点击查看原文：Did San Antonio’s wild season meet expectations?
Did San Antonio’s wild season meet expectations?
Columnist Mike Finger and Spurs beat reporters Jeff McDonald and Tom Orsborn discuss the Spurs’ topsy-turvy season that saw head coach Gregg Popovich suffer a stroke and both of its star players, Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox, go down with injuries. Also somehow Chris Paul started all 82 games.
Suggested reading:
Chris Paul leaves Spurs rookie Stephon Castle with summer homework
What’s next for Spurs’ Mitch Johnson?
Finger: Why the Spurs ask for a little faith as big offseason questions loom
Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama already eager for next season
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Here is the transcript of the podcast:
From a highly secured network of top secret locations across South Texas, this is the Spurs Insider, the first postseason edition of 2025. I am Mike Finger, joined as always by Jeff McDonald, Tom Orsborn and sports editor Nick Talbot of the San Antonio Express News.
We’re going to look back at the quite abnormal, quite unusual, quite memorable 24, 25 season for your local cagers. We’re going to look ahead at what figures to be a compelling wide open off season with all kinds of questions unanswered, decisions to be made. I’m going to start with the great Jeff McDonald, who made it through season number 18, I believe, as the Spurs beat writer for the San Antonio Express News. One of the longest tenured beat writers in the entire National Basketball Association in terms of covering one team for one outlet. Jeff, you made it. What do you have to say about making it through another one? I’m coming after Ira Winderman.
Ira Winderman. I have him in my sights. Covers the Miami Heat. He might be the one guy who who has you beat? Yeah. Yeah, who would have thought I would outlast Shoning.
The great Bill Shoning hung him up. The great Bill Land hung him up last year. Jeff McDonald still around. What can you tell the listeners about the state of this team that you have covered low so many years? Well, you want to talk about this it was probably one of the weirdest seasons, maybe the weirdest season of the 18 that I have covered.
Start with that. When you talk about, you know, losing your head coach five games into it, not just any head coach, but a Hall of Fame head coach. The winningest coach in basketball history. The longest tenured coach in the NBA. Greg Popovich, you know, losing him five games in the season, going through the entire season with a with an acting head coach, Mitch Johnson in his spot. And then you get to February and you you you make a trade. The Spurs never make major trades, but this time they made a major trade for De’Aaron Fox, who lasted a handful of games before shutting it down with a to have his thumb operated on. And then of course, in the middle of all that, you also had Victor Wembanyama being lost for the season, your best player, being lost for the season with a blood clot issue. So it was a lot of dramatics. And you throw in other little things like, oh yeah, the Spurs were in LA for the wildfires, you know, and had a game postponed because of that. And they spent a whole week in Paris. And they played Christmas Day in New York. There was just a lot going on this season to cover. It was interesting. It was never it was never not interesting. Whether that was good interesting or bad interesting, it was in the eye of the beholder, but it was never not interesting.
We have covered lots of this in the San Antonio Express News print editions on expressnews.com Spurs Nation newsletter. But one thing that’s kind of funny about everything that you just mentioned is all this unprecedented stuff happened, stuff that you could have never foreseen happened to the Spurs. And they ended up with exactly the record that one columnist predicted in the newspaper to start the season. I think a lot of us on this podcast were within a game or two of the 34 and 48 final record. In a way it’s it it provides even more optimism about the future of this franchise that they ended up exactly where we thought they would be record wise, but made it through all of the things that Jeff just mentioned. Like if you would have when we predicted 34 and 48, we did not see Victor Wembanyama sitting out for the last third of the season. We did not see an acting head coach take over for five games into the season with Greg Popovich gone. We did not see, you know, the wildfire stuff. We did not see, I guess we did see them going to Paris. But we also did not see Stefan Castle just kind of running away with the rookie of the year award. I think we all thought he was going to be good. But there are lots of little details, Tom Orsborn, that if if things work out the way the Spurs hope they do this offseason, lends themselves to a lot of optimism.
