Spurs’ Luke Kornet shares candid opinion on Thunder’s reign in West

For as great as Victor Wembanyama, Stephon Castle and De’Aaron Fox have been, a huge reason the San Antonio Spurs will finish with a better record than everyone in the NBA but the Oklahoma City Thunder is their role players, like Luke Kornet.

ClutchPoints talked extensively with the veteran big man, who’s in his first year with the team. Among the topics broached was the Spurs’ place among the league’s best. Only the defending champions will finish with a better mark in the regular season.

“You can only deal with what you can control,” Kornet said. “If you’re behind, like we’re behind OKC, they obviously have warranted that standing. We’re still competing. But I don’t think we’ve really looked at that throughout the course of the whole season anyway, as much as just trying to be accountable to the day.”

Kornet started in place of Wemby in the Spurs most recent game, a 112-101 victory vs. the Portland Trail Blazers. He’s also teamed up with Wembanyama on the floor. There’s also been times when neither has been on the court.

“There’s just a level of pressure and athleticism and speed that we were playing with and that kind of changed the game,” Kornet told ClutchPoints in talking about his team’s ability to put different lineups together.

“And you kind of don’t know what that might be game to game,” the Vanderbilt alum added. “But the ability to definitely turn into a couple different iterations of yourself and be able to match what other teams throw at you is a big part of basketball and just being versatile enough to beat the different teams, and play different styles.”

Game Day

"Just trying to be accountable to the day. So, I think that's kind of where our head's at"

-Luke Kornet as the playoff bound #Spurs, in the second of a 2-game home stand, get set to take on a short-handed Pacers team that's got the worst record in the #NBA#PorVida https://t.co/8JjJVTcHWf pic.twitter.com/7EqKVhnWij

— Hector Ledesma (@HectorLedesmaTV) March 21, 2026

Luke Kornet talks championship experience for young Spurs

A champion with the Boston Celtics in 2024, Kornet and Harrison Barnes are the only members of the Spurs rotation who have won NBA titles. ClutchPoints asked the 30-year-old center if he’s sharing any postseason words of wisdom with his young teammates.

“We spent a lot of time just building habits and really trying to know who we are and have an identity. I feel like we’ve really instilled that. And then you also know that you have to prepare yourself for certain situations, and there’s like some more fine detail type stuff that you can work on and address,” Kornet said. “You kind of see it in a certain extent in the back half of the season when teams are game planning and knowing what their best chances are and really trying to play to that every game.”

In other words, Kornet is letting the play and the camaraderie do the talking as the Spurs get set for the next level.

“I think there’s certainly the place where we’ve established ourselves in terms of what our identity is for the majority of our games,” Kornet continued to tell ClutchPoints. “There’s also some end-game execution or some finer detail type stuff that will hopefully allow for some versatility and the ability to execute when a single game can make or break where you’re at.”

The rest of the Spurs will find that out soon enough with the playoffs a week away.

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