By Mike Finger | San Antonio Express-News (SAEN), 2026-01-17 15:48:28
圣安东尼奥马刺队前锋维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama)（1号，中）在一次暂停期间与后卫迪伦·哈珀 (Dylan Harper)（2号）交谈，旁边是后卫德文·瓦塞尔 (Devin Vassell)（24号）。这场比赛是2025年10月27日，星期一，在圣安东尼奥的弗罗斯特银行中心举行的一场对阵多伦多猛龙队的NBA比赛。在健康的文班亚马、哈珀以及其他关键球员的杰出贡献下，马刺队在2025-26 NBA赛季上半程的表现已经超出了预期。
人生偶尔会交上好运。在经历了足够多的机场安检长队，将塞得过满的行李箱硬塞进头顶的行李架，熬过无数次因天气、电脑故障或空中交通管制员短缺而造成的“不可预见”的延误之后，有时，那件不可思议的事情会发生。
偶尔，航班会载你提前抵达。
事实上，有时甚至会太早抵达。有时，你抵达时停机坪还没清空，廊桥还没准备好，或者上一架飞机还没离开登机口。有时这意味着你必须等待。
而每当这时，提醒自己一句马刺队如今也应该时常提醒自己的话，会很有帮助：
当你如此大幅度地领先于原定计划时，等待本身就是一种特权。
可以理解，现在没人想听这套说辞。可以理解，当球队在NBA赛季中点取得西部第二的战绩，并且在对阵过去三届联赛总冠军的比赛中取得了5胜1负的总战绩时，没人愿意听到除了全速前进以外的任何计划。
现在是时候展现侵略性了，对吗？是时候用另一笔大胆的运作来宣告自己的到来，无论廊桥是否准备就绪？是时候充分利用这次提前降落的机会，否则就可能永远为错失良机而后悔？
嗯，这是一种看法。但另一种看法则是，回想一下去年秋天维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 在阐述本赛季马刺队成功与否的标准时，听起来有多么近乎疯狂。
文班亚马说，一个附加赛席位是远远不够的。马刺队需要确保自己拿到一个季后赛名额，这意味着他们需要以西部前六或更好的排名结束常规赛。
仅仅三个月后的今天，我们已经很难回想起这个目标在当时是多么的雄心勃勃。毕竟，马刺队已经连续六年无缘季后赛。自2022年以来，他们甚至连附加赛都没进过。他们去年输掉了48场比赛，而休赛期最重要的引援，仅仅是选中了一位十几岁的控球后卫，并签下了一名替补中锋。
即便在文班亚马从血栓惊魂中恢复过来，并能保持整个赛季的健康，马刺队又凭什么认为自己能实现如此大的飞跃？在联盟底层徘徊了这么久，他们难道不需要先在中游地带磨砺一段时间，才能最终登上顶峰吗？
然而到目前为止，情况并非如此。到目前为止，他们的表现堪比联盟最佳球队之一，而且从他们战绩的细节来看，这并非侥幸。马刺队已经三次击败雷霆，并战胜过掘金、火箭、凯尔特人、尼克斯和湖人。
因此，外界的期望基调也自然而然地发生了变化。人们的想法是，如果马刺队能在12月和1月击败这些强队，这不就意味着他们也应该期待在5月和6月做到同样的事情吗？与其规划在下一个十年末才进入争冠行列，为什么不专注于当下呢？
这时，拥有大局观就显得尤为重要，而这也将是马刺队在联盟交易截止日前三周内所遵循的指导方针。
飞机提前降落了，正因如此，你很容易欺骗自己，认为仅仅因为机轮停止转动，你就突然被困住了。但圣诞节后一段5胜6负的挣扎并不意味着你已经万劫不复，甚至不意味着你在倒退。这不过是马刺高管马努·吉诺比利 (Manu Ginobili) 所熟知的“均值回归”的一次体现，而且或许早就该来了。
文班亚马不会承认这一点，教练米奇·约翰逊 (Mitch Johnson) 也不会，因为任何竞争者的目标都是不断前进。但马刺队远未到需要为一笔重大交易而忧心忡忡的地步。
也许杰里米·索汉 (Jeremy Sochan) 或凯利·奥利尼克 (Kelly Olynyk) 会在未来几周被交易，以换取一名拼图型球员。也许马刺队会瞄准一支乐透球队的射手，或者一个争冠球队需要放弃的、被忽视的角色球员。在报道了2024年奥运会的法国队之后，我仍然对一支同时拥有文班亚马和盖尔雄·亚布塞莱 (Guerschon Yabusele) 的球队充满兴趣。这位强壮的前锋在尼克斯队表现不佳，但他去年的三分命中率达到了38%。
更大的交易可能不在考虑范围之内，但这正是提前抵达的好处之一。举个例子，如果你相信像犹他爵士队的劳里·马尔卡宁 (Lauri Markkanen) 这样的球员，对于一支长期来看最大短板在于文班亚马身边前场位置的球队来说，是梦幻般的目标？
即便马尔卡宁现在是非卖品，也不意味着他永远都是非卖品。当你提前抵达时，你便拥有了许多奢侈品。
而耐心，或许是其中最珍贵的一件。
由生成式人工智能翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
点击查看原文：Ahead of schedule, Spurs still have privilege of patience in 2026
Ahead of schedule, Spurs still have privilege of patience in 2026
San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama (1), center, talks to guard Dylan Harper (2) as they head into a timeout with guard Devin Vassell (24) during an NBA game against the Toronto Raptors at Frost Bank Center in San Antonio, Monday, Oct. 27, 2025. With a healthy Wembanyama and stellar contributions from Harper and other key contributors, the Spurs have exceeded expectations through the first half of the 2025-26 NBA season.