Yeah, and also have to mention, you know, Devon, Jeremy and Charles Bassi, you know, were robbed because of injuries of having the seasons they might have had from start to finish. And yeah, so they they they had that to deal with as well. It’s it’s pretty noteworthy that they won 34 games with all of that going on. It’s it’s it’s it’s it’s an accomplishment. And they were proud of it and they should be proud of it. And you know, as Mitch Johnson said several times, playing off something Pop preached to you know, the staff, the organization for years, I guess, is that everything you do at the current moment is going to hopefully pay off down the road at some point. And they’re hoping that this season, you know, getting through the adversity and and coming together, helping to build camaraderie and so forth and so on will pay off down the road. And yeah, I mean, it it like I said, I think it was a pretty pretty noteworthy achievement for them to win 34 games considering all that happened.
I tell you what, give them a full give them a full season of Charles Bassi and that’s a playoff team. Yeah, I know. I I I I hear I hear what you’re saying, but but the lack of rebounding, you know, with Victor out, with Bassi out that that really hurt them. You know, they won 11 games without Victor. They probably win a little more. They have a little more rebounding. That that’s my point. I’m not overstating What’s your point, Tom?
What’s your point? Not overstating Charles Bassi’s importance to the organization or the future, but yeah, it it was it did hurt them that he was out as much as he was. Well, when we were speaking in our podcast generalities, kind of blowing smoke some people say to start the season.
You know, we when when when you do this stuff, you talk about stuff like finding identity, finding out what you need. And a lot of times it’s just it’s it’s silliness. But in a way, everything that happened to the Spurs this year defined, like it it it brought into focus exactly what they do need this off season because they made the trade for De’Aaron Fox during the middle of the season. We weren’t sure that was going to happen. And so they head into this off season knowing now, I think we can all agree, that this team is built around a nucleus of Victor Wembanyama, who might be who is the the most hyped player of his generation, might be the best player of his generation. De’Aaron Fox, who is now the point guard of the present and the future, a a proven all star, a a guy who is at the center of what the Spurs are building here and rookie of the year Stefan Castle, who I think is if if if he did anything this year was prove that he is a key key part of what the Spurs are building. You know now that those are the three guys that you’re building around, that everything that the Spurs do in the future is about those three guys being in the middle of a team that’s trying to become a contender. They didn’t they only had one of those guys to start the year, six months ago. They did not know about Stefan Castle yet. They did not have De’Aaron Fox yet. So now they know that. They know that this off season, rather than just a bunch of pieces, you know, you need a bunch of pieces. We all knew that. Now they know specifically what they need. They need shooting and they need size behind Victor. And I think when you consider all of that, in addition to them getting the 34 victories that we thought they were going to get, like that’s a pretty successful thing. They got the 34 victories, they took their step forward and they know exactly what they need this off season to fill around their nucleus. And I I I think that shouldn’t be understated, shouldn’t be forgotten. I think that’s a significant step when you’re putting together a team that you hope will compete for a lot of playoff spots and championships down the road. Yes. That’s a good point that you made. Well said.
Jeff, would you have anything to add or argue with there? Unfortunately no. I wish I could argue with you, but I think you made some some trenchant and cojan points for once. Now, that leads me since you’re not going to riff off of that. you have nothing worthwhile to offer there. It leads me to something else that appeared in the Express News this week, which was a look at the at what I consider the two overarching long range important questions that your Spurs are dealing with this off season. And the Spurs would have you believe, maybe correctly that neither one is a big deal. Okay, but they’re they’re two pretty huge questions. The first of which is when Victor if and when Victor Wembanyama returns, is he still what he was before? Are there any long-term restrictions? Can he be exactly what he was, what we thought he’d be before he suffered this deep vein thrombosis, the the blood clot in his right shoulder. Can he recover from this? Is he okay? I guess the simpler thing is, is Victor Wembanyama okay? We have been told that he is by the Spurs, by Victor Wembanyama himself. This is something we need to discuss during this podcast. We talked to Victor for the first time since February. And he said it’s a it’s it’s a minor issue. It’s something that he’s over with now. He’s going to be as good as new, but we don’t have details on that because the Spurs and Victor Wembanyama are not divulging them. And that’s perfectly within their rights to do that. We’re sort of being asked to take it on faith that he is over this, that he can be what he was before. We have evidence from Aasar Thompson from Brandon Ingram. There have been NBA players that have gotten over this and been just fine, but we don’t know what surgery he had, if he had surgery at all. We don’t know what his treatment plan is. We’re just kind of taking it taking the Spurs at their word that he’s going to be ready to play in October. And I think he will be. But it remains a question because we don’t have any details on that. But that’s that’s kind of one overarching question about this off season. I want to I want to jump in one time.
