The San Antonio Spurs 140-114 loss to the Oklahoma City Thunder marked the franchise's ninth defeat of 20+ points this season. The Thunder are who the Spurs want to be. But it'll take for San Antonio time to reach that point, Hall of Fame head coach Gregg Popovich said.

“It's been a good number of years to get where they are right now. It's the cycle of things. We were in that position for three decades and now we're starting over. And so we'll have to have the same patience and make good decisions in the draft,” Popovich said. “We don't want to skip any steps, we want to just do it the right way and have the people here that we want,” the longest tenured coach in NBA history revealed.

Similarities between the Spurs and Thunder

Oklahoma City boasts MVP candidate, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, the league's potential Most Improved Player in Jalen Williams and two-time Western Conference Rookie of the Month, Chet Holmgren. They are 25, 22 and 21 years old respectively and each was taken with a lottery pick.

It's the kind of youth that dominates the Silver and Black's roster. Victor Wembanyama is 20, albeit the most mature 20-year-old Popovich says he's ever been around. Keldon Johnson and Tre Jones are the oldest starters at 24.

A former Spurs executive has been the Thunder's main architect since 2007.

“[Sam Presti] has been fantastic, but it takes a while to get there. They’ve had a lot of good picks over a good number of years to get where they are now and it’s starting to show its benefits So, they’re doing a great job. Coach [Daigneault] has done a great job,” Popovich said. “They’ve stayed the course, been patient, added people every year and now they have a chance to do something special. So, they’ve done a wonderful job.”

The Spurs long road road back

But for their similarities, there are more stark differences right now between the two franchises that were big rivals for most of the 2010's.

OKC is 31-13, which is tied with the Minnesota Timberwolves for the best record in the West. At 8-36, the Spurs sport what's easily the worst record in the conference and the third worst mark in the league.

Throughout the season, Popovich has consistently talked about his role in the rebuild.

“It's on us to continue to demand, to hold people accountable, to teach. If you have 20 turnovers that result in 24 points for the opponent, you're probably going to have a tough time if you're a young team.”

“In our case, we're not a great shooting team so that makes that margin of error smaller so we have to be more perfect in transition defense, for instance,” Popovich continued. “Or we need to go good to great. We can't shoot contested shots. Now, we're going to, just like every team does but you're trying to limit [those kinds of shots].”

Wednesday night marked the Spurs sixth loss in their last seven games amid a season that's on track to be the franchise's worst in history.

“Whether we would've won the game tonight or lost the game makes no difference, it's the same procedure the next day,” Popovich said following the loss.

The ‘next day' is what San Antonio is focusing on these days – with an eye on the Thunder.