The San Antonio Spurs arrived to the NBA Paris Games with a record of 19-22 for the first half of their 2024-25 season. Compared with the first half of the previous season — when they were 7-34 — that might be cause for celebration until you remember what wags say about looks and deception.
A closer examination of the Spurs’ performance reveals deception in the premature belief that a team that won only 22 games last season might be headed for this season’s Play-In Tournament.
Examples of such looks being deceiving abound in San Antonio’s most recent games.
Take Game 41.
Please.
A flailing Miami Heat team that had dropped six of its previous nine games handed the Spurs a blowout 128-107 loss on Sunday afternoon in Miami. That made for an ugly sendoff to the City of Light, where 7-foot-4 French sensation Victor Wembanyama would be hailed as a hometown hero when the Spurs, shortly after their landing, headed straight to practice at Nanterre, where he had become a teenage phenomenon.
Coming two days after a 140-112 home loss to the Memphis Grizzlies, the Miami stinker continued a recent downturn to a season that had seemed so promising just a couple of weeks ago.
After the 2025 portion of the season began with a road win over the Denver Nuggets in which Wembanyama (35 points, 18 rebounds, four assists) played Nikola Jokić (41 points, 18 rebounds, nine assists) to a standstill, they were 18-16, tied for ninth in the Western Conference and brimming with confidence. If they squinted hard after that one, they might even have glimpsed a top-six finish in the West that would obviate the need for the Play-In.
Instead, what followed was a skid: six losses in seven games. Thus, when they play their Thursday game against the Indiana Pacers at Accor Arena in Paris, they will begin the second half of the season in 12th place, out of the Play-In Tournament in the competitive West, at least for now.
Despite the recent slide, it is still fair to call the first half of the season both a success and an overachievement, especially when you consider one dramatic extenuating circumstance. Any lens through which it is viewed has to focus first on the loss of head coach Gregg Popovich after just five games.
The NBA’s all-time leader in wins suffered a mild stroke on Nov. 2 and has not been with the team since.
Assistant coach Mitch Johnson has done a laudable job as acting coach, but there is no way to know what effect the absence of Hall of Famer Popovich has had on a team that is the league’s third-youngest.
Johnson’s credible performance as Popovich’s emergency replacement has been one hallmark of the first half of the season. It’s impossible to imagine a more difficult assignment for any coach than replacing — out of the blue — the NBA’s all-time wins leader. The 38-year-old Johnson’s only prior head coaching experience had been for the Spurs entries in the Las Vegas Summer League in 2022 and ’23, but he has handled the pressurization with aplomb.
Johnson says he speaks often with the Hall of Fame coach, who is just a week shy of his 76th birthday.
“Coach Pop, for me personally, changed my life in terms of just being able to learn under him, watch him, from afar and closely, and get to the point where we could challenge each other,” Johnson told the San Antonio Express-News. “I’ve been blessed to be able to grow and my voice be empowered by him in many ways and we are in contact constantly.
“He is watching games, still opinionated as he’s ever been and competitive. So, giving praise and cussing me out all at the same time.”
Johnson’s very first game as acting coach, which tipped off just hours after Popovich experienced the stroke, produced a win over the Timberwolves, on Nov. 2.
After Game 41, Johnson said he’d had scant time to reflect on his transition from assisting to acting head coach.
“I think there are moments, obviously, that could stand out in my head, whether it’s how this game went; something you wanted to do differently; something that felt good playing on Christmas,” Johnson said. “There are circumstances around every game. But, in terms of reflection, the current of this league is rapid. And for someone who has not been in this position long at all, it’s very rapid. I’m just trying to keep up.”
That the former four-year starting point guard at Stanford has had to keep up with makeshift lineups because of injuries to three starters makes his performance even more notable.
Guard Devin Vasell, who averaged 19.5 points per game in 2023-24, began the season on the injured list and missed 14 of the first 19 games. In Johnson’s second game filling in for Popovich, forward Jeremy Sochan, averaging 14.8 points and 8.5 rebounds at the time, suffered a fracture in his left thumb. After a surgical repair, he missed the next 13 games. Recently, he has missed six games because of a bilateral lumbar bone bruise. Wembanyama missed five of 10 games with recurring lower back issues in late November and early December.
Given such adversity, 19-22 is a solid step forward for a proud organization that has missed the playoffs the previous five seasons after an NBA record 22 consecutive playoff appearances, from 1998 through 2019, all under Popovich.
The biggest difference between the 2023-24 Spurs and this season’s version is evident to anyone paying attention. The arrival of savvy veterans Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes is co-equal with Wembanyama’s ongoing ascension as one of the league’s most impactful players in explaining the Spurs’ improvement.
Adding No. 4 overall draft pick Stephon Castle, a combo guard from Connecticut, has had a lesser impact but an impact, nonetheless.
Paul insisted he had signed a one-year free agent contract with the Spurs not to help coach his young teammates — “I’m here to hoop,” he told anyone who asked — but his understanding of all facets of offense has made his every possession on the court on-the-job training for his teammates. Watching Paul orchestrate, almost like a symphony conductor with a baton, shows exactly why he is called the point god.
Barnes, who hasn’t missed a game since Dec. 4, 2021, is considered one of the league’s ultimate professionals and his presence is felt as much in the locker room as on the court. His 40.5 percent 3-point shooting is tops among those in Johnson’s regular rotation.
Wembanyama likely is on his way to his first All-Star Game, first time leading the league in blocks, first selection as NBA Defensive Player of the Year and first time making an All-NBA team. His 36 games in the first half produced a 50-point game, a 23-rebound game, a 10-block game and an 11-assist game.
Castle has started 23 games and has helped shore up the team’s perimeter defense while also averaging 11.6 points.
Every under-.500 team has flaws. The Spurs’ defense suffers whenever Wembanyama is subbed out. Charles Bassey has supplanted Zach Collins as Wemby’s primary backup for that reason, but his offensive production stops about 10 feet from the rim. His first 3-point attempt this season will be the fourth of his four-year career.
Opponents also have leveraged Castle’s perimeter shooting woes. Occasionally, he is defended by centers who dare him to shoot from 3-point range, where he has made only 25.8 percent of his 151 attempts. That allows teams to guard Wembanyama with smaller defensive pests — think Dillon Brooks and Desmond Bane — with help from centers disregarding Castle if he is outside the arc. The Spurs have been thrilled with Castle’s defensive work and aggression driving to the rim, but he will need lots of work this summer if he is to become a new version of Bruce Bowen.
All the flaws have contributed to the slump that has eaten at much of the confidence that followed the meaningful road win in Denver.
Johnson counsels patience.
“I think we are an evolving team that’s trying to be competitive more consistently and we’ve shown some signs of that and are still fighting to be more consistent in that regard,” Johnson told the media in Miami after the loss to the Heat. “I think the outlook for the second half is to grow in that area and to find a way to be more consistent as the better teams are in this league.”
Before he headed to Miami for what would become a second straight beatdown, Wembanyama provided his assessment of the slump and what it means, not just to the second half of this season but to future seasons in San Antonio.
“We know in a season it is not going to be a straight line,” Wembanyama said. “It’s going to be ups and downs and this is not easy. We’re going to have losing streaks, but I’m very confident in the will that my guys have because the belief is always there.
“The long term is never being questioned.”
The final 41 games of 2024-25 don’t comprise the long term, but Wembanyama’s unquestioned belief applies to that short term, as well.
(Photo of Victor Wembanyama and Chris Paul: Nathaniel S. Butler / NBAE via Getty Images)
