Just don't say “minutes restriction”

Victor Wembanyama discusses the potential for a ramp-up in playing time to start the year; plus, a look at the topic of club options being exercised.

Victor Wembanyama is nothing if not thorough and mostly honest during his dealings with us media types, and his availability following another long practice Monday — the Spurs have been regularly going well past the two-hour mark — was yet another refreshing example of his willingness to participate in the game around microphones.

Playing time was a massive topic of conversation last season, as the then-rookie superstar expressed frustration at times over the minutes he received while his team often struggled mightily whenever he left the court. But in the quiet moments, whenever the post-game temperature had a chance to cool down a little, Victor always seemed to understand the long-term outlook.

This was always about the future, and utilizing the present to prepare for what comes later. Safely.

Now, despite his full participation in practices with nothing more than a few bumps and bruises suffered, and even though this team has been adamant about hitting the ground running rather than experimenting this season, the tea leaves suggest we may be looking at another semi-ramp-up situation.

Wembanyama appeared in only two of the team’s five games this preseason and didn’t even log 40 combined minutes in those contests. On Saturday, he played in the first half of San Antonio’s annual Silver & Black scrimmage in front of fans, then spent most of the second half in the locker room lifting weights and going through his meticulous workout regimen before reappearing toward the end of the festivities to interact with everyone who came out to watch.

So the obvious question was asked when Wemby sat down with us: After a long summer, a brief rest and a precautious preseason buildup, will there be a minutes restriction to begin the 2024-25 campaign?

“So, we don't really use the term minutes restriction, because we are just pushing my body to its limits. That's what we're doing, but we don't want to cross the limit to avoid injuries,” Victor said. “But this limit is going to increase every month, and every year. Toward the end of last season I could play more, and over my career it’s going to be something to really keep track of for my progression.

“So I'm not going to be playing 48 minutes a game, but if I could, I would want to for sure.”

It helps to put in perspective how rare it is for a player his age to operate as the primary option for his country in the Olympics. You never see it with Team USA — even LeBron James mostly rode the bench his first time around — and other international sides are almost always run by the old guard until the new wave of players is ready to take the mantle. That was not the case for Victor who, on top of everything else, has a body type that’s constantly managed under a microscope by his team.

So he’s essentially taking the path we see veteran stars take before the regular season begins: Get most of your work done in training and practice sessions, find your legs a little bit in the warmup minutes you do get, and just STAY HEALTHY. It’s a long season.

I had to follow up, though. How does Wembanyama know what his body’s limits exactly? What is the process like in identifying that magical number from night to night?

“It is a very interesting question for me. Basketball coaches, of course they would like us to be safe. They would like us to not push it too much because they want us to be available,” he responded “But the development coaches, like strength coaches for example, they want us to be the best. They want to push us, push us. But my view is that I have to err on (the side of caution). Because at the same time I don't want to get hurt, so I don't want to cross that limit.

“But also, I don't want to waste potential. So I want to be right there [on balance].”

And it’s clear this is what everyone else in Victor’s circle wants, too — as does an entire orbiting fan base that, much like the superstar it cheers, would prefer to never hear the phrase “minutes restriction” again either.

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Exercising some options

The Spurs announced Friday evening they’d picked up the fourth-year team options for Jeremy Sochan, Malaki Branham and Blake Wesley, as well as Victor Wembanyama’s third-year option (shocker).

For those unfamiliar with the ins and outs of league’s collective bargaining agreement, every player selected in the first round of the NBA Draft enters into a rookie-scale deal, which is guaranteed for the first two seasons. But each team possesses a club option for the third and fourth years of the contract, which must be exercised ahead of the respective seasons that precede the option years. That’s why you’re seeing this news essentially a year in advance. ¿Comprende?

Rookie-scale option stuff is mostly a formality, as it’s quite rare to see teams cut bait on young, developing, cheap assets. Whether they become an integral part of the team, trade bait or a roster casualty in the future, it’s always smart to keep your options open, especially when the price tag is as low as it is for late first-rounders.

Going forward, however, it may be interesting to monitor whether or not the league’s increasingly punitive luxury-tax restrictions force teams to think twice about blindly picking up options in the future. Are you clicking the ‘drop’ button if a guy has underperformed through two or three seasons (or is somehow otherwise just a pain in the ass), and eliminating his seven-figure hit from the payroll would save tens of millions in tax payments? Only time will tell, and that time is not now for San Antonio.

But what does loom as a reality for the Spurs is a potential roster crunch in the coming years, depending on draft-pick management and how they decide to negotiate with free agents. There will soon come a time when decisions must be made, and one of the obvious areas in question is the backcourt.

Tre Jones will be an unrestricted free agent after this season, Julian Champagnie and Sidy Cissoko have non-guaranteed deals, and Branham and Wesley will be extension-eligible next summer. Pair all this with Devin Vassell’s new contract kicking in, the arrival of Stephon Castle and potentially (though unlikely) four incoming first-round picks in June, and there’s no way around the fact there will be roster casualties.

So, if you hadn’t deduced it already, it’s a pretty big year for some of these guys.

Note: Monday was the deadline to extend all 2021 first-round picks still on their rookie-scale contracts. There are no such negotiations in San Antonio, however, because Josh Primo is no longer around.

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Riley Minix earns final Two-Way spot

Frankly, this pretty quickly seemed like it became a formality as well. Minix has been one of the guys whose praises have been sung throughout camp, and after his first couple of preseason games (along with a notable absence from the rotation in the final warmup) the volume got a little louder — even with his new coach.

“He's a young man that’s probably still pinching himself that he’s on an NBA team and doing what he’s doing, because it's probably not what he expected several years ago," Gregg Popovich said. “But he’s a tough young man, he’s intelligent, he learns, and he can shoot the basketball. He has become a pleasant surprise.

“I didn't know who the heck he was when he came in, but he made me notice.”

The Spurs have long preferred to have one of these specialty shooters in the building. Think about the likes of Matt Bonner, Dāvis Bertāns and Doug McDermott, among others. This week I even heard the sentence, ‘(Minix) is what they’d hoped Joe Wieskamp would be’ when Weezy was drafted a few years back. There’s a very long way to go before he reaches even Bertāns status, and let’s not even discuss the Bonner stratosphere, but going 4-for-7 shooting from beyond the 3-point line during preseason play a couple of months after some lights-out performances at the Las Vegas Summer League is a good place to start.

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