It almost felt like this game was cursed right from the jump. Players were heading to the locker room left and right, the Spurs couldn’t get anything going, and the game felt like it was quickly slipping out of everyone’s reach. It was bad. I wanted to call it and send everyone home before a giant tunnel caved in at mid-court.
The parade of injuries was truly almost comical (heavy emphasis on “almost”). You had every type of misfortune thrown your way: innocuous run-ins leading to dead-arm shoulders, non-contact steps leading directly to heavy limps, and even some scary falls slipped in for good measure. Then, obviously, there was the specter of a Wembanyama injury crisis hovering over everything. Look, every time Victor is on the injury report, you sort of have to not look too closely so panic doesn’t set in. Missing one game? They’re probably just resting him. Two games? Well, you know, we must be cautious. Leaving his first game back after, like, two minutes and holding his back the way I do after getting up from the couch too quickly? It’s not exactly a crisis, but the warning light on the dashboard has officially come on.
I’m glad he came back into the game. It was fun to watch him ball out, and I’d always rather be watching him than not. I almost wish he hadn’t, though, because for some reason I found it hard to shake this air of uneasiness about the situation all night. It was like I had seen a ghost or something. Maybe it’s just that watching him shuffle into the locker room in the first quarter was a stark reminder of how fragile the dream really is. You want a guy like him on your roster, and once you have him, you want your franchise to build around him. You want the chips on the table, and you want the plan centered on maximizing the good times you get from a generational talent landing in your lap. The Spurs are doing everything right, and Victor seems to be as sure a thing as you can get in this league, and yet… even a “sure thing” isn’t a guarantee of anything at all.
I know I shouldn’t be focusing on this. It was a fun win, Victor looked fine once he returned to the action, and everything is cool. It’s just that one need look no further than the extremely depleted New Orleans Pelicans across the way for a reminder of how bad this can go when you draft a “sure thing” franchise savior with the number one overall pick. I remember watching Zion Williamson raining threes all over the Spurs as a rookie one night and penciling him and the Pels in for the brightest of futures. Five years and one All-Star appearance later, there’s serious talk about the Pelicans needing to shut everything down and rebuild again.
That’s… extreme. For, like, one million reasons, the Spurs are not the Pelicans, and Victor Wembanyama is not Zion Williamson. I’m just out here shouting ambiguous fears into the void because I spent what should have been a fun night watching the Spurs worrying about something that hasn’t happened and that I have no control over. Don’t be like me. If I’m so worried about Victor eventually getting hurt, I should probably spend more time actually enjoying his time on the court instead of mailing giant shipments of bubble wrap to the Victory Capital Performance Center.
The Spurs are on the right track and everything is going to be fine. I very much need to relax.
### **Takeaways:**
* The Chris Paul thing was very cool. Maybe I hadn’t been paying attention, but I had no idea this was imminent, and it was fun to realize, in the moment, that it could happen at any second. 12,092 is so many assists. It’s truly hard to fathom how long he’s been doing his thing at this level. The fact that the crowd was trying to give him a standing ovation during the timeout while he was busy yelling at people feels pretty on-brand for our guy as well. Congrats to Chris.
* Jeremy Sochan being back in the mix makes me extremely happy. Truly, the only real bummer of the season so far has been his hot start getting curtailed by injury. If you’re the type of person who watches him play and remains unimpressed because it doesn’t fit neatly into some obscure definition of what you want him to be, then, well, I’d like to politely invite you to attend the “Kick Rocks” party I’m throwing later this afternoon. He does everything. He fits everywhere. He plays with a level of joy and excitement that I wish every NBA player would aspire to. There’s no version of the Spurs that’s better without him on it.
* I would like to see a million more versions of this over the next decade, please.
* Probably not going to have another decade with CP3 on the roster, but while he’s here, would also take about a million more versions of this play please.
> W W [pic.twitter.com/AHbb73vDqo](https://t.co/AHbb73vDqo)
>
> — San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) [December 9, 2024](https://twitter.com/spurs/status/1865933485099143677?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
### **WWL Post Game Press Conference**
_\- You, uh, kinda spent a whole victory post bumming everyone out._
\- Yea, and I’m not proud of that. Here’s the thing thigh, I’ll give you a little peek behind the curtain. Sometimes you start writing these things before the game ends just to get ahead of schedule and, like, the way the first quarter was going I just basically had this thing mapped out already. The Spurs were in an injury crisis. They rushed Victor back. What if he’s hurt bad? What if he’s always hurt? What if his back is something that just can’t be fixed? etc, etc. I was like, halfway home with this column by the time he actually came back into the game and then the Spurs were fine and they actually just went ahead and won? So , you know, I did the best I could. Tried to salvage the work.
_\- You have to do what you have to do, I guess._
\- Most of the time you have a pretty good feel for the game and can kind of see where it’s going before it gets there. With this one? Well. I was a little off. I think I still stand by the sentiment though. The idea of Victor getting hurt scares the bejeezus out of me and if you are a Spurs fan who isn’t worried about that then you are a liar.
_\- Bumming people out and calling them liars. Banner night from you._
\- It is what it is.