What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, according to the catchy marketing slogan that has been around for years.
It’ll likely be disproven this week.
The NBA loves rivalries: Lakers vs. Celtics, Michael Jordan vs. LeBron James in the never-ending GOAT debate, Reggie Miller vs. Madison Square Garden, that sort of thing. Another one has been brewing in recent months and might have finally reached official status last week in Las Vegas, when San Antonio ousted Oklahoma City in the NBA Cup semifinals and handed the Thunder what was just their second loss of the season.
As schedule luck would have it, this week brings not one, but two Spurs-Thunder rematches — one of them just happening to come on Christmas Day before what will be a global television audience. And the question was posed to Thunder guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander last week, whether this could become the best rivalry in the NBA.
“There’s a good chance,” Gilgeous-Alexander said.
He’s not wrong. It seems to meet the criteria.
The Thunder are the reigning champs with a roster that makes it seem like they should contend for more titles over the next several seasons. The Spurs are the franchise trying to recapture what was a perennial role as a championship contender, led by a generational talent in Victor Wembanyama. Gilgeous-Alexander is the reigning MVP; it won’t be long until Wembanyama starts getting votes for that trophy. It doesn’t seem like the teams are overly fond of one another; it’s not wild and crazy when they meet, but it’s also fair to say both sides seem to play like there’s a little something extra on the line in these matchups.
And both teams are basically the biggest game in their respective towns; neither city has an NFL, NHL or Major League Baseball team to brag about.
“I think we’re on the right path,” Wembanyama said last week. “And for the first time in my career — not in the case of everybody in our group — but for the first time in my career, we’re winning much more than we’re losing. So, it’s a lot of pleasure.”
The Spurs are good again. That’s already clear. They’re 21-7 through 28 games; they went 22-60 in both the 2022-23 and 2023-24 seasons, then won 34 games last year. Barring a collapse, which is possible in the absurdly loaded Western Conference, the Spurs are a playoff team and maybe one good enough to host Game 1 of a first- or second-round series. The job Mitch Johnson has done in his first full season as coach is evidence why the Spurs didn’t hesitate about making him Gregg Popovich’s successor.
And the Thunder are somewhere well past good. That’s also clear. The NBA champions last season, winners of 68 regular season games a year ago, on pace this season to smash the point-differential record that they set last season. Sure, the Spurs beat them last week. The Thunder almost welcomed what that meant.
“I think it’s a good game for to us learn from in general,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said. “It’s an 82-game season. We want to be a team that gets better through all of our experiences. You’re not going to be perfect every game. When you have some slippage or you have a game where you’re not on the ball in certain areas, you have to be a team that looks in the mirror on that and addresses it quickly and gets those things tightened back up. This team has always done an unbelievable job of that.”
These two games that await — in San Antonio on Tuesday, in Oklahoma City on Thursday for the Christmas afternoon game — are just regular season contests. Nobody is clinching a playoff berth, nobody is clinching home-court, nobody is winning a trophy, nobody is getting eliminated. And unlike the NBA Cup game last week, there’s no extra money at stake, either.
But they could see this rivalry grow a little more, especially after what happened in Vegas. They’ll meet once in January, then once in early February, and then if they see each other again this season it won’t be until the playoffs.
And if that happens, that’s when the rivalry will get very real.
“It’s always fun to go against good teams, especially when they are young, athletic, kind of play a similar brand,” Gilgeous-Alexander said. “And yeah, moments like (those) definitely help you sharpen tools for later in the season when you really want to win big.”
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