Summer League’s underlying impact on 2025-26 Spurs could make big difference

In taking the reins of the franchise’s NBA Summer League team, San Antonio Spurs Director of Player Development Mike Noyes just went through a stretch he thinks can help the big club.

The Spurs coaching staff is in the midst of a major overhaul that starts at the top. Mitch Johnson replaces Hall-of-Famer Gregg Popovich permanently as the head coach. Sean Sweeney, who was with the Dallas Mavericks previously, has joined the club as the associate HC. Noyes is in the midst of his second season with the Spurs after having served as head coach of the summer squad for the first time.

“I know it’ll help me help Mitch this year as an assistant coach,” Noyes said of his experience. “It’s a very different perspective. There’s a lot more going on when you’re sitting one seat over, so it was really good for me.”

With a year in San Antonio, Noyes is already well versed in the Spurs culture. He often talked of the bigger picture during the summer team’s competitions in San Francisco, California and Las Vegas, Nevada.

“Of course, no, it’s been awesome,” Noyes responded when asked how much the ‘Spurs way’ affected his job on the bench this July.

Mike Noyes reflects on Spurs Summer League

The Silver and Black won four of their five games in Vegas after taking two of three in the Bay Area’s Cali Classic.

“I hope that we, as a staff, made the group better,” Noyes said. “And I told them, it’s hard to get better skill-wise over summer league, shooting wise, moves, all that. But, you can get smarter over summer league and you can get on the same page. I feel we accomplished that.”

San Antonio had a chance to advance to the NBA 2K26 All-Summer League playoffs in Nevada before a loss to the Charlotte Hornets dispatched them to a consolation game. Though a summer championship wasn’t the main goal, it proved disappointing for Noyes.

“I told the guys I could have been better, staff could have been better. Prepared-wise, I think we could have played better. We got a poor performance from a lot of people in our organization.”

Thanks to a victory vs. the Detroit Pistons in the finale for both, the Summer Spurs wrapped a productive three weeks of action that saw Dylan Harper impress, Carter Bryant play fantastic defense and David Jones Garcia earn a contract.