NBA shifts the Spurs to the Eastern Conference

Adam Silver certainly has a tendency to make remarkable announcements at this time of year, and 2026 is no exception.  In fact, this year’s announcement is especially profound for Spurs fans because it directly and immediately affects the Silver and Black. The announcement also affects this season’s playoffs for all teams, and will continue to do so for years to come.

This is the announcement: The NBA has moved the San Antonio Spurs to the Eastern Conference, effective immediately.  Rumors had already been swirling that the Spurs were among teams that could possibly move to Eastern Conference once the two expansion teams joined the league because those two teams — the Las Vegas Poker Faces and the Seattle Supersonics — will clearly need to be in the Western Conference.  However, my league contacts confirmed that there had not been even a hint that the Spurs’ move from the West would occur before the expansion teams joined the league.

Silver’s announcement of the immediate move explained his logic — which is difficult to dispute. This was Silver’s announcement:

“Effective immediately, the San Antonio Spurs will become a member of the NBA’s Eastern Conference.  While I expect there will some pushback from the Eastern Conference playoff teams that hoped to have an easy path the NBA Finals, that is the exact reason the change in being made now.  We all can see that the two best teams in this 2025-2026 season are the Spurs and the OKC Thunder.  Without this move, the winner of the Western Conference Finals would effectively be this year’s champions, meaning that the ratings for the Finals would be even worse than last year’s Finals between two small-market teams. 

“Please understand that this is not a one-year shift.  Two factors support extending this move into the future. First, the upcoming addition of the two expansion teams in the Pacific time zone.  Second, and perhaps more importantly, the Spurs and Thunder both appear poised for an extended run of excellence.  Both teams are already dominant, have a young core of excellent players, and have a bevy of draft picks in the future.  For you NBA sportswriters, “bevy” means “a lot”. [Editor’s note – The previous sentence appeared to Adam Silver’s attempt at humor.]

“At the league office, we much prefer to have the two top teams in different conferences.  Many believe that the Lakers – Celtics rivalry in the 1980s saved the NBA. That might not have happened if the Lakers and Celtics were in the same conference. Because those teams met in the NBA Finals, that in turn made the Finals must watch viewing.

“I cannot risk the NBA’s viability by having the Spurs vs. Thunder rivalry conclude each season anywhere other than in the NBA Finals. Otherwise, we could be looking at a rerun of the Spurs and Lakers Finals wins between 1999 and 2003 against the Knicks, Pacers, Nets and 76ers. During those years, the teams from the East won a total of six games in those five Finals: 20 West wins vs. 6 wins by the East.  Those teams from the Eastern Conference wouldn’t have been in the top four in the West, let alone made it to the Finals. Frankly, those Eastern Conference teams kind of sucked, which meant the Finals did too. Wouldn’t those Finals have been better if they were the Shaq-Kobe Lakers against the Duncan-Robinson Spurs? The answer is obvious.  

“To balance the conferences and replace the Spurs, the Milwaukee Bucks will immediately be playing in the Western Conference until the expansion teams join the league. I am doing that so Giannis will  have a chance to play in this season’s playoffs. He is my favorite player.

“I also hope that making this move at this time will help with the league’s tanking problem, though I am not sure how or why.  But it might.”

Obviously a stunning announcement. My thoughts:

Because of this move, OKC will remain at the top in the West while the Spurs will move into the top seed in the East.  This will push the Celtics, Pistons and the other Eastern Conference teams down a spot.  It also creates a mad scramble at the bottom of the Eastern Conference race because one of the teams presently in the 7-10 slots will miss the Play-In tournament altogether. In both conferences, this shocking development should have the added benefit of instilling some excitement in the last weeks of the season.   As a reminder, the NBA regular season ends on April 12, so there are plenty of regular season games left to play — and time for those remaining games to shake up playoff seeding in significant ways.  Just not as significant as moving the Spurs to the Eastern Conference!

Finally, to see if this announcement was the most stunning, I did a little historical research into my prior articles about announcements at this time of year.  Readers, you can decide if this move of the Spurs’ into the Eastern Conference is more incredible than (1) the Spurs sign and trade with Victor Wembanyama’s French team to bring him to San Antonio prior to the 2023 NBA draft, (2) Adam Silver’s announcement that he was changing some stupid team names, such as the Utah Jazz, (3) the 2025 trade of Victor to New Orleans for the entire Pelicans roster, (4) Kawhi Leaonard’s announcement that he was returning to the Spurs, and (5) the Spurs ownership decision in 2020 to sell the team to Bill Gates, thus moving the team to Seattle.  Remarkably, today —April 1, 2026 — is the anniversary of each of those stories.