Why the Spurs should not be considered a tanking team

04/01/2025 01:33 PM

Being derailed by injury is not the same as tanking, plus the Spurs can't fall any lower.

Ever since I moved from San Antonio to Houston back in 2020, my work days are longer primarily because of the commute. I went from working from 8-5 in the San Antonio suburbs with a 10 minute commute to 7-4 in downtown Houston with an afternoon commute that can take anywhere from 45 minutes to over an hour depending on traffic and construction. (Fortunately, I leave early enough in the morning that it's only about 35 minutes.)

The longer commute has also meant more time to listening to the radio, and 90% of the time, it's NBA Radio on Sirius XM, with Frank Isola and Brian Scalabrine in the morning and Justine Termine and Eddie Johnson in the afternoon. Neither usually have much to say about the Spurs these days (why would they?), but yesterday, Termine, whom I usually enjoy and agree with 90% of the time, called the Spurs a tanking team (and not for the first time). I have seen that criticism in other places too, including here at PtR, and for some reason, it irks me.

The term usually carries a negative connotation since it refers to teams who are actively trying to lose or putting themselves in a position to lose for draft purposes, and I just don't feel like that's what the Spurs are doing. This is not to say they haven't tanked in the past — they most certainly did in 2022-23 when they traded away their three best players in Derrick White, Dejounte Murray and Jacob Poeltl for what amounted to much more draft compensation than immediately available basketball talent, and of course it paid off with them winning the draft lottery and Victor Wembanyama, just like in 1997. Last season could also be considered a tank season with all the "experimenting" they did on the way to disappointingly matching the previous season's win total of 22, but that was then.

This season is different. They got better in the offseason with the addition of veterans Chris Paul and Harrison Barnes, as well as what is looking like a draft-day steal with ROY-favorite Stephon Castle at 4th in the draft. Despite losing Gregg Popovich to a stroke early, they had a winning record coming into the 2025 portion of the season before hitting a rough January and February schedule, but they were still in the thick of the postseason race when they made a move that was only meant to make them better: acquiring De'Aaron Fox for players who had been out of the rotation.

Unfortunately, Fox and Wemby only played in five games together before Wemby's season came to an abrupt end during the All-Star break after he was diagnosed with deep vein thrombosis (explaining his lack of energy and flu-like symptoms in the prior few weeks). If that didn't already put a wrench in the Spurs' playoff hopes, it was soon clear that they just didn't have personnel to make the play-in with Fox playing with a bum finger and the team bereft of size with Zach Collins gone and Charles Bassey out with a knee injury, leading to the signing of Bismack Biyombo and more time of Jeremy Sochan at center.

Fox played for 12 more games after the All-Star break, during which time the Spurs went 5-7, which wasn't horrible but also signaled that in all likelihood, the play-in just wasn't going to happen, so he and the team decided to shut him down and get the finger surgery he has needed since training camp so he could be healthy early in the offseason and have the whole summer to train with and get used to his new teammates. If you want to call that a "tanking" move since Fox could have kept playing (and likely would have had Wemby been healthy and/or the postseason was still a realistic goal), then I guess there's not much argument there.

However, consider the following: when the Spurs decided to shut Fox down, they were already pretty much locked into their current spot in the standings: at the very bottom of the play-in contention tier but too far above the seven teams behind them to fall any further. Also, while they are certainly prone to some abominable showings like Sunday against the Warriors, they still had a 5-2 stretch (with only the first win including Fox) while posting the NBA's best offense for the month of March.

The team is not actively trying to lose, but they are out-talented and out-matched against several teams that can exploit their weaknesses too easily. With a few exceptions on either side (because that's how sports work), the Spurs have basically been winning the games they're supposed to win and losing the ones they were supposed to lose, and that was true before Fox was shut down. When looking at the results since then, it's pretty hard to argue that their record would be much different with Fox at the helm. In other words, you don't have to be mad if you feel they aren't tanking enough because they're pretty much losing organically, and you don't have to be mad if you feel they are tanking — because they're pretty much losing organically.

In the end, the Spurs are not tanking, at least not in my view. They have almost no shot at getting any higher than the 7th best lottery odds, and the only team they're really jockeying for position with is the Portland Trail Blazers (although Phoenix is trying to make things interesting). They can't and aren't losing their way to the bottom of the league, and the players that are available are trying to win because they all have something to prove.

This season should not be added to the tank lore of 1997 and 2023 (and maybe 2024?), but rather, it should be remembered as one that was derailed by their superstar's health woes, but they still improved a good amount (by what should end up being double-digit wins) from last season despite only having Wemby for 46 games.

This team should be commended for never folding despite all the adversity this season has brought. It has not been a waste or a terrible job at tanking because they were never tanking to begin with. They were just unlucky.