By Mike Finger / San Antonio Express-News, 2026-09-28 16:45:26
2026年9月28日，星期一，圣安东尼奥胜利资本训练中心，圣安东尼奥马刺队球星维克托·文班亚马（1号）在该NBA球队的媒体日上参与视频拍摄。
正如维克托·文班亚马 (Victor Wembanyama) 所言，这种“心魔缠身”的感觉始于三个多月前。而这些心魔绝不会在明天就乖乖收拾行囊离去。
释怀终究会来得更容易些，只是需要时间。那些在NBA总决赛之后、整夜充斥着“要是……就好了”和“原本可以……”的胡思乱想、让文班亚马辗转反侧的最难熬的长夜，或许已然成为过去。
但那些磕筐而出的投篮，以及那些让这位马刺超级中锋夜不能寐的仓促传球呢？主教练米奇·约翰逊 (Mitch Johnson) 因当时未能做出的战术调整而不断折磨自己的那些念头呢？还有达龙·福克斯 (De’Aaron Fox)多希望能够重来一次的那个关键回合呢？
无论好坏，那些记忆如今已深植于此，随之而来的伤痛亦是如此。尽管马刺一心不想沉湎于悔恨——毕竟那是一段总体上充满欢欣的突破性赛季，但这个夏天让他们明白，去否认这种遗憾的存在同样毫无意义。
“总有那么一刻，你必须接受现实，去直面它，去承受这一切带来的感受，”文班亚马在周一球队重新集结开启训练营时说道，“我们不想逃避任何事情。”
当你静下心来仔细回味时，周一在“The Rock”训练基地里发生的一切着实令人感慨：几乎所有的讨论都围绕着马刺去年未能达成的事情展开。毕竟，这可是一支在去年的季前媒体日上还背负着连续六年无缘季后赛阴霾的球队。
整整十二个月前，文班亚马曾预测，只要能以西部前六或更好的战绩打进季后赛就算成功。然而在周一，他和队友们却不得不反反复复地谈论距离NBA总冠军仅差三场胜利的苦涩。
问题在于，心魔从来不会理会理性的解释。一支球队即便提前完成了崛起计划，也丝毫无法打动它们。如果那些失眠的夜晚真如文班亚马所描述的那样令人“备受煎熬”，那是因为每个人都明白，有些球员穷尽整个职业生涯，也未曾等到马刺在今年六月为自己争取到的那种机会。
作为全联盟最年轻的球队之一，他们不仅杀入了NBA总决赛，甚至在全部五场比赛中都曾至少领先过10分。然而，他们却输掉了其中的四场。
“这就是现实，你必须学会与之共存，”后卫斯蒂芬·卡斯尔 (Stephon Castle) 说道，“我觉得我这辈子都不可能将它从脑海中抹去了。”
好消息是，并没有人要求他这么做。在任何一座NBA城市、任何一场媒体日上，空洞的陈词滥调向来屡见不鲜，但值得称赞的是，马刺在周一绝口不提“一切翻篇、重头再来”这类假话。
两年前的约翰逊倒是拿到过一张白纸——彼时格雷格·波波维奇 (Gregg Popovich) 突发中风，在11月初一场比赛跳球前短短数小时，他被推上了NBA主教练的位置。
在随之而来的风暴中，约翰逊打趣道，有时候他感觉自己“完全处于断片状态，只能在这个联盟永无止境且残酷无情的浪潮中随波逐流”。
“那种过度思虑、‘如果当初能……’以及患得患失的自我怀疑，经常会发生，”约翰逊说，“它们一路伴随着我们，直到6月13日，乃至自那以后的每一天。”
6月13日，正是纽约尼克斯队在弗罗斯特银行中心的地板上捧起总冠军奖杯的日子。周一，约翰逊并未说出任何试图强迫自己遗忘那一切的话。
那段记忆显然会一直伴随着他。他自然永远都会忍不住去想，当时一个叫得更早的暂停，或者一次不同的人员轮换，是否就能改变最终的结局？哪怕在马刺夺得队史第五冠的2014年之后，波波维奇也曾不止一次坦承，自己从未真正释怀前一年在迈阿密痛失冠军的那场失利。
对于福克斯而言，去年六月的心碎恐怕同样会在很长一段时间里折磨着他。面对尼克斯时他发挥欠佳，而在第四战中，他在比赛尾声阶段选择强行上篮而不是运球耗尽时间，直接让纽约队完成了载入史册的惊天大逆转。
整个夏天，外界的批评铺天盖地、毫不留情。很少有人愿意听他在季后赛是顶着常规赛必须休战的伤病带伤出战的解释；更少有人愿意承认，马刺最初能打进总决赛，福克斯是不可或缺的头号功臣之一。
每个人都只盯着最终的结局评头论足。福克斯并没有回避这一点，但他表示自己拥有一项优势。
“我觉得我有一种天赋，那就是能够迅速向前看，”福克斯说道。
即使心魔尚未完全驱除，这项天赋也能派上大用场。正如卡斯尔所指出的，总决赛的失望即便会永远伴随他，也并不意味着他必须向其屈服。
“任由它压在我的心头压垮我？”卡斯尔说，“那种情况再也不会发生了。”
换言之，马刺或许不得不与这些心魔共存一段时日。
但这并不能阻挡他们带着心魔，重新赢回属于自己的一切。
由生成式 AI 翻译，译文内容可能不准确或不完整，以原文为准。
查看原文：Wemby, Spurs will deal with NBA Finals ghosts that still haunt them
Wemby, Spurs will deal with NBA Finals ghosts that still haunt them
San Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama (1) poses for a video shoot during the NBA basketball team’s media day at the Victory Capital Performance Center in San Antonio, Monday, Sept. 28, 2026.