Go ahead, address this first one now. We do know at least some details on Victor is that he visited hospitals or at least one hospital, maybe multiple visits to hospitals. There are there are many reasons one could go to a hospital. But the he has been he has been in a hospital in the last three months. For the listeners at home or in the car or on your bike ride or however you listen to this podcast, who are wondering why the the the the rude host is laughing at the mention of hospital visits. Like why would why would the host be that crude as to as to make light of this? Caliss. It’s it’s callous. there that’s a good word. It’s it’s it’s because Jeff is making a little jokey joke here about the the noted inquisitor Tom Orsborn, who’s also on this podcast, who thought he’d he’d caught Victor Wembanyama in a in a web of of of logic in a in a in it was a Frost Nixon type moment when uh when Victor had mentioned going to the hospital during his availability on Sunday before the Spurs finale against Toronto. And Tom Orsborn had had had piped up and said, ah, so Victor, young Victor, you uh, you you say that you’ve been to the hospital. So does that not mean that you did indeed have a surgery? To which Victor Wembanyama, cager than Tom Orsborn could have possibly expected, retorted without a blink of the blink of an eye, without a a beat of sweat on his brow says, there are many reasons why one might visit the hospital. Not all of them include surgery. So he neither confirmed nor denied that he had surgery. Tom did not trap the 21-year-old, older than his years, wiser than his years superstar and we still do not have official confirmation that Victor Wembanyama had surgery.
What kind of surgery he had? We think he probably did, but uh the Spurs have not confirmed. It could be, it could be that he likes the food. Could be. It’s a question that needed to be asked, I thought. So. It was. But it it was it was it was a it was a fun little moment when when Victor danced right around the supposed trap that Tom had set. Wasn’t a trap. It was just a way to ask the question. Okay. Well, it was a good effort, Tom. Thank you. Uh the questions did needed to be asked. They were not answered. And that that leads me to overarching question number two facing the Spurs this off season. And that is who will be the head coach of said San Antonio Spurs when they open their season next year? We do not know. And one unlike the Victor Wembanyama questions, the reason why the Spurs aren’t answering these questions or that question about the about who’s going to coach them, is because I don’t think the Spurs know know the answer to that question. I don’t think anybody knows the answer to that question. But it is a huge one because just to lay it out there, Greg Popovich, who already was the oldest person ever to serve as a head coach in an NBA game, has won more NBA games than any coach in history. Hall of Famer. The head coach of five championship teams is uh is trying to return after suffering a mild stroke last November. He will be given that opportunity. The Spurs are waiting on him. They they all, if you ask anybody in the organization, they think that he’s trying to come back. They want him to come back. He has the right to come back and and go out go out on his terms. We just don’t know if that’s going to happen because of all the reasons I just said. He’s the oldest person ever to coach an NBA game already. He just had a mild stroke. It’s a complicated deal. So in the interim, Mitch Johnson, who Jeff McDonald wrote a great story about in the Express News this week, just kind of covering all that he did for the team, all the the weird position he was thrown into, the way he helped the team kind of make it through, the way he thrived and prospered and all that kind of stuff. He continues to be the acting head coach until told otherwise. He sort of quibbled with that when I asked him about it on Sunday. Are you you still the acting head coach until until somebody tells you that you’re not? He said in the off season, it doesn’t matter. It’s collaborative. Everybody plans the off season. there if there’s no games, you don’t need a head coach. But he’s still the he’s still looked at that way because he’s the guy in charge until Pop is back in the gym. And and the what goes what also falls under this question is if it’s not if Pop doesn’t make it back, is it automatically Mitch Johnson? Maybe? It could be. The the Spurs think a lot of him for all the reasons that Jeff outlined in his story in the in the Express News. They they gave him this responsibility when Pop had his stroke because they have a lot of faith in his ability to lead an organization. But also if you open this job up to every head coach who wanted it, every head coach in the world would want it. I mean, who which basketball coach would not want to coach Victor Wembanyama into his prime. It’s a it’s a coveted job. And so in the middle of all this complicated stuff, the Spurs are asking themselves, can Greg Popovich come back? If he does not come back, is it automatically Mitch Johnson or do we need to find out if there’s a better fit out there? And all of that is something that will uh I guess unfold over the next up to six months, Jeff.
