Texas Gov Rips NY Counterpart as Loser
as Knicks Win Spurs Abbott Curse Claims
Capitol Inside
June 15, 2026
Governor Greg Abbott branded New York's Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul as a loser on Monday after she made fun of him on social media for trying to siphon some of the San Antonio Spurs' glory before the start of the NBA finals that the New York Knicks won in the Alamo City on Saturday night.
As countless Spurs fans and others accuse Abbott of jinxing the team with a picture that he created with AI and post several days before game one in SA, the Texas Republican leader took his anger out on his NY counterpart for mocking him after the Knicks claimed the championship in the fifth game.
"What a loser Hochul is," the Republican Texas governor snapped in a post on X. "During the Championship Playoffs it was announced that Texas ranks #1 for Fortune 500 HQs. A title once held by NY.
Unlike the Knicks title, Texas’s lead over New York in business and new jobs will continue… forever."
Abbott set himself up for embarrassment on the last day in May when he put up the image that showed him dunking the basketball for San Antonio in a game against the Knicks that the Spurs led by 60 points in the 3rd quarter. Abbott is wearing Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama's jersey with the number 1 as he flies through the air in his wheelchair for the stuff in a spectacular move that's knocking Hochul to the ground with her eyes closed. President Donald Trump, who claims to be Knicks fan, appears overjoyed with Abbott's heroics.
Hochul joked at the time that she thought Abbott opposed boys playing against girls in sports. After the Knicks seized the crown with comebacks in four games that San Antonio led by double digits, Hochul repost the Abbott artificial intelligence image under the line "Aged like milk."
San Antonio entered the finals as a substantial favorite after the team eliminated the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games. But four days after Abbott tried to crowd into the spotlight with them with the social media graphic, the Spurs lost the first two games of the series that were played on their home court at the Frost Bank Center. Speculation on an "Abbott curse" began to percolate before SA prevailed in game three at Madison Square Garden.
But the Spurs played like a team that had been jinxed - blowing double-digit leads in four of five games including the second contest at MSG where they up by 27 points at halftime before losing by 1. The buzz on the Spurs as a victim of an Abbott curse were inevitable after SA squandered a lead of 16 points in the do-or-die game five. The Spurs lost two games by a single point before NY put the season to rest with a four-point win on Saturday in an arena that was loaded with celebrities who came to town to cheer for the Knicks.
The photo that showed Abbott as Wembanyama's replacement wasn't Abbott publicity stunts that backfired during the weekend. The governor brought a live elephant on Friday to Houston where it urinated on the floor of the Texas GOP Convention and became the brunt of jokes from coast to coast before game 5 of the Spurs-Knicks series. The female elephant appeared scared when surrounded suddenly thousands of delegates who were cheering and snapping selfies. Abbott's elephant surprise has been condemned by Democrats and others as a blatant act of animal cruelty.
But after acting angrily to a dose of his own medicine with Hochul, Abbott ran the risk of setting himself up again with the attempt to one-up the New York governor with his bragging on the Fortune 500 ranking. She could counter by pointing out that New York ranks first in a long list of categories including the quality of public schools, global economics and financial clout. New York City was ranked as the number one destination in the United States in 2026 by TripAdvisor.
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