Abbott Attempts to Milk Spurs Finals Ride
Despite His Own Losing Streak in Bexar
Capitol Inside
June 1, 2026
Governor Greg Abbott sought to capitalize on the San Antonio Spurs' magical run to the NBA finals on Sunday night when he post a photo on social media that showed him dunking the basketball over New York Governor Kathy Hochul in a packed arena with President Donald Trump cheering wildly from a seat on the court.
Abbott appears to be kicking Hochul in the head while she's falling toward the court in the picture that the governor generated with some AI app. Abbott is donning a Spurs jersey with the number 1 just like superstar player Victor Wembanyama does during the SA games. A scoreboard in the background shows the Spurs leading the New York Knicks 123-63 with four minutes left in the third quarter.
The governor threw up the photo on the night after the Spurs claimed a trip to the championship series with a 111-103 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. Wembanyama was the obvious choice for most valuable player in the OKC series. As a 22-year-old who's the tallest player in the pros in his third season in the National Basketball Association, Wembanyama is already being compared to the greats like Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Bill Russell. The experts agree that Wemby could be the best of all time before it's over - if he isn't already.
It wasn't clear if the subliminal message in the Abbott graphic was that he's the Wembanyama of politics - the greatest ever. Abbott typically bets some barbecue against some ribs or something like that in friendly wagers with governors from other red states when they have teams competing against teams from Texas.
But the Wemby impersonation post has potential for backlash that Abbott probably failed to anticipate in his jubilation about the Spurs' dispatching of last year's champs en route to the first finals that's gone through the Alamo City in a dozen years. The governor - for starters - has led a crusade to keep girls from having to compete against boys in sports in high schools and colleges. The picture of Abbott knocking the woman who leads the Empire State to the floor makes it appear like the governor has forgotten about his fears on the intermingling of the sexes on the basketball court or simply put them hold for the time being.
The blowout in the governor's imaginary Spurs-Knicks bout may remind some of the lopsided nature of the votes in the San Antonio area when Abbott has been on the losing side there in every race that he's run there against a Democrat since beating Democrat Wendy Davis by 1 point in his first bid for the state's top post in 2014.
Abbott received 81,424 votes in Bexar County in the primary election in March. Gina Hinojosa - an Austin state representative who's the Democratic nominee for governor this year - scored 118,306 votes in Bexar County in her first bid for statewide office. Hinojosa - to sum it up - had 36,882 more votes in Bexar County than the incumbent governor did in the primary election this year.
James Talarico - the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas - received 27,897 more votes in Bexar County than Abbott could muster there in March. Talarico reaped 109,321 votes in Bexar County with 57 percent in a primary fight with Jasmine Crockett. Attorney General Ken Paxton - the GOP's new Senate nominee - claimed 38,899 votes there compared to 43,044 for incumbent John Cornyn in the initial election. But the AG did better the second time around in the county where the SA Spurs are based when he beat the incumbent there with 39,886 votes in a primary runoff election last week.
Democrat Beto O'Rourke beat Abbott by 17 points in Bexar County with 58 percent of the vote in the governor's race in 2022. Democrat Kamala Harris spanked Trump by 10 points in the Texas county that's anchored by the Alamo City.
O'Rourke crushed Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz by 20 points in Bexar County with 59 percent of the vote there in the race at the top of the Texas ballot in 2018. Democrat Lupe Valdez clipped by Abbott by a half-dozen points in Bexar County that year.
It might be an understatement to say that the Texas governor is no fan favorite in San Antonio despite the attempt to milk some of the attention in which a Spurs team that's exceeded the wildest expectations has been flooded during the past two days.
But Abbott and the Republicans here have been on the lookout for ways to take the attention away from the affordability crisis, record gas prices, a stagnant Iran war, a historically unpopular president, his ballroom and Freedom concert collapse and U.S. Senate nominee that the Texas governor refused to support in the primary election or runoff.
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