Victor Wembanyama keeps rescuing the Spurs, but the shooting problem hanging over San Antonio isn’t going away.
That was on display Wednesday night against Dallas. With Wembanyama erupting, the game still stayed tighter than it should have because the Spurs simply could not find the bottom of the net from outside.
San Antonio finished 5-36 from three, and Wembanyama was 1-8 from deep himself. For a player dominating the way he is, his perimeter shot has been nearly absent this season.
That stands out.
The bigger issue is that this isn’t just one bad night. The Spurs are 24th in three-point shooting at 32.2%, a sharp drop from where they were last season.
They finished 15th from beyond the arc overall a year ago, then spent the last two and a half months as a top-five team. You would expect a young group to build on that.
Instead, the numbers are moving the wrong way.
And when you zoom out, the offense looks more ordinary than the raw ranking suggests. San Antonio’s 115.4 offensive rating is 10th in the league, but last season that same number would have landed 14th.
The league context has shifted, and offense across the NBA is down. Maybe defense is up.
Either way, 115.4 is about average in a 30-team league.
The Spurs are also doing enough to create clean looks. They rank ninth in the NBA in wide-open threes, defined as shots with 6+ feet of space. The problem is what happens next: they’re hitting just 37.3% of those, which ranks 17th.
Wembanyama shouldn’t have to carry that burden every night, even if he keeps looking like the player everyone expected. He was billed before the draft as the greatest prospect ever and possibly the greatest player of all time. He still has a long way to go before those claims are beyond debate, but he’s clearly on that path.
Still, this isn’t supposed to be a one-man show. San Antonio wants to win multiple championships, and that takes more than a superstar and a strong defense. On some nights Dylan Harper or De’Aaron Fox helps out in that department, and the defense is already there.
There are a few bright spots from deep. Julian Champagnie is shooting 42.3% from three, and Harrison Barnes is at 45.5%. But Barnes is averaging just 1.8 attempts per game in fewer than 11 minutes of playing time, if he gets on the floor at all.
The rest of the perimeter group has been shaky. Stephon Castle is at 39% from the field and 32.2% from three.
Devin Vassell is in a career-low slump at 37.2% from the field and 25.7% from deep. Keldon Johnson has dropped to 20% from three, and Carter Bryant is at 26.7%.
Castle is the only one of that group even close to the current league average of 34.7% from three, and he’s still below it despite taking the most threes on the team. That’s by design, too, because opponents are daring him to shoot and he hasn’t made them pay.
The lack of shooting hasn’t crushed San Antonio against teams like the Mavericks, Kings, and Jazz. It will be a much bigger problem against the Rockets and a healthy Timberwolves team.
For now, the Spurs are riding a six-game winning streak, and it can be viewed two ways: either Wembanyama is powering a defense that’s hard to crack, or the schedule hasn’t offered much resistance. The truth probably lives somewhere in the middle.
What’s clear is that the fix is easier said than done. “Just start making your shots” sounds simple, but if it were that easy, this wouldn’t be a problem.
Right now, Spurs fans can only hope this is a team-wide slump that passes soon. Otherwise, the Wembanyama show is headed for a disappointing ending.
In Other News...
Dylan Harper Said What Spurs Fans Are Starting To Believe About Wembanyama
Victor Wembanyamas latest night was the kind that forces even hardened NBA observers to stop and reset their expectations. He put up 52 points, 24 rebounds, eight blocks and two steals in 34 minutes, a line so rare it put him alongside Wilt Chamberlain as the only players to ever reach at least 50 points, 24 rebounds and eight blocks in a game. It also kept the Spurs rolling, pushing their winning streak to six and lifting them to 6-2.
For a young roster trying to find its identity, the bigger takeaway may be how quickly Wembanyama is turning awe into routine. Dylan Harper was among the teammates who came away sounding like fans, praising Wembanyamas dominance and drawing the Chamberlain comparison himself, which says plenty about the standard being set inside the locker room. The question now is less about whether Wembanyama can take over a game than how far San Antonio can ride nights like this while the rest of the league keeps trying to catch up. [Read more 🡒]
Wembanyama Is Putting Dallas Through The Exact Show Spurs Fans Dreamed Of
Victor Wembanyama made the Spurs matchup with Dallas feel like a showcase from the opening tip, and by halftime he had already piled up a line that looked more like a full game than a first half. The rookie center scored 29 points on 7-for-12 shooting and added 16 rebounds, two assists, three steals and six blocks, giving San Antonio exactly the kind of two-way dominance its fans have been imagining since he arrived.
The Mavericks tried to keep pace through Kyrie Irving, who had 17 points and four assists, but Wembanyama kept bending the game in San Antonios favor on both ends. For a Spurs team still building around its new centerpiece, nights like this are a reminder of how quickly he can change the tone of a game, and how uncomfortable he can make even a veteran opponent look when the matchup tilts his way. [Read more 🡒]
Wembanyamas Historic Night Still Left Him Frustrated With One Thing
Victor Wembanyama delivered the kind of performance that can reshape a game and a conversation at the same time, piling up a career-high 52 points with 24 rebounds and eight blocks to lift the Spurs past Dallas, 112-111. It was the sort of night San Antonio has been waiting to see from its franchise centerpiece, especially with the rest of the roster struggling to keep pace offensively while the Mavericks kept clawing back into it.
Even after all that, Wembanyama did not sound like a player fully satisfied with the finish. He pointed to a few late-game details he wanted back, including missed free throws and the way he handled some screen-setting sequences, a reminder that his standards are already set well beyond a box score that most players would celebrate for weeks. For the Spurs, the win mattered most, but the frustration attached to it may be just as telling about where their star thinks this group still has room to grow. [Read more 🡒]