The Finals kick off tonight against the Knicks: the Texans led by the French giant are the second youngest team ever to compete for the ring
They are young, yet already grown up. Of stature and rank. One playoff series away from winning the NBA title. They face the 2026 Finals as favorites – tonight from 2.30 Italian time Game 1 against New York – despite their age. The San Antonio Spurs are a bunch of fun, entertaining kids who are in a hurry to win. Ahead of schedule, perhaps. But don’t tell them, they don’t want to listen to reason.
THE BEST YOUTH
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The class president is Victor Wembanyama. Distinguishing features: he is 224 centimeters tall, a giant also in terms of absolute value, as well as NBA defender of the year. At 22 years old he is already dominant, despite being in his first playoffs. “The best player in the world”, is how Stephon Castle defines him, his first support, the second best player of the Texans. The college champion guard for Uconn is 21 years old. The Frenchman was NBA freshman of the year two seasons ago, the American 12 months ago. And Dylan Harper, the son of art – his father had won the ring with Jordan’s Chicago Bulls and then with Bryant’s Los Angeles Lakers – was only missing the starting role to compete with Cooper Flagg for the 2026 freshman of the year award. He is 20 years old, yet already the third talent among them, in terms of quality. Come in and “shift” the balance of a playoff series. The Spurs are the second youngest team ever to play in the Finals, behind only Bill Walton’s Portland Trail Blazers in 1977, who won the ring then. The top 9 rotation players – i.e. those who play – Wemby, Castle, Harper, 24-year-old Julian Champagnie, 25-year-old Devin Vassell, 28-year-old De’Aaron Fox, along with Carter Bryant (20 years old), Keldon Johnson (26 years old) and Luke Kornet (30 years old) sport an average age of around 25 years old, even. Never seen anything like it in recent times. It used to be said that experience made the difference in the playoffs. But it was also said that in the playoffs you couldn’t win by systematically shooting from outside, but then Steph Curry arrived… Now it’s Wembanyama who changes the cards on the table. The Spurs are small, but already big. Maybe already very big. It will be up to the New York Knicks to prove otherwise. But it won’t be easy for Brunson and his teammates: just ask the Timberwolves and Thunder, the defending champions, who have already been there…
GULLIVER WEMBANYAMA
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The French center looks like Gulliver among the Lilliputians. Too tall not to do as he pleases. In 17 playoff games the numbers speak for themselves: 23.2 points on average shooting 51% from the field, 37% from 3 and 87% from the foul line, with 10.8 rebounds and 3.5 blocks. Dominant. The Spurs play with the goalkeeper under the basket: he rejects almost everything and when he doesn’t do so he still alters the opponents’ shots, he is the Texans’ access ban. Great competitor, not just a “freak of nature” for how he combines unthinkable qualities of agility for those centimeters with outdoor technique. Wemby wants, very badly wants, to win. He has a European mentality: the individual statistics are beautiful, the records are beautiful, for goodness sake. But winning matters. The purpose of the game, the spice of sport. Thus it becomes a bogeyman, as well as a phenomenon.
CASTLE AND HARPER
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But don’t fall for it. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that San Antonio is just that tall French guy. No, not really. The blacksilver are so talented. Castle is a sensational athlete, a crawler when he attacks the basket, with a battery advertising engine. Inexhaustible, it never stops. A warrior who doesn’t give up on anyone. Gamer, they say in America. A player who doesn’t tremble under pressure, he feeds on the adrenaline of matches decided in a sprint. In college he played guard. He defended strongly and acted as a complementary scorer. At Spurs he became a playmaker. He passes the ball willingly, especially to the tall and long player, he is intelligent, has good playing instincts, quality readings. Every now and then he gets caught up in the excitement, the sign of his young age, and messes up because he exaggerates. We still need to improve our handling of the ball, but having talents like that. Coach Johnson, 39 years old, as young for the role as his players, says it explicitly: “To find a winger capable of making as much of a difference as him on both sides of the pitch you have to make difficult comparisons, you enter a territory reserved for a few, for names we don’t want to mention. Rarefied air.” Harper found himself in front of Fox and Castle and had to settle for the role of first substitution from the bench, but in the series against Minnesota and Oklahoma City he still made the difference. Impressing with personality, ball handling, clarity under pressure, ability to attack the rim. He seems to go downhill when he gets close to the opponent’s basket. Like Castle, he needs to improve his outside shooting, but we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg of his talent so far. Wonderful thought for those who support the team from the city of the Alamo.
DYNASTY PURPOSES
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The Spurs showed off an epochal dynasty with Tim Duncan as the compass and Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker as his main accomplices: they won five titles. But times have changed. For eight years now a different franchise has won every season. Will the young Spurs be the ones to reverse the trend? Floor. In the meantime, let’s let them start winning, let’s see if they are already capable of doing so. One title at a time. But the temptation to talk about a dynasty under construction is strong. Because the Wembanyama era seems to have already begun, earlier than imagined. If the Frenchman, with that peculiar, wiry physique, remains healthy, there will be trouble for everyone. For a long time. Meanwhile Harper plays, calls Fox “uncle”. He doesn’t feel the pressure, the Spurs seem carefree, the strength of irreverence accompanying the playoff journey. Fox doesn’t mind. He laughs. “I’m really an uncle, but not because I’m old”. No, at 28 years old, really not. Not even as a player. Yet at Spurs he is mocked by those cheeky kids around him. Wemby brings everyone back “on track”: “We haven’t finished the job yet.” The young Spurs laugh and joke, but they are scary.
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