Every now and then, you get lucky. Slog through enough airport security lines, cram your overstuffed roller bag into enough overhead bins, sit through enough “unforeseen” delays caused by weather or computer glitches or a lack of air traffic controllers, and sometimes the unthinkable happens.
Every now and then, they get you there early.
Sometimes, in fact, they get you there too early. Sometimes they get you there before the tarmac is clear, or before the jet bridge is ready, or before the last plane has left the gate. Sometimes that means you have to wait.
And that’s when it’s helpful to remind yourself what the Spurs should be reminding themselves these days:
When you’re this far ahead of schedule, waiting can be a privilege.
It’s understandable that nobody wants to hear that now. It’s understandable that, having hit the midway point of the NBA season with the second-best record in the Western Conference, and having gone a combined 5-1 against the last three league champions, nobody wants to hear about anything other than a plan to keep moving full speed ahead.
Now is the time for aggression, right? The time to announce your own arrival with another bold move, whether the jet bridge is ready or not? The time to take full advantage of this early landing, or wind up regretting a wasted opportunity forever?
Well, that’s one way to look at it. But the other is to remember how borderline crazy Victor Wembanyama sounded last fall, when he set forth his criteria for whether or not this Spurs season would be a success.
A play-in tournament berth, Wembanyama said, wouldn’t be good enough. The Spurs needed to assure themselves of a playoff bid, and that meant a Western Conference finish of sixth or better.
It’s difficult now, only three months later, to remember how ambitious this goal was. After all, the Spurs had missed the playoffs six years in a row. They hadn’t even made the play-in since 2022. They lost 48 games last year, and their most consequential offseason acquisitions were drafting a teenaged point guard and signing a backup center.
Even with a full, healthy season for Wembanyama coming off his blood clot scare, who were the Spurs to think they could make that kind of leap? Having spent so long at the bottom of the conference, wouldn’t they need to put in some time in the middle before making it to the top?
So far, that hasn’t been the case. So far, they’ve played like one of the best teams in the league, and nothing in the details of their record suggests it’s been a fluke. The Spurs have beaten the Thunder three times, and own victories over the Nuggets, Rockets, Celtics, Knicks and Lakers.
So naturally, the tone of the expectations changed. If the Spurs can beat those teams in December and January, the thinking went, doesn’t that mean they should expect to do it in May and June? Instead of planning for championship contention at the end of the decade, why not focus on doing it now?
This is where a sense of big-picture perspective helps, and that’s still what will guide the Spurs in the three weeks before the league trade deadline.
The plane landed early, and because of that, it’s easy to trick yourself into thinking you’re stuck all of a sudden, just because the wheels stopped moving. But one 5-6 stretch following Christmas doesn’t mean you’re doomed, or even that you’re going backwards. It’s just a dose of what Spurs executive Manu Ginobili knew as “regression to the mean,” and it probably was overdue.
Wembanyama won’t admit that, and neither will coach Mitch Johnson, because the goal of any competitor is to keep pushing. But the Spurs aren’t even close to the point when they need to be worried about making a major trade.
Maybe Jeremy Sochan or Kelly Olynyk gets moved in the coming weeks for a complementary piece. Maybe the Spurs target a shooter on a lottery team, or an overlooked role player that a contender needs to drop. Having covered Team France in the Olympics in 2024, I’d still be intrigued with the idea of a team featuring both Wembanyama and Guerschon Yabusele, the bruising forward who hasn’t looked great with the Knicks but who made 38% of his 3-point attempts last year.
Bigger deals probably aren’t in the cards, but that’s part of the benefit of landing early. If you believe, for instance, that someone like Utah’s Lauri Markkanen is the dream target for a franchise whose biggest long-term hole is in the frontcourt alongside Wembanyama?
Just because Markkanen is untouchable now doesn’t mean he’ll be untouchable forever. When you’re early, you have lots of luxuries.
And patience might be the best one of them all.
By Mike Finger, via San Antonio Express-News