Introduction
Prior to the start of the 2026 NBA Finals, I published NBA Finals Appearance Droughts, which was inspired by the Eastern Conference (and now NBA) champion New York Knicks making their first NBA Finals appearance since 1999, and Playoff Success of 8.5+ Regular Season SRS NBA Teams, which was inspired by the then-defending NBA champion Oklahoma City Thunder being upset by the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference Finals despite having posted one of the most statistically dominant regular seasons in NBA history. Having published articles inspired by the Knicks and the Thunder, I also had an idea for a topic inspired by the Western Conference champion Spurs. The Spurs had missed the playoffs in 2024-25, only to turn around and make the NBA Finals in 2025-26. I was curious how the missed playoff-to-NBA Finals turnaround teams performed in the NBA Finals, but after having drafted this article before the start of game one, I decided it would make more sense to hold off until these Finals were complete.
As it turned out, I missed the chance to publish this statistical study as a prediction article in light of the Spurs falling 4-1 to the Knicks in the Finals.
The Spurs’ Turn-Around
The San Antonio Spurs were one of four former American Basketball Association (“ABA”) teams to join the NBA for the 1976-77 season. In the 43 seasons from 1976-77 through 2018-19, the Spurs made the playoffs on 39 occasions, including 29 out of 30 seasons from 1989-90 through 2018-19 and 22 consecutive playoffs in that period beginning with 1997-98 (see my article discussing a story from the 1994-95 Spurs). One reason for the Spurs’ spectacular success in that 30-year period was the one year they missed the playoffs (1996-97) led to their winning the NBA Draft Lottery, in which they selected future two-time NBA MVP and three-time Finals MVP Tim Duncan, whom they paired with future Hall of Fame inductee and former one-time MVP David Robinson, who had joined the Spurs in 1989-90. Gregg Popovich named himself head coach of the Spurs during the 1996-97 season and went on to coach the Spurs through 2024-25, becoming the winningest coach in NBA history. The Spurs won five NBA championships in 1998-99, 2002-03, 2004-05, 2006-07 (perhaps the best of the Spurs’ title teams), and 2013-14, while being genuine championship contenders more often than not. After the retirement of Tim Duncan folowing the 2014-15 season, it looked like the good times would keep rolling for the Spurs when Kawhi Leonard, whom the Spurs selected 15th overall in the 2011 NBA Draft, was the 2014 NBA Finals MVP and a borderline regular season MVP candidate . However, those good times would not last. Mr. Leonard and the Spurs management began not seeing eye-to-eye in 2017-18, leading to the Spurs trade Mr. Leonard to the Toronto Raptors that off-season, where he immediately led the Raptors to their one-and-only NBA Championship in 2018-19. While the Spurs not only made the playoffs in 2018-19 without Mr. Leonard, but also almost advanced to the second round, that would turn out to be the team’s last playoff appearance until 2025-26.
The Spurs bottomed out in 2022-23, finishing with a 22-60 record. However, much like in 1996-97, NBA Draft Lottery fortune smiled on the Spurs, granting them the first overall pick, with which they drafted 7’4″ French star Victor Wembanyama. Mr. Wembanyama produced star-level numbers from the get-go, but the Spurs repeated their 22-60 record in 2023-24. They looked poised to make a playoff run in 2024-25, but their playoff hopes were dashed when Mr. Wembanyama missed the final 29 games of the season with blood clots – during which stretch the Spurs limped home with a 34-48 record. But the Spurs again had good lottery luck – winning the second overall pick in the 2025 Draft and selecting Dylan Harper, and Mr. Wembanyama put his health scare behind him in 2025-26.
2025-26 marked the return of the Spurs to the NBA’s upper-echelon, led by Mr. Wembanyama’s Defensive Player of the Year and First Team All NBA campaign. Compare the regular seasons below:
| Team | Record | NET Rtg | RORtg | RDRtg | SRS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 25-26 Spurs | 62-20 | +8.3 | +3.8 | -4.5 | +8.30 |
| 24-25 Spurs | 34-48 | -2.8 | -0.1 | +2.7 | -2.45 |
What a difference a year makes. The Spurs won 28 more games in 2025-26 than the previous year, improved their net rating (points scored per 100 possessions minus points allowed per 100) by 11.1 while improving dramatically compared to the league average on offense and defense. Their SRS, which takes into account margin of victory and strength of schedule, was 10.75 points better in 2025-26 than 2024-25. While the Spurs’ regular season numbers were not on par with the Thunder’s such that their win in the Western Conference Finals should qualify as an “upset,” their regular season performance was better than the average NBA champion (including of course the 2025-26 Knicks).