The “haunting,” as Victor Wembanyama called it, started more than three months ago. The ghosts won’t just pack up and leave tomorrow.
Solace will come a little easier, eventually. The worst nights, when Wembanyama said he struggled to sleep among the what-ifs and what-might-have-beens that lingered after the NBA Finals, probably are behind him.
But the rimmed-out shots and the too-quick passes that kept the Spurs’ superstar center tossing and turning? The calls that coach Mitch Johnson torments himself for not making? The play that De’Aaron Fox wishes he could have back?
For better or worse, those memories live here now. So does the pain that came with them. And even though the Spurs are intent not to dwell in regret about the way a mostly joyful breakthrough season ended, this summer they learned that there’s no sense in denying the existence of that regret, either.
“There is just a point where you accept that you have to go through it, and you have to feel all of it,” Wembanyama said Monday as the team reconvened for the start of training camp. “And we don’t want to hide from anything.”
When you took a moment to let it sink in, it was remarkable to contemplate how much of Monday’s discussions inside the practice facility at The Rock were about what the Spurs did not accomplish last year. This was, after all, a team that showed up to the previous preseason media day riding a six-year playoff drought.
Twelve months ago, almost to the day, Wembanyama predicted that making the postseason as the sixth seed or better in the Western Conference would constitute a success. And somehow, on Monday, he and his teammates had to go on and on about the misery of coming up three victories short of an NBA championship.
The problem is, ghosts don’t listen to rational explanations. They aren’t impressed with a franchise arriving ahead of schedule. If those sleepless nights were “haunting,” as Wembanyama described them, it was because everyone understood that some players wait an entire career for an opportunity like the one the Spurs gave themselves last June.
Not only did one of the youngest teams in the league make it to the NBA Finals, they led all five games by at least 10 points. They lost four of them.
“It’s reality, and it’s something that you have to live with,” guard Stephon Castle said. “I don’t think I’m going to ever erase it out of my mind.”
The good news is that nobody is asking him to. At any given media day, in any given NBA city, there is no shortage of empty platitudes, but to the Spurs’ credit, there was zero talk Monday about wiping a slate clean.
A clean slate is what Johnson had almost two years ago, when a stroke suffered by Gregg Popovich thrust him into the job of an NBA head coach just hours before an early-November tipoff.
In the whirlwind that followed, Johnson joked, there have been times when he kind of “blacked out in terms of riding the never-ending, unforgiving current of this league.”
“The amount of overthinking, ‘what if?,’ second-guessing insecurities happen quite often,” Johnson said. “And they led us all the way to June 13, and since.”
June 13 was the day the New York Knicks raised a championship trophy on the floor at Frost Bank Center. Johnson didn’t say anything Monday about forcing himself to forget that.
Of course that memory will stick with him. Of course he’ll never stop wondering if a quicker timeout or a different substitution could have made a difference. Even after the Spurs won their fifth championship in 2014, Popovich admitted more than once that he never really got over the way they lost in Miami the year before.
Chances are, last June’s heartbreak will eat at Fox for a long time, too. He didn’t play well against the Knicks, and his decision to attempt a late layup instead of dribbling out the clock in Game 4 helped New York complete a comeback for the ages.
This summer, the criticism has been merciless. Few want to hear that Fox was playing through an injury that would have sidelined him in the regular season. And even fewer want to hear that Fox was a huge reason why the Spurs made it to the Finals in the first place.
Everybody wants to talk about the end. Fox doesn’t shy away from that. But he said he has something working in his favor.
“I feel like I have a gift in being able to move on,” Fox said.
That gift can come in handy even when the haunting isn’t quite over. As Castle pointed out, just because the disappointment of the Finals will stick with him forever doesn’t mean he has to yield to it.
“Just letting it sit on me?” Castle said. “That doesn’t happen anymore.”
In other words, the Spurs might have to live with ghosts for a while.
But there’s nothing stopping them from winning with them, too.
By Mike Finger / San Antonio Express-News