As the San Antonio Spurs continue to figure things out around Victor Wembanyama, the wins haven’t exactly been piling up. As of now, the Spurs are just 7-33 on the season and coming off a brutal loss to the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night. However, what’s more important is that they keep on building team chemistry around Wembanyama.
The 20-year-old Frenchman has been putting up some crazy stats this year, and perhaps more impressively, they weren’t even running plays for him through the early stretch of the season. But even now that they’re running things through him a bit more, they aren’t giving him too much structure.
After the Spurs’ loss to the Celtics, head coach Gregg Popovich emphasized a “loosely goosey” approach with Wembanyama, per Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated.
“You don’t want to take that out of him,” Popovich said. “I tried to do that a little bit with Manu [Ginóbili] and I learned my lesson. He taught me how to shut up and just let him play. Victor’s a little bit like that … he does things in the paint around the rim that I can’t teach him. Part of it’s his height and his agility, his spatial awareness. He does some amazing things, but he will spend time on the wing isolating. He brings it up on the break quite often. He’ll get posted. So his game is all encompassing.
While Popovich wants to help Wembanyama become the best player he possibly can be, he also understands the importance of allowing him the freedom to be himself on the court.
[lawrence-auto-related count=3]