Victor Wembanyama’s sophomore season with the San Antonio Spurs has been one of fits and starts.
Having already mastered numerous American idioms — his self-avowed favorite is “low key” — the reigning NBA Rookie of the Year, born and raised in France, likely won’t need The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms to understand his first month of the 2024-25 season has included “short, inconsistent and irregular intervals” of productive play.
Spurs coach Gregg Popovich made a point of lowering expectations for the start of Wembanyama’s second season even before it began.
Cognizant that the 20-year-old’s rigorous schedule of near-constant play for the previous 18 months — a full 2023 season with Metropolitans 92 in the French LNB Élite Pro A League; an NBA rookie season that culminated with his unanimous rookie honor; and, finally, weeks of practice and play with the silver medalist French national team in the 2024 Olympics in his native land — Popovich cautioned anyone willing to listen that it was going to take time for Wembanyama to re-establish the rhythm of NBA play.
“I don’t think he’ll be in great rhythm to start the season,” Popovich said after the Spurs completed a five-game preseason schedule in which the 7-foot-4 sensation played only twice.
Wembanyama agreed with the NBA’s all-time winningest coach but assured that the return of his rhythm wouldn’t take long once the regular season began.
Then the regular season arrived, but Wembanyama’s full rhythm didn’t. Through the first six games, he went 22 of 54 from the floor, including 4 of 21 on 3-point shots. After he scored a career-low six points in a 105-93 loss in Oklahoma City on Oct. 30, even casual Spurs observers questioned his shot selection to that point: 48 inside the arc, 41 beyond it.
Popovich, who is now recovering from a mild stroke he suffered on Nov. 2, was not among the distressed. After what would turn out to be his final game on the bench before the stroke, a win at Utah on Halloween night, the Hall of Fame coach made it clear Wembanyama had a green light to fire away from deep.
“He is more of a perimeter player than he is a post player,” Popovich said after Wembanyama followed that career-low night in Oklahoma City with a 25-point output, including 4 of 13 from 3-point range against the Jazz. “We want him to be able to do everything: isolate, shoot, do the whole deal.”
Wembanyama’s justification for his increased emphasis beyond the arc: “It’s just to play my game,” he said, “and my game involves shooting 3s too.”
Wembanyama’s teammates are foursquare supportive of that approach to his game.
After 8-of-16 3-point shooting was instrumental in the first 50-point game of the 20-year-old’s young career in a win over the Washington Wizards on Nov. 13, fellow long-range bomber Julian Champagnie, 38 of 111 on 3s this season, endorsed Wembanyama’s emulation of Steph Curry.
“We want him to shoot those shots,” Champagnie said. “(He’s) obviously a special, special player. It’s not always going to be by the paint for him. Teams are going to play him differently. Tonight was the three, 8 of 16. … If it’s 1 of 16 or 8 of 16 or 16 of 16, keep shooting them, because he’ll get them.
“He’s 7 foot 5, so there’s no closeout that’s going to get to him. So, keep shooting them.”
Despite Wembanyama’s height, be it his officially listed 7-3 or an informed estimation like Champagnie’s 7-5, many of the NBA’s teams appear to have a new defensive “book” on him that helps explain some of the inconsistent and irregular intervals he’s experienced. They treat him like the perimeter player Popovich insists he truly is, giving their best perimeter and most aggressive defenders the assignment to guard him.
Houston’s annoying defensive pest, Dillon Brooks, who is 6 foot 6, has become the template for frustrating the Spurs star. The Rockets are 2-1 against the Spurs with Wembanyama shooting just 23 percent (4 of 17) from beyond the arc in games in which Brooks has been his defensive menace.
LA Clippers coach Ty Lue even put 6-5 guard James Harden on Wemby for a few short stretches of a Nov. 4 game at Intuit Dome.
Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billips asked 6-7 Jerami Grant to guard Wembanyama on Nov. 7 and his aggression earned him an away-from-play technical foul after he twice pushed Wembanyama to the floor as the two wrestled for space in the paint before a play.
The Oklahoma City Thunder, missing injured Chet Holmgren in their second matchup against the Spurs, let 6-5 Alex Caruso do his best impression of Brooks for significant stretches of a Nov. 19 game.
It has been an adjustment, both for Wembanyama and his teammates, who have reacted to the aggressive attention Wembanyama is getting on the perimeter by leveraging the spacing it creates for them.