My recent article on NBA Finals Droughts offers an insightful, albeit depressing for Spurs fans, stat highlighting how good the Spurs were in the regular season. The Spurs had the second best SRS of any team to lose in the NBA Finals, behind only the 2015-16 Golden State Warriors (+10.38), while coming in ahead of the 1972-73 Los Angeles Lakers (+8.16, and also lost to the Knicks) and the 1996-97 Utah Jazz (+7.97). Note that list is limited only to teams that lost in the Finals; there are a number of teams which lost before the Finals with higher SRS ratings (led by the 2025-26 Thunder).
Finals Outcomes for Teams that Went from Missing the Playoffs to the Finals in Consecutive Seasons
In honor of the Spurs going from the NBA Draft Lottery in 2025 to the NBA Finals in 2026, I decided to look at how every team that missed the playoffs one year and made the Finals the next fared in the Finals (heretofore MP-to-Finals). This is a simple survey. I will consider the Basketball Association of America (“BAA”), which ran from 1946-47 through 1948-49, and the NBA (which was the result of a merger between the former BAA and National Basketball League). In order to qualify, a team must have missed the playoffs one year and made the Finals the next. Teams that made the Finals in their first BAA or NBA season (only two such cases) do not qualify. I present our list below:
| Finals | Team | H.C.Advantage | Finals Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1956 | Philadelphia Warriors | Yes | W 4-1 |
| 1959 | Minneapolis Lakers | No | L 0-4 |
| 1964 | San Francisco Warriors | No | L 1-4 |
| 1967 | San Francisco Warriors | No | L 2-4 |
| 1975 | Golden State Warriors | No | W 4-0 |
| 1976 | Phoenix Suns | No | L 2-4 |
| 1977 | Portland Trail Blazers | No | W 4-2 |
| 1978 | Seattle SuperSonics | Yes | L 3-4 |
| 2002 | New Jersey Nets | No | L 0-4 |
| 2008 | Boston Celtics | Yes | W 4-2 |
| 2015 | Cleveland Cavaliers | No | L 2-4 |
| 2020 | Los Angeles Lakers | Yes* | W 4-2 |
| 2020 | Miami Heat | No* | L 2-4 |
| 2021 | Phoenix Suns | Yes | L 2-4 |
| 2022 | Golden State Warriors | Yes | W 4-2 |
| 2024 | Dallas Mavericks | No | L 1-4 |
| 2026 | San Antonio Spurs | Yes | L 1-4 |
We have 17 instances since 1947-48 (note no team could have qualified in 1946-47 since that was the inaugural BAA season) wherein a team went from missing the playoffs to the Finals in a one year turnaround. The results are less-than-inspiring. 15 of these MP-to-Finals stories faced non-similarly situated teams which had made the Finals the previous season. 2020 is the lone case when both Finalists – the Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat – had missed the playoffs the previous season.
In assessing how MP-to-Finals teams fared in the Finals, I will exclude 2020 since it goes without saying that a MP-to-Finals team necessarily had to be on the winning and losing side of that Finals. With reference to the above table:
- MP-to-Finals teams are 5-10 in NBA Finals where they faced a team that had made the playoffs in the previous season.
- The win-loss record of MP-to-Finals teams in Finals against a team that had made the playoffs in the previous season is 32-43.
This time including 2020, the MP-to-Finals teams had home court advantage in 7 out of 17 Finals. Excluding 2020, MP-to-Finals teams are 3-3 when they have home court advantage and 2-7 without. As a whole, the team with home court advantage in the Finals is 57-23 (excluding 2020 which was played at a neutral site), meaning that road MP-to-Finals teams perform about as expected in their small samples while MP-to-Finals teams with home court have under-performed in our very small sample.
Despite the directionally poor results for MP-to-Finals teams in the Finals, this is one case where “context” is everything. For example, let us consider two of the MP-to-Finals winners. The 1973-74 Warriors missed the playoffs with a 44-38 record and a +2.3 SRS, neither of which was dramatically worse than the champion 1974-75 Warriors, which finished 48-34 with a +3.0 SRS and a similar roster. Conversely, the 2007-08 Boston Celtics blew up much of the roster of the 24-58 Celtics of the year before (not among the league’s elite that year) to acquire All Stars Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen to flank Paul Pierce, which resulted in a 66-16 championship campaign. Every case is different.
