Devin Vassell and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the 2025 Emirates NBA Cup semifinals game.
LAS VEGAS — Tony Parker was one of the retired NBA stars attending the Emirates NBA Cup 2025 this weekend and recognized for their contributions, but in his specific case, he was no curious bystander.
The Hall of Famer has an emotional stake in the San Antonio Spurs, the team he helped win four championships, and this was before the Spurs played the behemoth from Oklahoma City in the semifinals. Let’s just say that, after the fact, that stake has now intensified.
“Their team is great,” Parker said, “but we’re being built to get on that same level someday soon.”
Is that soon as in … soon enough? Sooner than anyone previously thought — especially before the Spurs issued a firm statement-maker in Saturday’s 111-109 win over OKC?
For the first two months of the season, the search for a competitor for the Thunder peered into several NBA corners and came up empty. Nobody managed to defiantly step forward. This team won 24 of its first 25 games. There was nobody going eyeball-to-eyeball with the defending champs.
Until … now?
At the very least, what the Spurs did was announce themselves as perhaps a rival, for this season, more strongly in the next several seasons. Yes, there is danger in being a prisoner of the moment. Yes, these young Spurs haven’t done anything, haven’t won anything special. Yes, the Thunder deserve a bit more respect than that, and a momentary stumble — only their second defeat all season — shouldn’t suddenly change the landscape and put them on red alert.
“Possibly,” answered Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. “Yeah, there’s a good chance. They are young, really good, have a lot of talent, play the right way. They play a good brand of basketball.
“I’ve noticed that anything can happen in a couple years. So, yeah, it’s definitely a possibility. Not a hundred percent but definitely a possibility, for sure.”
The Spurs top the Thunder 111-109 to advance to the Emirates NBA Cup Championship against the Knicks on Tuesday, December 16.
The reasons for this are clear. The Spurs have rising talent, they’re well-coached even here in the post-Gregg Popovich era and so far this season they’ve been solid — with and without Victor Wembanyama.
And he’s the obvious reason this is even a conversation. Wemby is just 21. He isn’t going anywhere. And he’s not as good as he can be, and maybe will be. Which means that, throughout however long this lofty OKC era lasts with Shai and Chet Holmgren and Jalen Williams, the Thunder must Deal With Him.
He’s not hard to miss at 7-foot-5, and will be really hard to miss if he keeps giving Holmgren the business like he did Saturday — blocking one of his shots, among other things — and gives OKC’s much-respected defense plenty of adjustment problems.
What satisfied Wemby mostly was how his teammates responded against the league’s top-rated team. Wemby played only 21 minutes, and yes, the Spurs were far better with him on the floor than on the bench.
Yet he has watched his teammates enough during his three-week absence to chart their growth and project better results down the line.
“I think we’re on the right path,” Wembanyama said, “and for the first time in my career, not in the case of everybody in our group, for the first time in my career, we’re winning much more than we’re losing.”
All of this leads back to OKC and how much damage, if any, the Spurs can do against the Thunder between now and … whenever. This is the time of year when seeds are planted and notes are kept and matchups are studied, on both sides, and saved for the postseason just in case. The Thunder want to identify their biggest threat, and the Spurs suspect they’re it.
More evidence will arrive very soon: the teams will meet twice next week, two days apart, and most vividly on Christmas Day; a basketball nation awaits the rematch.
“I’m looking forward to playing them more times to get better throughout the season,” said OKC’s Jalen Williams. “And they are well-coached. So when you add physicality and good defenders up there, and you can tell they are really trying to figure that out defensively; it causes its own little problems.”
Check out Victor Wembanyama’s top plays of the season … so far!
Here’s why, in the words of Shai, “there’s a chance” this rivalry could mushroom:
• Wemby, obviously. He was on MVP pace prior to his calf strain, and any team with dreams of unseating the Thunder must bring a force to match the one offered by the current MVP. Enough said.
• The Spurs’ guards aren’t scared. De’Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper match up favorably with Shai and his backcourt mates. And obviously, in the case of Castle (the reining Rookie of the Year) and Harper (who’ll be in contention for that this year), they can only improve.
“They have good guards that take pride in playing defense,” Williams said. “So anytime you get to play teams like that, it’s fun. It makes you better.”
• Dynasties are difficult. The Thunder might learn as much, here in The Season After. They needed a pair of Game Sevens to win a championship last year, remember, and partly because the Nuggets and Pacers were missing or slowed by key players with injuries.
• Somebody must step forward in the West. And why not the Spurs? None of the other competitors as rivals for OKC — the Lakers and Nuggets or even the Rockets — bring the upside of San Antonio. And they don’t have Wemby.
And here’s why this rivalry might need a minute before taking root:
• This is the NBA. Nothing is promised. Blueprints can be fragile. And the basketball Gods tend to laugh at the plans and dreams put in place by teams and players.
• Wemby must stay healthy, which hasn’t always been the case, even if out of anyone’s control (deep vein thrombosis).
• The Thunder are holding the ultimate ace card(s). They own a treasure chest of first-round picks and can pull the emergency cord by trading one or more at any time if they sense the need to add help and get better quickly, if that’s possible.
• The Spurs need to follow up Saturday’s win with another against OKC. If not, then everything resets back to where it was before the NBA Cup meeting, when OKC rolled everyone.
“This is our next step,” said Wembanyama, “because this OKC team, they’re not just first in the league, they’re way ahead of everybody. Because when you watch them, no matter who, whether it’s the 12th man or the starting 5, whether they’re playing against the 15th seed or in any kind of game, they’re playing the same way. This is the next step we have to pass.”
That’s a step that bears watching, because in the curious case of discovering a rivalry for Oklahoma City, if not the Spurs, then who?
“I’m anxious,” said Tony Parker. “With the vision that’s in place, anything’s possible.”
Shaun Powell has covered the NBA since 1985. You can email him here, find his archive here and follow him on X.
