This is it: it’s time for us to go to the wire. With one team having punched its ticket to the championship round over a week ago, and the other having had to punch its way through the widely-regarded toughest matchup in the league, the NBA Finals are finally set. For the first time since 2014, the San Antonio Spurs are returning to what’s become familiar ground since 1999.

At the same time, for these Spurs as well as the rest of the NBA, it is new territory because, for the eighth time in the last eight seasons, there will be a non-repeat NBA champion. None of the San Antonio players has even won a playoff series as a member of this franchise before this season. Parity being Adam Silver’s singular objective for the first decade of his stewardship of basketball bodes well for the league’s shift into international markets, at least as a roadmap. All anyone needs is a roadmap.

If Victor Wembanyama has anything to do with it, though, that tide may soon turn. Has he arrived ahead of schedule, or perhaps have his teammates? Is San Antonio going to auger in a new period of parity before it had a chance to launch? Not if Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks have anything to say about it in the next three weeks.

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