San Antonio Spurs

Once a team gets a taste of the NBA Finals, they will continue to hunt that feeling for the foreseeable seasons and run their championship window to the ground. The San Antonio Spurs show the same reaction after losing to the New York Knicks in five games. Coach Mitch Johnson, Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle, and Devin Vassell, among others, clearly want to hoist the Larry O’Brien trophy more than once. Victor Wembanyama, on the other hand, also wants to collect his first NBA MVP and more NBA DPOY honors. So, a shift in mindset dawned on them.

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Victor Wembanyama unveils Spurs’ new mindset to win 2027 NBA Championship

The San Antonio Spurs have all that it takes to become the most scary NBA dynasty. They are anchored by a seven-foot-six Victor Wembanyama who is practically an unstoppable force on offense and an immovable object on defense. They also have young guns like Dylan Harper, Stephon Castle, and Devin Vassell who are early in their careers. Coach Mitch Johnson also inherited key team-building values from Gregg Popovich. This squad is built on trust and sacrifice, as shown by their star’s max-contract pay cut.

During NBA Media Day, the Spurs were asked how they plan to approach their 2026-27 NBA season. Wembanyama used two big adjectives to describe their mindset, matching the strength of their roster, via Jared Weiss of The Athletic.

«This is a great spot. We’re hungry, we’re ambitious. I couldn’t imagine a better motivation,» the Spurs superstar declared.

Many analysts and fans agree. In fact, a lot of Spurs players are slated to be front-runners for major NBA awards. Coach Mitch Johnson is currently ranked the second-favorite to win the NBA Coach of the Year award, only behind Coach Rick Carlisle of the Indiana Pacers. Dylan Harper sits right behind Alex Caruso in the initial projections for the NBA Sixth Man of the Year race too. Stephon Castle is also the leading frontrunner for the NBA Most Improved Player of the Year award, above Cason Wallace and Amen Thompson. Obviously, Wembanyama is also a clear favorite to win the NBA MVP and NBA DPOY.

“We’re fighting for the top spot of the mountain. We’re going to have to move people in our way. That’s just the way it is. So I take it as a great sign of respect as well,” Wembanyama added.

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The perfect cherry, if this awards sweep does happen, is all of them hoisting the Larry O’Brien trophy by the end of the 2026-27 NBA season. If the identity of being ‘hungry’ and ‘ambitious’ holds true, fans will likely see a team that surpasses the Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls and the Golden State Warriors dynasty led by Stephen Curry.

How scary is Spurs’ Wembanyama going to be?

There are likely not enough words in the common lexicon to describe how dominant Victor Wembanyama is projected to be. He’ll be more aggressive in some areas and wise in others, practicing restraint when needed. His projected Per 36 numbers in Basketball Reference for the 2026-27 NBA season are below:

When the projections are crunched, compared to his previous years, and turned into per-game data, Wembanyama’s career projection trajectories look like this:

If Spurs fans thought that Wembanyama was scary during the 2025-26 NBA season, he gets more daunting in their upcoming regular season campaign. Even if Coach Mitch Johnson only gives the Spurs star the same 29.2 minutes per game, there will be improvements to his output. He will see upticks in key statistical categories like three-point percentage, free throw percentage, assists, steals, and blocks. Even if most are incremental, those gains can translate into two or more wins compared to their previous standing.

‘Hungry’ and ‘Ambitious’ are two big words that the Spurs will live by throughout the 2026-27 NBA season. Will these two guiding identities be the key to their first Larry O’Brien trophy since Tim Duncan and Coach Gregg Popovich ran the show?

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More Spurs News:

• «Hard to fall asleep»: Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama unveils lasting effects of NBA Finals to Knicks

• Stephon Castle says Knicks’ MSG crowd was ‘underwhelming’ in NBA Finals

• Why Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama is ESPN’s runaway 2027 NBA MVP favorite over Nikola Jokic, SGA