It helps that Wembanyama’s new teammates Harrison Barnes (43.9 percent) and Chris Paul (38.6 percent) are knocking down 3-pointers at a high rate, helping the Spurs go from 28th in 3-point percentage last season to 18th entering Tuesday’s game in Salt Lake City against the Jazz.
Wembanyama also has adjusted. Sitting at 22 percent from deep after his first six games, he has regained his 3-point mojo. Over his last eight games — he missed three with a badly bruised left knee — he has made 29 of 71 (40.8 percent) from long range.
“It’s less an individual thing than wanting to get our offense to progress,” Wembanyama said of making the long-range game a major part of his offensive repertoire. “Basketball is a game we have to play to have fun, and that comes with being aggressive and having good spacing and not hesitating.”
Mitch Johnson, who enters Tuesday’s game having guided the Spurs to seven wins in his 12 games as interim coach, appreciates the adjustments Wembanyama has made, especially his adapting to being hectored by smaller defenders. He appreciates Wembanyama’s occasional pump fake and dribble drive and jab step and stepback to get more room for his 3-pointers.
“He’s taken his time a little bit more,” Johnson said. “I think he’s been a little bit more decisive. There are times when, because of that type of defense, there’s going to be an initial level of resistance or physicality. When he plays through that, that’s where we’re getting a ton of opportunities. (The defenders) have no choice but to help.”
When defenders help, Wembanyama has been much better lately at finding open teammates. This was never more evident than in the fourth quarter of his return against the Golden State Warriors on Saturday after his week-long injury absence.
That win over the Western Conference leaders seemed like a microcosm of Wembanyama’s up-and-down season with the fourth quarter the distinctly up part after three miserable quarters.
Through the first three, Wembanyama missed 7 of 12 shots, including 5 of 7 3-point attempts. He grabbed only six rebounds, blocked but one shot and committed a team-high four turnovers.
Not surprisingly, the Spurs went to the fourth quarter trailing Golden State 81-71.
Wembanyama then played 10-plus minutes of the fourth. He made 4 of 9 shots (2 of 6 from 3), grabbed five rebounds, had five assists, blocked two shots, committed nary a turnover and led an aggressive Spurs defense that limited the Warriors to 13 points.
The result was a 104-94 win that put the Spurs at 9-8 on the season. They haven’t had a winning record so deep into a season since beginning the 2020-21 campaign 11-10.
Johnson figured Wembanyama would need a quarter or two to shake off some rust after sitting out the previous three games.
“Yeah, he’s had an off-and-on start, like we’ve all talked about for a few months now,” Johnson said afterward. “So, some of his stints (tonight) were probably a little shorter just to try to maximize his production and effort.
“But he was a grown man in the fourth quarter. Some of his rebounds, some of his catches, some of his passes, some of his simple stuff … that is a really big emphasis for him because he does these amazing things. It’s so natural that when he can command the fundamentals and dominate the fundamentals, he’s a load.”
Paul, the 39-year-old “Point God” whose presence has been instrumental in teaching the Spurs how to finish games, denies personal credit for Wembanyama’s recent surge in offensive efficiency. He has witnessed his young teammate’s dedication to improvement, including perfecting fundamentals.
“I wish you guys could see the work that goes in, day in and day out,” Paul said after Wembanyama went 6 of 12 from 3-point range, scored 34 points and grabbed 14 rebounds in a win over the Sacramento Kings on Nov. 11. “There’s things that happen in the game where we all see (his) growth, everybody on the team.
“So, it’s fun to see that. You know how talented he is, but (it’s) his will to want to get better; his will to want to work on things.”
The entire league saw Wembanyama’s will to improve during his rookie season, which he closed by averaging 25.8 points, 10.1 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 3.9 blocks in his final 10 games.
Should we expect the same progression from him this season? History suggests sophomore seasons often feature major improvements after players have adapted to the pace and physicality of the NBA.
But, asked if he had turned a corner after his early shooting struggles this season, Wembanyama denied the corner’s existence.
“That’s not how progression goes,” he said. “I’m not going to be shooting 66 percent in my career, but I’m also not going to be shooting 25 percent. So, this is how progression goes. We don’t want to overreact in one way or the other. It’s what else to expect. It’s just how a career goes.
“I’m very young. I’ve got 75 games in my career, so it’s got to be like that.”
For someone whose “fits-and-starts” season already includes a 50-point game and a second “5×5” that put him in an exclusive club with Hakeem Olajuwon and Andrei Kirilenko, that is a frightening prospect, though Wembanyama is sure to be the one who remains low key about it.
(Photo of Victor Wembanyama: Michael Gonzales / NBAE via Getty Images)
