Spurs rivals way ahead in preparation for wars on NBA mountaintop

When these teams are on, I want to turn the TV off, turn the TV off.

San Antonio Spurs v Houston Rockets
San Antonio Spurs v Houston Rockets | Tim Warner/GettyImages

This San Antonio team wants to have a good season, while all of their rivals expect great ones. Let's start there. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that because of where the Spurs are starting from. However, it's interesting to note that none of the Silver and Black's enemies are bottom dwellers. Quite the opposite, actually.

Last night, Houston Rockets sophomore Amen Thompson scored a buzzer-beating bucket on the defending champion Celtics to propel his team to their 31st victory. The win keeps H-Town as the number two seed in the Western Conference sandwiched between the number one-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder and the Memphis Grizzlies.

All three of those teams are currently fierce rivals of the Spurs. I can't speak for every Spurs fan, but I surely don't like seeing rival teams do so well, especially as SA continues to struggle. Misery does love company. Unfortunately, it gets worse.

Every Spurs rival will make the playoffs

The rivals for this team are as follows: Thunder, Rockets, Grizzlies, Mavericks, and Lakers. The beef with LA isn't as intense as it once was—though that may change after AD's comments—but they make the list here because I still don't like them.

It was bad enough when LeBron James joined their squad and brought them a championship, but I was hoping he'd be retired by now, and they'd be spiraling. Unfortunately, he's holding on like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in that Skyscraper movie, helping to keep them relevant. They're currently the fifth seed and on a four-game winning streak. Just let go, LeBron. Go away.

The Dallas Mavericks are the ninth seed, but that's because Luka Doncic has been injured for the last month. When he was healthy, they were a top-five seed, and they'll be a great team again once he returns. We just had to watch the Mavs play in an NBA Final last year, and there's no telling how much longer they're going to be a problem, but an organizational collapse would be preferable instead.

OKC has a million picks and a young, talented roster, so we already know that Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs will have to deal with them for the foreseeable future, but Memphis is still young with good players, and so are the Rockets. They all have great coaching, and their front offices look to be doing a great job of setting their teams up to compete now and in the future.

The Lakers are the only team with an uncertain future. James is old, so they want to capitalize on his time with the franchise. That may jeopardize their long-term prospects, but that remains to be seen. LA has this ability to continuously reemerge like a phoenix. It's very annoying.

There are plenty of teams that I wouldn't have a problem seeing have success. But the five mentioned are who we're going to have to contend with over the next decade, and we already don't like them. That will make for some epic battles when San Antonio catches up. It will make it even sweeter when we pass them up. But it won't be easy.

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