The San Antonio Spurs lost to the Denver Nuggets 136-131 on Thursday night, despite Stephon Castle’s 30-point triple-double. The 21-year-old star guard had to carry more weight because the Spurs’ 7-foot-4 supernova Victor Wembanyama missed the game with ankle soreness.
Before the game, Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson said the team would “be mindful” of Wembanyama’s ankle and overall health. “This is something we view as very short-term,” he said, per ESPN. “It’s very much how he’s feeling versus risk of [the] bigger picture.”
The bigger picture is that Wembanyama makes the Spurs contenders for the foreseeable future, and the 22-year-old All-Star showed why yet again on Saturday.
Wembanyama returned for the Spurs’ 115-102 win over the Charlotte Hornets in San Antonio. Wemby was the best playmaker on the floor. He finished with 32 points on 13-of-24 shooting (5-of-10 from three), 12 rebounds, eight assists, four blocks, and two steals in 31 minutes.
In his postgame presser, Wembanyama was asked if he felt fully rested from having to miss the Nuggets game, to which he replied, “Yeah, for sure. The inflammation in my body is basically down everywhere, except in one place.” Wembanyama clarified that the one place where inflammation remains is his ankle, but he didn’t seem concerned.
Wembanyama is the odds-on favorite to win NBA Defensive Player of the Year and has the third-best odds to win league MVP, but he has to play in at least 65 regular-season games to remain eligible for end-of-season awards. So far, the 2023 No. 1 overall pick has played in 51 of the Spurs’ 67 games. San Antonio has 15 games remaining.
After the game, Johnson was asked during his presser how he manages Wemby’s long-term availability given his desire to reach the 65-game threshold.
“In my opinion, Victor has the longest list of things that he wants to do that he wants to do that are important to him, probably in the history of basketball,” Johnson said. “They all are important to me as well. There’s a lot that goes into that, and at times, we have to make tough decisions because, on that long list, there are still things that we prioritize and put at the top of the list. But that guy, I think, is gonna challenge us as long as we’re all here to continue to match that desire to keep checking those things off that list.”
Presumably, at the top of Wembanyama and the Spurs’ list is winning the franchise’s first Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy since 2014. Currently, the Spurs sit at 49-18, the second-best record in the NBA behind the 52-15 reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder. San Antonio is three games behind the Thunder for the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference.
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