Wow, yeah, hopefully not six months, you know. But I mean it could. It could. But it could. Yes, it could. Um, yeah, it’s it’s it’s complicated. It’s complicated and I don’t know what the right answer is or what the right answer is going to be because obviously you want to give Pop as long as it takes to um decide or to be cleared medically to you know, resume full you know, full job. And that I mean how long does that take? No one knows. So you’re just waiting day by day. And every day that goes by, if you were going to open this job up to to you know, the full field. Um, you know, other guys out there that you might want to interview or be considered for the job are going to be snatched up like the longer this goes into the summer. So just just for instance, uh, what are the odds that Taylor Jenkins is coaching at an NBA team next October 20 whatever. Like I would say 100%. Pretty good. Yeah, if he wants to. Yeah, you know. Um, Michael Malone, like he’s going to get Michael Malone, he’s going to get a job. I’m not sure if coach Bud’s going to get a job, but he probably somebody, I mean, he’s somebody might hire him. There are there are guys out there. I mean there you know, the and it’s not just the unemployed guys. Yeah. I mean they name your call name your elite college coach, name your retired coach, name your whoever. Um, a lot of people would be interested if if someone called and asked, hey, do you would you like to coach Victor Wembanyama? Steph Castle.
I mean you could have your pick almost of anybody that are you is coaching in NBA currently. Right. They don’t have to be out of a job. There might be five guys who would say absolutely not. Right, right. Or yeah, who would I my job is too good now. That type of thing. So it it it and we are not saying here. I always repeat this when we discuss this. We’re we’re not saying that the that the Spurs do not want to keep Mitch Johnson. It’s just the situation where they have this job that where they could pick anybody. And it’s almost paralysis by by too many options. Like you could go anywhere. Um, and we also don’t know that Greg Popovich is not going to be back. He’s trying to come back. He’s he’s a strong willed guy. Um, I wouldn’t bet against him. But uh, you when you’re when you’re making plans like this for an entire organization, an entire rebuilding project, uh the the the prime of Victor Wembanyama’s career, you have to be ready for everything. And the Spurs do have to be ready for the possibility, however likely, however remote, that Greg Popovich won’t be back. And and I’m sure they do have contingency plans in place, they’re just not sharing those right now. I think for for understandable reasons.
