Half the battle in the NBA is finding a generational star. But the other half — the more crucial and, often, the more challenging half — is adequately building around the star once you have him.
The San Antonio Spurs aced both tests.
The Spurs suffered a playoff drought from 2019 until this season, but those six seemingly meaningless seasons were anything but.
Keldon Johnson, the 2025-26 NBA Sixth Man of the Year, was drafted 29th overall in 2019. Devin Vassell landed in San Antonio with the 11th overall pick in 2020. Victor Wembanyama was the generational No. 1 overall pick in 2023, and the Spurs added Stephon Castle (No. 4 overall in 2024) and Dylan Harper (No. 2 overall in 2025) after him.
That’s before mentioning the acquisitions of All-Star point guard De’Aaron Fox, center Luke Kornet, or 3-point extraordinaire Julian Champagnie.
Wemby is the primary reason why the Spurs reached the NBA Finals for the first time since 2014, but he’d be the first one to tell you that his supporting cast is why they’re favored to win the championship over the New York Knicks.
The Spurs hosted the Knicks for Game 1 of the 2026 NBA Finals on Wednesday night, and Wemby was not the headline. Harper injected Frost Bank Center with adrenaline by, at 20 years old, becoming the youngest player to score 10-plus points in any Finals game in NBA history.
Harper eclipsed 10 points within six minutes and had 12 points on 4-for-5 shooting from the field, plus six rebounds, at halftime.
According to Jordan Howenstine of Spurs PR, Harper is the first rookie to score in double-digits in the first quarter of a Finals game in the last 25 years. It was his first-ever Finals game, and he came off the bench.
Harper averaged 11.8 points, 3.9 assists, and 3.4 rebounds in 22.6 minutes across 69 regular-season games. His averages are up across the board during the postseason, but more importantly, he athleticism jumps off the screen, and he passes the eye test with flying colors.
The Knicks shouldn’t be written off to win these Finals, as they entered Game 1 on a dominant 11-game winning streak and are just as deep as the Spurs. But the scariest proposition for the league is that this is the weakest version of the Wemby-Harper-Castle core in San Antonio.
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