Victor Wembanyama’s playoff run has been picked apart from every angle, but the latest criticism is missing the bigger picture. ESPN’s Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon revisited the Spurs star’s postseason on Tuesday morning’s Hoop Collective, pointing to what they called “streaks of immaturity,” while also raising questions about his leadership and how San Antonio handled the fallout from his Game 4 ejection in Minnesota.
The ejection mattered. Wembanyama ended Game 4 with four points and four rebounds in 13 minutes, and the Spurs lost 114-109 without him on the floor.
That part is fair. But the play itself can’t be separated from everything that happened before the elbow, and that’s where the debate gets twisted.
On the possession in question, Wembanyama was fighting for an offensive rebound when Reid had his arm wrapped around Vic’s thigh. Jaden McDaniels then entered the play with a push on his back.
After Wemby still came down with the board, McDaniels hit him in the head and then grabbed the DPOY’s left arm with both hands. Only after all of that did the elbow come, and there was no whistle on any of it.
That context is exactly why coach Mitch Johnson’s response resonated with so many Spurs fans. He didn’t reach for the usual postgame boilerplate.
Instead, he said Wembanyama was getting hit on every play. Johnson even called it “disgusting” how little protection his star was receiving, and said Wemby would have to protect himself if the officials wouldn’t do it.
Some in the media took issue with that, but the criticism misses what Johnson was actually doing: telling the truth about what his team was seeing. For a long stretch of that series, Spurs fans were livid over the physical treatment Wembanyama absorbed without much acknowledgment from the officials.
The leadership talk is where this really goes off the rails. The idea seems to be that accountability only counts if it’s performed publicly.
In reality, teams handle plenty of hard conversations behind closed doors, and the Spurs have never been a franchise that runs its business for public applause. The belief here is simple: whatever needed to be said got said inside the building.
And there was no sign the group was shaken by what happened. Wembanyama followed the ejection by putting up 27 and 17 in a 126-97 Game 5 win.
He also declined to revisit the incident when reporters asked him about it. San Antonio went on to win that series, then won the next one in seven games to reach the NBA Finals.
That’s a pretty strong answer on its own.
The story didn’t stop in Minnesota, either. In Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals against Oklahoma City, Chet Holmgren looked down at Wembanyama’s ankle at the free-throw line and then stepped on it when Wemby moved to go after the rebound.
The video drew three million views, and Wembanyama didn’t react or retaliate. He just kept playing.
That part doesn’t make the “immaturity” reel, but it should be part of the conversation. Wembanyama was his own enforcer because nobody else was coming to do it for him. And after everything he took, the version that showed up in the playoffs - the one who stood up for himself instead of pleading for protection that never came - looked a lot more like a franchise centerpiece than a problem.
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This season offers San Antonio another chance to chip away at that gap, with three meetings left on the schedule against a Lakers roster that looks different than the one fans have grown used to seeing. The path is simple but demanding: the Spurs would need to take every one of those games to move ahead in the all-time series, which gives the remaining matchups a little extra weight beyond the usual Western Conference calendar dates. [Read more 🡒]
Spurs Need More From Carter Bryant At A Crucial Early Moment
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What the Spurs want now is a more assertive version of Bryant on offense, one who plays with confidence and makes quicker decisions when the ball finds him. The tools are there, and the defensive foundation gives San Antonio reason to keep leaning in, but this is also the sort of stretch when a young player can either start building trust or drift back into a supporting role. [Read more 🡒]