And if Victor Wemba, if if Wembies to be to be believed, he’s okay either way. He said, you know, he trusts Pop to do all he can to come back uh to get his energy back. But he also said, I also trust Mitch to grow into that role, which I thought, which I thought was interesting. Um, it’s it’s almost like a player saying, yeah, he had a he had a good rookie season, but you know, there’s there’s a lot of room for growth there. That I thought that was an interesting comment by. He also, along with that time, was effusive in his praise for the way his uh his teammates competed down the stretch, which I think is sort of a a tribute to the. He was jealous of it. Yeah. Yeah, well I I’m saying like it’s sort of a tribute to the the job that he thinks that Mitch did to keep them playing that way. Yeah, yeah, that’s a good point. Um, and and here here’s the other thing. Um, the one guy who could put his foot down and say the coach is absolutely going to be this person whoever that person is, is Victor Wembanyama and he just that’s just not his personality right now. I don’t see him doing that. He could say I’m playing for. He could and I don’t even know what it would be. He could come and say, I am playing for Mitch Johnson. You have to keep Mitch Johnson in this role. I’m going to play for him or he could come in and say, you have to go hire Mike Buer. Like the only way I’m going to play is if Mike Buer was the next head coach of the Spurs. Uh like if Victor Wembanyama says that, you pretty much have to do it. But but Victor’s just not going to do that. That’s not his style yet. Yeah. Publi publicly he’s saying I trust the organization to make good decisions. Yes. Yes. What he’s saying And I think privately he’s saying that too. maybe, maybe not. But but yeah, all we know is what he did say publicly and. It is it is an important season. Like it’s his third year coming up. We’re starting to get to where you’re on on the clock a little bit. You know, we were we were okay with the first year when they win 22 games and the second year that was all wonky and they but they still won, you know, 12 more games than they did the prior season and showed showed promise, but we’re getting, you know, in the next year or two, we’re getting to where if you’re not in the playoffs every year, it’s something wrong. And so you have to have all these important pieces in place and the head coaching position is pretty pretty a pretty important part of that. So just to have it stabilized, one way or another whatever it’s going to be, I I think that’s that’s that’s that’s the optimal situation is just to know who it’s going to be. And I don’t know. You kind of gasped, Jeff, when I said six months and uh I realized thinking back on it now, that’s probably too too far. But it it it leads to the follow question of is there do you do you think there is a a a not a drop dead date, but a a date when they would like to or or as as as a team, you’d like to know if Pop is in or out for the start of the season. There there should be because I mean I I don’t I don’t know how you go into free agency, you know, without how do you attract a free agent if they don’t know who the coach is going to be? You know, I mean, I think. I think that I think the the to to play devil’s advocate, you you go into free agency of like offering guys first of all money. Money talks. And and second of all, the chance to play with Victor Wembanyama and De’Aaron Fox and stuff. You know what the team is. I don’t think I don’t think you need to know if if Pop is back by July 1st. I guess, I guess. But it’s like, hey, come play for this team. We don’t know. I think that would be great, but I don’t know I’m not sure you it has to be by free agency. Hey, you want to come you want to come play for this team? We don’t know the coaches and and the best player uh is coming off a blood clot and you know, hasn’t we we don’t know if he’s going to play either. Like it’s not a great cell. It’s not a great selling point. I think I don’t think they’re going to have any issues um attracting the the free agents that they want this off season. Um if for no other reason than they’re not going after the top of the class because they they don’t have. That that’s not the objective this year. The objective this year is to fill in around the uh the edges. It’s kind of like recruiting in college though, right? Like it’s hard to recruit when you don’t have a coach in place. Well, it’s easier these days because you can offer NIL and which is what like the Spurs are offering contracts and playing time. Um, this this is a minor disagreement we’re having. But I don’t I don’t think I don’t think the coach situation is a make or break type of deal in in free agency. Maybe it is for for some guys. I But I I don’t think if if they offer name your guy, uh the mid-level exception type player, shooter uh back up center. Um, if I don’t I don’t think that type of player is going to say absolutely not until I know Yeah, I just I just don’t think we don’t know who the coach is going to be and we can’t even give you a date by which we know the coach who the coach is going to be. It’s it’s an issue. It’s an issue. I opened this by saying it’s an issue. You’re I think that’s the best way to say it. It it is an issue. Yeah. It’s I think you’re right Mike, uh you know, considering the class of free agent they will be looking for, shouldn’t be the overriding issue, but it’s an issue. Yeah. Now what um that leads into we’re going to have uh by the way, this is a good time to note that we’re moving to an off season schedule for the Spurs Insider podcast. We will not be in your digital players, in your cars, in your home offices, on your bicycles, in your earbuds every Wednesday morning anymore. It will be we will we will see you next in two weeks. Uh by Wednesday morning the uh on April 30th, you should have us again and we’ll go on a two week schedule for a while this off season. So you’re going to have to you’re going to have to get by without Jeff sunny disposition. How many people do you think are marking their calendars right now, circling April 30th. I bet there’s some. I bet there’s some who have their who have their uh you know, wall calendars, their desk calendars, the calendar applications on their cellular telephone telephones. They’re they’re they’re they’re marketing in Spurs Insider. The next one will be here uh early the morning of April 30th if not the evening of of April 29th. That’s that’s when they’re going to see us next. Like you’re planning vacations about this around this stuff. Plane rides, all that type of stuff. I we have devoted listeners, who we sincerely are appreciative of standing by us listening to us for another year. It’s been fun.
