Photo by Ronald Cortes/Getty Images There’s still plenty of past Spurs to be thankful for, but the current ones are starting to join the party. The opposing attorney in a case I am handling sent me this email on Friday: “If we don’t talk before then, I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!” A conditional good wish like this has always bothered me. Does he mean that he wants me to have a Happy Thanksgiving only “if we don’t talk before then”? Perhaps he is hedging his bets: if we do speak, he will decide after our conversation if his good wishes remain intact. Not knowing how to respond, I threw the conundrum right back at him — I said “You too.” That will show him. His odd wish also got me thinking about Thanksgiving in general, and my fellow Spurs fans in particular. And I decided to write yet another “Thankful to be a Spurs fan” post. This year’s theme: Past, present and future thankfulness. I wrote my first “Thankful” post all the way back in the fall of 2014, my first season with Pounding the Rock. In that post, I ended with: Especially in light of everything going on in the sports world, I loved to hear Rudy T’s [Rudy Tomjanovich] comments about the team we all root for. He used the words ‘good people’. Among all the things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving, the list includes the ability to cheer on a Spurs team that is a group of good people. Not everyone can say that, but we can. Happy Thanksgiving, Spurs nation. That piece was written in the afterglow of the Redemption Finals in 2014. Those Finals gave Spurs fans numerous reasons to be thankful, including the 58-22 run in the second and third quarters of the clinching Game Five, Patty Mills’ flurry of threes to blow open the game, and My Man Manu’s thunderous dunk over Chris Bosh that remains a Spurs highlight even now. And most of all, the Redemption Finals thankfully closed the door on the painful ending of the 2013 Finals. As I wrote at the time: The 2014 Spurs, without preening or pounding their chests, looked genuinely happy, and that was a very good thing. They didn’t need to preen or pound their chests. They could just look up at the scoreboard, laugh, smile, hug and say meaningful things in each other’s ears. And feel at peace. And because the Spurs felt that way, so did Spurs fans. Including this one. Now when I think of Ray Allen’s three-pointer in Game Six, I immediately think of the 2014 Finals. And smile. I am thankful for the 2013 Finals for another reason. Those Finals gave us this highlight reel of DannyGreen!!’s Twenty Seven Three-Pointers. That is something I still watch before I go out to play in my two weekly games, just to steal just a little bit of the DG confidence to Let it Fly. Of course, Spurs fans have much more in the past to be thankful for than just those two Finals. They have been blessed with stars such as George Gervin, Sean Elliot, David Robinson, and the Big Three — and numerous other great non-star teammates such as Avery Johnson, Michael Finley, Mills, Gary Neal, Boris Diaw, Tiago Splitter, Boban Marjanovic and many more. These players, stars and non-stars, brought the five championships. Thank you! And all were achieved under the best coach ever, Gregg Popovich and the rotating cast of wonderful assistant coaches, many of whom are now head coaches throughout the league. Spurs fans also have much to be thankful for with the present team. Fellow PtR writer Charlie Thaddeus summed it up after the Spurs’ comeback win over the Jazz, even before Saturday night’s remarkable comeback win over the much more formidable Warriors: Are they great? Are they contending? Are they ready to be in a real conversation with serious teams in this league? I don’t know the answer to any of those questions. They probably aren’t great. They probably aren’t contending. They probably aren’t quite ready to be taken seriously yet. So what are they? For now, I’ll settle for fun. I agree. The present Spurs are like having a small child, enthusiastic about life and happy. We don’t know what that child will become, but we know the child is full of potential. The fun is enhanced by the absence of pressure on this young team. No one predicted the 2024-2025 Spurs to win even half of their games, let alone to make the playoffs. But here we are, with the team over .500 and only percentage points out of 10th place and the final play-in spot in the uber-competitive Western Conference. Yes, it is much too early to actually start paying attention to such things — but with a three-game winning streak in hand, we can enjoy a sideways peak at the standings. Yes, Spurs fans can be very thankful to have this small child of a team in the present, especially when the team shows flashes of the Beautiful Game Spurs teams of the past, such as this play from the comeback win over the Warriors: team ball pic.twitter.com/u6JGxgdo9h— San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) November 24, 2024 Best of all, Spurs fans can be very thankful for this team’s future. Spurs fans would not trade this team’s future for that of any other team. Beyond the wondrous Victor Wembanyama, I am very thankful that the Spurs front office absolutely nailed the number 4 pick in the 2025 draft (Stephon Castle), after successful earlier drafts of Tre Jones (a second round pick), Keldon Jonhson and Devin Vassell, plus waiver wire pick-ups (a thankful Spurs tradition!) of players such as Julian Kymani Champagnie and Sandro Mamukelashvili. I am thankful that interim head coach Mitch Johnson showed the self-confidence to go down the stretch in the Warriors game with second round pick Jones, waiver wire Champagnie, just turned 20-year old rookie Castle and 20-year old Victor, along with just one vet, Harrison Barnes. Coach Johnson showed is clearly banking on the Spurs’ future. With Thanksgiving coming this week, I am also very thankful that this team carries on a very important Spurs tradition. Just like the Spurs players that led to my very first Spurs thankfulness post ten years ago, this team really seems to like each other — a great sign that this version of the Spurs is also comprised of “good people”. That too makes me very thankful to be a Spur fan, past, present and future.