Trials and tribulations of trying to process a million things at once
There's a big payoff coming down the road for San Antonio if it plays its cards right. But for now the Spurs are taking things one moment at a time.
Victor Wembanyama emerged from the locker room to speak to the media more than an hour after he scored 29 points and recorded four blocks during his team’s 117-110 loss to Minnesota on Friday. He’d been lifting weights, which has always felt to me like an insane thing players do following a full, exercise-filled day that included a shootaround in the morning and a professional basketball game at night.
I still feel that’s the case, even understanding why they do it. But I’m not a pro athlete.
“We lift after every game because we need to take the full off day to recover since we play every two days, or every one day sometimes,” he said with a chuckle.
Despite beginning to prepare for this lifestyle last year in France, Wembanyama — or any other rookie, for that matter — isn’t used to this pace. It’s demanding and rigorous for everyone, but particularly for the youngest team in the league. And that’s before you factor in the component of having to work through the on-court growing pains against the best in the world every night while wearing a big red target on your back.
The grind must be constant in order to make it, and if that means working out after a workout after a workout, then so be it. The Spurs are dealing with about a million and one things right now anyway, so it’s not like there’s time for rest.
Gregg Popovich is still learning how to best utilize Wembanyama, all while Wembanyama is still learning how to do the little things talent alone doesn’t necessarily unlock; his teammates are still learning how to play around a guy who is being allowed to explore the space before yet fully understanding the space; Jeremy Sochan is still learning that playing point guard, all while being tasked with wreaking defensive havoc against scoring monsters like Anthony Edwards, is a job that will cause pain he can’t let get to his head; Keldon Johnson is still learning how to revert back to playing a secondary and tertiary role after being ‘The Guy’ for a full season; Zach Collins is trying to rediscover his 3-point shot, set up cutters and shooters with his passing, and find the angles near the rim in high-low actions with his frontcourt partner, all while playing the role of drop-coverage big man behind a struggling perimeter defense; and Devin Vassell is still learning how and when to be the new ‘The Guy’ in the midst of all of it.
“This team team right now is gonna be so different at game 30, at game 45 than we are now. We’re just figuring out Vic, Vic’s just figuring out us, we’re still figuring out Jeremy at point guard, KJ is still trying to figure out his rhythm with new guys. There’s so much going on right now,” Vassell said. “I’m patient, we’re patient as a group, but also want it at the same time. It’s a mutual thing.”
San Antonio came flying out of the gates during its first In-Season Tournament game against the ‘Wolves, getting ball- and player-movement untracked around an oddly colorful court that was somehow supposed to tie in to the 1968 World’s Fair theme for this season’s City Edition uniforms. It was, for them, a refreshing start considering what they’d just experienced during two blowout losses on the road this week.
But then, Minnesota’s 2-3 zone hit — slowly at first, but increasingly more brutally as the visitors realized it was working.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Corporate Knowledge to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.