Hey, you remember uh last week when we were talking about all the predictions we got right or wrong. Really okay. I thought of one that that I know that I botched. Oh okay. I remember having this specifically having this conversation as we were talking about the season to come. I don’t know if you remember this off season they signed a a guy named Chris Paul. Uh-huh. And uh, you know, and and and they already had a a guy that had started at point guard for them a lot named Trey Jones. And they also, you know, in addition to that, they they drafted Steph Castle. So we were having a discussion about what the lineup would look like and obviously Trey is going to have to go to the bench and he’s going to be have a more diminished role. But I said, never fear because it’s not like Chris Paul is going to come in here and start 82 games. Like there’s still going to be room for Trey Jones to to or another another uh player to to start there for several games probably. Well, I was wrong. Chris Paul dad come it, came in here and played and started in 82 games. He’s he’s been something else, man. That was a fun part of this season to have him around.
Yeah. And in the way he did it it was so so fitting, so picture book for. He got in a fight with 20 seconds left in the season. Right. Right. Yeah, he hit, he hit a huge jumper with about 143 left, mid-range jumper. Then in the final 20.3, he has three points, three three free throws that he sinks. He has a rebound, he has an assist. He has a steal. He’s going at it with the other with the other players with the refs. Scotty Barnes in a game that did not matter. And he ends the game with control of the ball. I mean it was it was so it summed up who he is and what he’s about so perfectly. If you looked around the the league on Sunday all those games, um, I think there was the the big one that mattered was Warriors and Clippers and that went to OT, right? So you had some some rotation players in that one. But of all the others like the Spurs, who were on their way to their 34th victory of the season, finishing 34 and 48 in 13th place in the Western Conference, had the the most accomplished five on the floor at the end of it. It was kind of wild. You had Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes and Stefan Castle and like Julian Champagne’s out there who’s a pretty a significant role player, who also played 82 games. Harrison Barnes also played 38 82 games. But those guys played like it mattered all year and that was a huge uh piece of influence from Chris Paul. Like Chris Paul made an impact on this team. He was um he was great for them this year. And and there’s a very devoted listener of the Spurs Insider who who mentioned to me not too long ago, hey man, you guys got to you you guys are a little out of touch and that you don’t realize that not every not every Spurs fan loves Chris Paul. Like there’s still some animosity there like he’s this old guy uh sure we appreciate some of the contributions that he’s made, but like uh he uh like he he he’s not a fan favorite because you know like got fans think that that Steph Castle should be playing more and role players should be playing more. And I understand that sentiment. Like it’s not easy to appreciate the impact that Chris Paul made on this team from the outside. And he’s not part of the future necessarily. Like I’d be surprised if he’s back with the Spurs next season. But he played a real role with this team and uh just selfishly from a sports writer standpoint, just a joy to uh joy to cover. Uh it was fun to have another kind of ornery guy in there.
