule ahead. The story of the offseason is written from that record every week; the timeline below is the record itself, each line linked to the page that proves it.
The projection
all 30 teams →The season depends most on Victor Wembanyama (18.9 wins without him), Julian Champagnie (13.5 wins without him), Devin Vassell (7.9 wins without him), De'Aaron Fox (4.5 wins without him) and Stephon Castle (3.4 wins without him): on/off from 2025-26, details under Injuries. Computed Thu, Sep 10; the method is on the methods page.
Day by day
the record starts with the first news of the seasonThe franchise today
Updated 2026-09-09Now
Mitch Johnson enters his first full season as head coach after Gregg Popovich stepped down on May 2, 2025, staying on as president of basketball operations. The core is built around Victor Wembanyama, the No. 1 pick in 2023, De'Aaron Fox, acquired at the trade deadline, and Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle, alongside Devin Vassell, Tobias Harris, Julian Champagnie, Harrison Barnes and Keldon Johnson. Last season was the best of this era: a 62-20 record, second in the league, with the offense and defense both ranked third and a net rating of 8.4, second-best in the NBA. San Antonio ran through the West playoffs — Portland, Minnesota, then a seven-game series with Oklahoma City — to reach the Finals for the first time since 2014, where the Knicks beat them in five games. The roster carries 15 contracts worth $198.3 million, over the $165.0 million salary cap but under the $200.4 million luxury tax and well clear of the $209.0 million first apron. Fox ($49.8 million), Vassell ($27.0 million), Keldon Johnson ($17.5 million) and Wembanyama ($16.9 million) are the four largest deals. The Spurs owe their 2027 first-round pick to Sacramento, hold swap rights on three future first- and second-round picks, and own both 2029 picks outright. It has been a quiet summer: no moves in the last 150 days, the same group running it back.
Identity and rivalries
The Spurs' identity goes back to the Popovich era: fast pace, unselfish passing and accountability on defense, and that is still the standard Mitch Johnson's team chases; San Antonio played at a pace of 100.72 last season, true to that up-tempo identity. The biggest measuring stick in the West is Oklahoma City: San Antonio upset the defending champion Thunder in the 2025 NBA Cup semifinals, then got past them again on the way to the Finals. The newer, sharper rival is New York: the Knicks beat the Spurs in the NBA Cup championship game, then beat them again on the bigger stage. Every trip to Oklahoma City or New York now carries the weight of a team trying to prove last season's run was real progress and not a ceiling.
Home, owners and numbers
San Antonio is a city with one of the NBA's largest Hispanic fan bases, and the Spurs lean into it: the team wears "Los Spurs" jerseys for Noches Latinas games, a tradition the franchise helped pioneer among NBA clubs. The Alamodome has hosted the Spurs for outsized occasions — on January 13, 2023, it drew a regular-season record crowd of 68,323 for a game against the Golden State Warriors. Black, silver and white have been the team's colors since it became the Spurs in 1973, and the stylized spur logo, worn since that move, remains the identity fans recognize across the city.
What they are chasing
San Antonio is chasing its first championship since 2014, when Kawhi Leonard led the Spurs past Miami in five games. Last season's Finals run came up short against New York, and Wembanyama, Fox and this group now have to prove they can get back and finish it. What fans argue about: whether a core that includes two 34-year-olds in Tobias Harris and Harrison Barnes has enough time left to close the gap, and whether a full, healthy season from the 22-year-old Wembanyama — who has already missed time to blood clots and was ejected in last season's second-round series for elbowing Naz Reid — is enough to get this team past Oklahoma City and New York.
San Antonio's franchise began in 1967 as the Dallas Chaparrals of the American Basketball Association, coached by player-coach Cliff Hagan. Poor Dallas attendance pushed the team to try a regional format as the Texas Chaparrals in 1970-71, splitting games between Fort Worth's Tarrant County Convention Center and the Lubbock Municipal Coliseum, before returning to Dallas. After missing the playoffs in 1972-73, a group of 35 San Antonio businessmen led by Angelo Drossos, John Schaefer, and Red McCombs leased the team, briefly called it the San Antonio Gunslingers, then settled on the Spurs and the black, silver, and white colors still used today. The team debuted at HemisFair Arena in 1973 before a crowd of 6,000, built around James Silas, Rookie of the Year Swen Nater, and George Gervin, who joined from the Virginia Squires on February 7, 1974.
In June 1976, the Spurs joined the NBA in the ABA-NBA merger alongside the Denver Nuggets, Indiana Pacers, and New York Nets, one of only four ABA teams to survive intact. They are one of two former ABA teams to win an NBA title, along with the Nuggets, and the only one to win more than one.
The Gervin era produced five division titles in the franchise's first seven NBA years, but playoff heartbreak followed against the Washington Bullets, Boston Celtics, Houston Rockets, and Los Angeles Lakers, including a blown 3-1 lead to the Bullets in the 1979 conference finals. Gervin won the 1977-78 scoring title in a famous duel with Denver's David Thompson, scoring 63 points in New Orleans. He was traded to the Chicago Bulls after the 1984-85 season, and the team collapsed to a 115-213 record from 1985-86 through 1988-89, bottoming out at 21-61. The 1987 draft lottery brought David Robinson, who arrived in 1989-90 after his Navy service and, with Sean Elliott and Terry Cummings under new coach Larry Brown, drove the biggest one-season turnaround in NBA history, a 56-26 record and a division title.
The championship years came under coach Gregg Popovich, spanning the careers of Robinson (1989-2003) and Tim Duncan (1997-2016): titles in 1999, 2003, 2005, 2007, and 2014. From 1999-2000 through 2016-17 the Spurs won 50 games every season, an 18-year streak, and in 2018-19 they matched the NBA record of 22 consecutive playoff appearances. By 2022-23, their 50th anniversary season, they held the best winning percentage among active franchises.
The Spurs moved from HemisFair Arena to the Alamodome, setting the record for the largest NBA Finals crowd in 1999, then to Frost Bank Center (formerly SBC Center and AT&T Center). Since 2003 the February "Rodeo Road Trip" has sent them on the road, including an NBA-record eight wins in nine games in 2003. Title parades run as boat trips down the River Walk, and figures like Robinson (Carver Academy) and Gervin (George Gervin Youth Center) remain fixtures in San Antonio.