The San Antonio Spurs will take on the New York Knicks in Game 1 of the NBA Finals on Wednesday, and before the season tipped off, no one really expected the Spurs to make it this far.
The San Antonio Spurs were supposed to be a fun and frisky team in the 2025-26 NBA season. Maybe they'd make the playoffs, and maybe they'd even give a more experienced team a run for their money in a compelling first-round series.
Instead, they burned through the regular season, winning 62 games, and then toppled the upstart Portland Trail Blazers, the experienced Minnesota Timberwolves, and the defending champ Oklahoma City Thunder en route to their first NBA Finals appearance since 2014.
With Victor Wembanyama leading the way, the Spurs had unlimited potential, but their ability to tap into that and sustain it for an 82-game season and a full postseason run was never really on the table.
Now, the Spurs are four games away from winning their first title of a new era, and their sixth overall. Even with Wembanyama as the centerpiece, they've massively exceeded expectations.
San Antonio Spurs Blew Away Preseason Odds
The Spurs entered the season with 66-1 odds to win the Finals, all the way back at 17th place in the NBA. Of the 16 teams ahead of them, four of them did not make the postseason.
The Spurs' 66-1 longshot odds are tied for the worst preseason odds ever for a Finals-bound team, tying last season's Indiana Pacers. Other notable overachievers include the 2020 Miami Heat and 2002 Brooklyn Nets, who both had 60-1 odds before the season tipped off.
Courtesy of The Action NetworkUnlike all of the other teams with distant Finals hopes, the Spurs are actually entering the Finals as -210 favorites over the Knicks. Keep in mind, New York entered the season with 9-1 odds to win the Finals, fourth in the entire NBA.
Over the course of the season, it's clear that the Spurs have risen way up from the expected 17th-best team in the NBA, and after beating the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals, are considered the best team in the league.
Of course, the job isn't finished yet. The Spurs still need to beat the Knicks, who are one of the hungriest franchises in the NBA. New York hasn't won a title since 1973, and the last time they made the Finals, back in 1999, they lost to the Spurs in five games.
San Antonio was favored in that series, as well.
