SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Spurs are amid the longest active losing streak in the Western Conference, with 11 games. Their most recent loss was to Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors on Black Friday.
Week in and week out, it doesn’t matter if the team gets blown out by 40 points or lets a big lead slip away. The Spurs continue to reiterate their trust in the learning process and optimism for the future of the San Antonio franchise.
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“I am convinced about the organization,” French rookie Victor Wembanyama expressed after falling to the Warriors 118-112. “I trust them. I trust the coach. We have got some of the greatest people ever with us. There is no way it doesn’t work. I know it’s going to work someday.”
It didn’t take long for the Spurs, the youngest team in the NBA and home to last year’s No. 1 overall pick, to show its inexperience.
In the first week of the season, San Antonio pulled off wins against a couple of teams with talented rosters — the Suns and Rockets. But San Antonio’s growing pains have been on full display since then.
Not only is Gregg Popovich, the winningest coach in NBA history, working with an inexperienced roster, but Jeremy Sochan is learning to play point guard — arguably the most important position on the court — for the first time in his career.
“We have leaders on the team. Jeremy’s one of them, and it’s good he’s learning a new role,” Wembanyama said. “But, at the same time, we’re here to help him, and he’s also here reassuring us.”
San Antonio has plenty of legitimate reasons for struggling to earn wins in the NBA, but the players seem to believe they can overcome the early season woes soon.
Wembanyama, who leads the league’s newcomers in scoring average, is the most encouraging piece in the Spurs’ roster, and when the team is fully healthy, they’ve shown they can hang in there with any club.
The journey to win looks different for every team in the NBA.
The Minnesota Timberwolves are a recent example of a team that has overcome its lack of continuity after the club acquired big Rudy Gobert and inserted him into a lineup that already boasted Karl-Anthony Towns, the “Twin Towers” they’d later be called.
Gobert was the main asset in the blockbuster trade that saw Minnesota give up most of its bench and some potentially pivotal draft picks. Initially, Gobert with the Timberwolves looked like a failed experiment. And though they would advance past the play-in game, Minnesota struggled to find consistency.
Fast forward to now, star shooting guard Anthony Edwards and the T-Wolves are reaping the benefits of that trade and own the best record in the NBA over one month into the season.
Whether or not San Antonio fans will see the team’s current development process translate to wins this year, next year, or in five years — Spurs players continue to express their confidence in the direction the franchise is headed.