One genuinely interesting take-away is how this list aligns with league parity. The mid-to-late 1970s and early 2020s have been high-parity decades (see The NBA: It’s Dynastic! and Will the NBA’s Parity Streak End in 2025-26? Flip a Coin written by Neil Paine 16 years apart for interesting thoughts on the subject). From 1975-78, the NBA saw four consecutive Finals where one team missed the playoffs one year and made the Finals the next. Beginning with 2020 and through 2026, five of six Finals have had at least one team which missed the playoffs the year before, and 2020 is the only Finals in NBA history featuring two such teams. However, from 1979 through 2001, no team made the Finals after missing the playoffs in the previous season, and there were only three such cases through 2019, all of which were significantly explainable by dramatic roster changes (the 2002 Nets added the best point guard in the NBA at the time, Jason Kidd, and saw key players return from injury; the 2015 Cavaliers had re-added the best player in the NBA at the time, LeBron James; and I already discussed the 2008 Celtics).
I conclude this section with a few fun notes. Only three teams – the current Golden State Warriors, current Los Angeles Lakers, and Phoenix Suns – appear on the missed playoffs-to-Finals list more than once. But the Warriors not only appear more than once, but five times, once for their stint as the Philadelphia Warriors, twice in their San Francisco days and twice as Golden State. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Warriors also account for three of the five teams to have missed the playoffs one year and won the championship the next with their 1955-56, 1974-75, and 2021-22 title squads. The Lakers went 1-1, losing to the Celtics in the 1959 Finals as the Minneapolis Lakers but defeating their fellow MP-to-Finals opponent, the Miami Heat, in the 2020 Finals, while the Suns are 0-2 with losses to the Celtics in 1976 and the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021 (the Suns are the oldest franchise to have not won a championship). Speaking of the Celtics – the Celtics have a perfect 5-0 record in Finals involving a MP-to-Finals team. The Celtics defeated their MP-to-Finals opponents in 1959, 1964, 1976, and 2024 and then won as the MP-to-Finals squad in 2008. I suppose if all else fails – bet on the Celtics if they are involved in a MP-to-Finals Finals.
How Missed Playoffs to Finals Teams Perform the Next Season
While the Spurs will be left with plenty to think about in the off-season after blowing double-digit leads in all four of their 2026 Finals losses, with three of those losses coming at home, their future looks bright with a generational talent in the 22-year old Victor Wembanyama anchoring the middle and other up-and-coming star talent around him. While I no longer follow the NBA closely enough to make predictions, I daresay that given the Spurs’ performance in 2025-26 and the youth of their roster, they may fairly enter 2026-27 as a top championship favorite, if not the outright favorite. But having granted that I am no longer qualified to offer predictions, I will offer the next best thing – since we have established that the Spurs were just the 17th team in NBA history to complete the one-season missed playoffs-to-NBA Finals turnaround, how did their predecessors fare the season after making the Finals?
| Season | Team | Reg Season Record (Change) | SRS (Change) | POResult (Change) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1956-57 | Philadelphia Warriors | 37-35 (-8) | +1.54 (-2.28) | L. ED Semifinals** |
| 1959-60 | Minneapolis Lakers | 25-50 (33-39*) | -4.14 (-2.72) | L. WD Finals |
| 1964-65 | San Francisco Warriors | 17-63 (-31) | -5.49 (-9.90) | Missed Playoffs |
| 1967-68 | San Francisco Warriors | 43-39 (-1) | -0.66 (-3.32) | L. WD Finals |
| 1975-76 | Golden State Warriors | 59-23 (+11) | +6.23 (+3.37) | L. WC Finals |
| 1976-77 | Phoenix Suns | 34-48 (-8) | +0.64 (+0.05) | Missed Playoffs |
| 1977-78 | Portland Trail Blazers | 58-24 (+9) | +5.92 (+0.53) | L. WC Semifinals** |
| 1978-79 | Seattle SuperSonics | 52-30 (+5) | +2.69 (+1.21) | Won NBA Finals |
| 2002-03 | New Jersey Nets | 49-33 (-3) | +4.42 (+0.75) | L. NBA Finals |
| 2008-09 | Boston Celtics | 62-20 (-4) | +7.44 (-1.86) | L. EC Semifinals |
| 2015-16 | Cleveland Cavaliers | 57-25 (+4) | +5.45 (+1.37) | Won NBA Finals |
| 2020-21 | Los Angeles Lakers | 42-30 (52-19*) | +2.77 (-3.51) | L. WC Quarterfinals |
| 2020-21 | Miami Heat | 40-32 (44-29*) | -0.06 (-2.65) | L. EC Quarterfinals |
| 2021-22 | Phoenix Suns | 64-18 (+13) | +6.94 (+1.27) | L. WC Semifinals |
| 2022-23 | Golden State Warriors | 44-38 (-9) | +1.66 (-3.86) | L. WC Semifinals |
| 2024-25 | Dallas Mavericks | 39-43 (-11) | -0.74 (-3.04) | Missed Playoffs |
| 2026-27 | San Antonio Spurs | TBD | TBD | TBD |
Now for some take-aways:
- Only two of the teams that completed a one-season missed playoffs-to-Finals turnaround won the championship in the next season: The 1978-79 Seattle SuperSonics and the 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers. Both of those teams lost in the Finals of their turnaround season, the SuperSonics narrowly in game seven at home in 1978 and the Cavaliers in six games with their second- and third-best players out for the Finals. One point of symmetry: Both the SuperSonics and Cavaliers won rematch finals, with the Sonics defeating the Bullets in five games in their rematch and the Cavaliers becoming the first (and thus far only) team to come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a Finals series (against the 73-9 Warriors, no less).
