{"id":182210,"date":"2026-03-19T13:46:04","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T17:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=182210"},"modified":"2026-03-19T13:46:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T17:46:04","slug":"dont-look-at-rankings-spurs-are-best-team-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2026\/03\/19\/dont-look-at-rankings-spurs-are-best-team-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Look At The Rankings, The Spurs Are The Best Team In 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

After reaching 50 wins in a season for the first time since 2017, the Spurs broke their single-game three-point record<\/a> the game after. As if San Antonio didn’t have enough to be happy about in March, they have the best record since New Years Day. The team went from making fans ask if they could make the playoffs to asking if they were contenders. Here are the reasons why the Spurs are currently the best NBA team on the planet.<\/p>\n

Don’t Look At The Rankings, The Spurs Are The Best Team In 2026<\/h2>\n

The Spurs Are The Deepest Team In The League<\/h3>\n

From rookies and sophomore players to recent signing Mason Plumlee<\/a>, the Spurs have wisely filled their roster. Even two way players, like the unfortunately injured David Jones Garcia<\/a>, are players other teams should want. With the addition of Plumlee to the roster, the Spurs have wisely focused on their most important position: center. They join star Victor Wembanyama<\/a> with three solid backups to potentially limit his minutes in games that aren’t close. Pair this with great guard depth and Sixth Man of the Year candidate Keldon Johnson<\/a>, and you have the deepest team in the league.<\/p>\n

The secret to the Spurs success shouldn’t surprise anyone. It is patience. For years, players like Keldon Johnson were largely ignored by the media. Obviously, everyone was aware that San Antonio was rebuilding. What people aren’t aware of was how well-built the team’s war chest was. Players like Johnson got pushed under the radar because they played like star role-players on a team with no stars. This is because the Spurs were waiting for a true superstar instead of trying to trade for one. The result of so many years without playoff appearances was not dejected players who didn’t want to win, but amazing chemistry instead.<\/p>\n

<\/smartframe-embed><\/p>\n

Finishing The Season Strong<\/h3>\n

The Spurs are young, healthy and scary. Recently, Fred VanVleet<\/a> of the Rockets voiced doubt about the Spurs’ chances<\/a> of making it to the Finals. “Have they won a playoff series? Everybody slow the **** down. It\u2019s a marathon. Not a sprint\u2026” It should be noted that the Rockets have not won a playoff series since the arrival of Fred VanVleet<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Spurs are healthier than most of their competition. As mentioned, without VanVleet, the Rockets are lacking a starting caliber point guard. The Nuggets have dealt with injuries to their best players in Nikola Jokic<\/a> and Jamal Murray<\/a>. Cade Cunningham<\/a> recently suffered a collapsed lung<\/a>, causing panic for Detroit Pistons fans. The Thunder have been healthy, but not as much as last year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On top of being one of the healthiest teams close to the playoffs, the Spurs have the best record in 2026. With 27 wins and only 9 losses, this puts them one game better than the Thunder. However, don’t let this mislead you. The Spurs have two losses since the beginning of February.\u00a0 Over that stretch, no team has played better than them. Dominating the league<\/a> this close to the playoffs is a sign, and players like Fred VanVleet should be ready to eat their words in April and May.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a9 Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After reaching 50 wins in a season for the first time since 2017, the Spurs broke their single-game three-point record the game after. As if San Antonio didn’t have enough to be happy about in March, they have the best record since New Years Day. The team went from making fans ask if they could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5757,"featured_media":182269,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,62,3,34],"tags":[3965,50369,1244,109,1972,421,72,4669],"class_list":["post-182210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-spurs","tag-cade-cunningham","tag-david-jones-garcia","tag-fred-vanvleet","tag-jamal-murray","tag-keldon-johnson","tag-mason-plumlee","tag-nikola-jokic","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5757"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182210"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182270,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182210\/revisions\/182270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}