One of my whoop and whoop he did. One of my favorite Mitch Johnson quotes coming down the last week of the season, um, because you’re working on the story about what what Chris is going to do next? Is he going to retire? Is he going to come back? Is he going to play somewhere else? All those options. And like everyone in the league says, yeah, he’ll he’ll make a great coach one day. Or you know, if you don’t want to do that, he’ll be awesome on on television, you know, as a TV analyst. But Mitch says, you know, he’s just one of those guys it’s hard to envision. He’s just been such a part of the league for so long on the floor. It’s hard to envision Chris Paul the coach or Chris Paul the TV analyst. Mitch says, Chris belongs on the floor with the ball in his hands yelling at somebody. And that’s Chris Paul. Who can argue with that? Two of my two of my favorite moments from um Sunday’s exit interviews, which uh that’s always a fun day because every player comes in we’re able to talk with every player. I think uh Jeff even went out and bid farewell to Sandro. Uh Julian Sandro wants to come back, by the way. He’s going to be a free agent, but he’s he wants to come back. I’ll just put that out there. We really, really hope that Sandro comes back. Yeah. Shocking news, Sandro wants to come back. That’s my biggest rooting interest of the off season is hoping that the Spurs resign Sandro Mama. You know what? If they could give flavor flave season tickets, Sandro would be an all star.
Yeah. I think that’s that should be priority one for the Spurs in the off season. Forget those two overarching questions that I wasted all that time with earlier in this podcast. It should have been the whole this whole podcast should have been a pitch to resign Sandro. Um, but yeah, we talked to everybody on Sunday and uh uh one of the one of the fun moments was when Chris Paul was asked if in in those final 20 seconds when uh he was bickering with Scotty Barnes and bickering with Billy Kennedy, the referee and and uh and trying like heck to uh to finish that game out. Do do you really care that much about winning at the end? And he just says, absolutely. Like he really was that mad it was not an act. He was that legitimately mad at Scotty Barnes and Billy Kennedy and wanted that victory that badly. His his family was in the crowd, which could be taken as a sign that maybe he he is considering at least the remote possibility that that might have been his last game. He did not even come close to uh to hinting at that after the game. You can ask anytime you want. He remained that guy till the end and that was that was fun. The other one was when I stole uh I stole a joke from Tom and I’m going to apologize for that now because Tom is giving me grief when uh someone had asked Keldon Johnson, who of course, had a great season and has a a sponsorship deal with the uh with with the Chinese shoe shoe company, right Tom? And uh uh if he was asked if he was going to go to China and and as he often does in the off season and he said yes and he’s looking forward to that and the shoe company’s doing great. And under Tom Orsborn’s breath, he mumbles something to me and doesn’t say it out loud. And so I’m the, you know, the clown that said it out loud. I said uh I said I said something to Keldon about uh, what about the what about the tariffs? Like what’s going to happen with the with the is is the te are the tariffs going to affect your uh your shoe deal. And Keldon’s response to that, I cannot do it justice, but it’s just this exasperated Lord have mercy.
He turned into an 80-year-old grandmother right in front of you. He looked over at me shook his head and said, Lord have mercy. And that sums up so much about the 2024, 2025 Spurs season. Uh just those three words. We made it through. It was exasperating at times, tiring at times. But uh but we made it through and we’ll have lots to talk about in the off season. We’ll see you in two weeks. Uh Jeff and Tom anything uh like this is the last one looking back at the season. Do you have anything to add before we go? It was it was a pleasure everybody. I enjoyed it every single week. I was thinking about yeah, I’m sorry Jeff. Go ahead. He was just lying. No, no, that’s okay. He was just lying. Tom No, I didn’t give us some truth. I I was thinking about how these guys, you know, the players just kind of pass through your lives and you may never see him again, but you know, you remember him and remember him fondly and uh Bismack Biyombo, I’m I’m going to uh close by just tipping my hat to him. It was a pleasure to be around him. Um, you know, uh much like Chris Paul, Harrison Barnes, a true pro. So that was neat. Uh really liked that guy. And yeah, Chris Paul, that you know, say what you want, Steph should have played more, although I don’t think so. I think learning from him and watching him, watching how he operates and runs runs the point and everything was was great for Steph. I think it was a great balance of playing and watching that’s going to help him a lot. Absolutely But you know, just just having uh those guys come through, you know,