- 13 out of the 16 MP-to-Finals teams made the playoffs the following season (including the 1959-60 Minneapolis Lakers at 25-50), and nine of those 13 teams won at least one playoff series (again including those 25-50 Lakers). Only three returned to the NBA Finals, with the 1978-79 SuperSonics and 2015-16 Cavaliers winning and the 2002-03 New Jersey Nets losing in the Finals for the second consecutive season. None of the six teams that went from missing the playoffs to winning a championship in one season returned to the Finals the season following their turn-around.
- Just five of the 16 teams (as of 2025-26) that completed the single-season missed playoffs-to-Finals turnaround improved their win-loss record the following season: 1975-76 Golden State Warriors, 1977-78 Portland Trail Blazers, 1978-79 Seattle SuperSonics, 2015-16 Cleveland Cavaliers, and 2022-23 Phoenix Suns. This list includes two of the five defending champions on this list, the 75-76 Warriors and 77-78 Trail Blazers, but neither of them converted their improved regular season record into a second consecutive championship.
- Only seven of the 16 teams that went from missing the playoffs to making the Finals improved their regular season SRS the following season. That includes the five teams noted above that improved their win-loss records as well as the 1976-77 Phoenix Suns and the 2002-03 New Jersey Nets. The 76-77 Suns are an odd case – despite improving their SRS in 1976-77, they won eight fewer games than in 1975-76 and missed the playoffs (chalk that down to some bad luck). The 2002-03 Nets were clearly better in all respects than the 2001-02 edition, but came out three games worse in the regular season win-loss column (they nevertheless went 12-2 in the East Playoffs and swept the Detroit Pistons in the East Finals, where they lacked home court advantage).
- The 2021-22 Phoenix Suns had the best record of any team in the season following a missed playoffs-to-Finals turnaround at 64-18, but they ended up losing three of their final four games in the Western Conference Semifinals by double digits en route to a seven-game upset loss against the Dallas Mavericks. The 2008-09 Boston Celtics had the best SRS of any team on our list at +7.44, which arguably undersells them in light of the fact that their best player, Kevin Garnett, was only available for ten games after the Celtics started the season 39-9 (he also missed the playoffs that season).
- According to Marc Robinson’s recent “adjusted net rating” survey, the best regular season team following a missed playoffs-to-Finals turnaround was the 1977-78 Portland Trail Blazers. Mr. Robinson explained his methodology for adjusting single season net rating (points scored per 100 possessions minus points allowed per 100 possessions by “divid[ing] a constant standard deviation (I used the average standard deviation, 4.83) by the standard deviation of each season” (see his essay for more detail). By his measure, the 1977-78 Trail Blazers had the fifth best adjusted net rating in NBA history (+10.35 adjusted, +5.90 actual) and were the only team in the top-seven adjusted net ratings to not win the championship. The Blazers had a record of 50-10 when star center Bill Walton suffered a serious foot injury, which took him out for the rest of the regular season. The Blazers were 48-10 in games in which the late, great Bill Walton played, and 10-14 when he was absent (Walton was named regular season MVP despite missing 24 games). Walton tried to return for the first round of the playoffs, playing in two games before suffering a major injury in what would be a six-game loss against the eventual missed playoff-to-Finals Seattle SuperSonics.
- Three teams which went from missing the playoffs to making the Finals were eliminated from the playoffs in the next season by a team that had missed the playoffs the previous season but would go on to make the finals. The 1976 Golden State Warriors were upset by the eventual Western Conference Champion Phoenix Suns, the 1977-78 Trail Blazers, as I noted above, lost to the eventual Western Conference Champion Seattle SuperSonics, and the 2020-21 Los Angeles Lakers fell in six games to the eventual Western Conference Champion Phoenix Suns. Thus, we can add another fun fact to the list: In both instances when the Phoenix Suns went from missing the playoffs to the NBA Finals in one season, they defeated a team which itself had went from missing the playoffs to making the Finals in the previous season.
Analogue for the Spurs?
The Spurs, having just had a taste of the Finals and a decent chance to win given their big leads in most games and close defeats, will certainly be going all in to win the franchise’s sixth championship next season. On the surface, the foregoing survey does not look promising for the Spurs in light of the fact that just two teams went from their missed playoffs to Finals season to winning a championship the next. But it is worth noting that most of these teams have little in common with the Spurs, with most of their initial turnarounds having been driven by significant personnel changes. But one promising analogue may be the 1977-78 Portland Trail Blazers.
The Blazers went from missing the playoffs in 1975-76 with a 37-45 record to winning the championship in 1976-77 after finishing the regular season 49-33 (Net Rating, SRS, and Mr. Robinson’s adjusted Net Rating all suggest the 76-77 Blazers were significantly better than their 49-33 win-loss record). The 1976-77 Blazers were led by third-year center Bill Walton, much like the 2025-26 Spurs were led by third-year center Victor Wembanyama. One reason the Blazers had missed the playoffs in 1975-76 was because of Walton’s unavailability – he played in just 51 games due to injury (the Blazers had been 26-25 with Walton in the lineup, 11-20 without). Mr. Wembanyama played in just 46 games in 2024-25 (the Spurs were 21-25 with Mr. Wembanyama in the lineup and 13-23 without). Walton improved to 65 games played in 1976-77 (the Blazers were 44-21 with Walton in the lineup, 5-12 without) and Mr. Wembanyama played in 64 games in 2025-26 (the Spurs were 50-14 with Mr. Wembanyama available and 10-8 without). Both the Spurs and Blazers dropped the first two games of their Finals series, but the Blazers responded by winning four in a row while the Spurs dropped two of their final three to fall 4-1. In addition to the surface-level similarities between Bill Walton and Mr. Wembanyama both leading turnaround seasons in their third seasons after overcoming injury issues, the Blazers, like the Spurs, had a young core. The ages of 76-77 champion Blazers’ top-five minutes leaders were 24, 24 (Walton), 23, 23, and 26, while for the 25-26 Spurs the ages were 28, 25, 21, 22 (Wembanyama), and 24. The 77-78 Blazers were even younger by that metric, with then-27 year old Bob Twardzik dropping to sixth in minutes played, replaced by 22-year old Johnny Davis. The Spurs look to return most, if not all, of their young core, and may see Dylan Harper (19 in his rookie season) move into the top-five in 2026-27. Thus, I suggest that the Spurs can look to the 1977-78 Blazers as an optimistic example, while hoping that Mr. Wembanyama follows Walton in winning the regular season MVP award, but not in having great misfortune in the health department.
Conclusion Hat Tip
I initially put together the list of missed playoffs-to-finals teams from scratch using Basketball Reference and my knowledge of past NBA Finals to limit the number of finalists I had to check. Before publishing, I decided to look for a resource listing all the missed playoffs to Finals teams to make sure I did not miss any (perish the thought!). I found a June 6, 2024 article in The Athletic by Mark Puleo titled Just 6 teams have won NBA Finals 1 year after missing playoffs: Here’s how they did it (archived), which was published to discuss the 2024 NBA Finalist Dallas Mavericks. The headline caught my attention because I had only come up with five teams that went from missing the playoffs to the Finals. Missing from my list was the 1955-56 Philadelphia Warriors, so I added that Warriors squad and made necessary technical edits to my draft. The article confirmed that my list was perfect except for missing the 55-56 Warriors. I offer Mr. Puleo a hat tip for the assist and recommend the article as additional reading because it discusses the stories of the turn-around teams in more detail than my stats-focused study.
