Victor Wembanyama disappeared too often when it mattered most as he watched his second NBA season fall short of the sport’s ultimate prize. That’s not a criticism. It’s reality. Remarkable reality, in fact, when one considers that the 7-foot-4 future of the league is perhaps the most captivating player to ever step onto a court given his otherworldly dimensions and skill set. Turn on any San Antonio Spurs game and eyes become affixed to the two-way standout who moves with unrivaled grace given his measurements.
So it’s perplexing that he was unable to affect the outcome of three narrow losses that ultimately doomed the Spurs and lifted the New York Knicks to their first championship in 53 years. Wembanyama committed a crucial turnover and missed a potential game-winner in Game 2 and found himself outside the center of the frame late in Games 4 and 5. His long arms and usual deterrence were of no concern as Jalen Brunson cemented his place atop the pantheon of Big Apple greats with a steely, tough-as-nails performance.
Wembanyama’s response to the sophomore-year setback may leave something to be desired. He didn’t shake hands with the victorious Knicks and dropped the microphone in his media availability with a “see y’all never” line. It’s always hard to tell how much people really care about these types of things as they are usually quickly forgotten. Still, it closed the book on a month where Wembanyama lived a tremendous amount of NBA life.
San Antonio was not supposed to be in the NBA Finals. They weren’t really supposed to offer a serious challenge to the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder. But Wembanyama put the team on his back on both sides of the court to lift his team through the Western Conference Finals. Then came the premature proclamations that the league was his in perpetuity and that he’d used his impressive reach to lock the door on every other franchise’s championship dreams. Two straight home losses on the biggest stage dug a hole too deep to survive and his coronation was derailed.
What we learned about Wemby
Wembanyama is often called an alien but his career is now on a very human track—one traveled by hundreds of elite young players whose early taste of a championship turned bittersweet. He will not be following in the steps of Magic Johnson, who won Finals MVP in 1980 at the age of 20. He will not be following the paths of Kawhi Leonard and Tim Duncan, two Spurs who captured the same hardware during their age-22 seasons. Instead he can take solace in the fact that LeBron James lost his first Finals appearance at 22 in 2007 before rebounding to win four of the next nine tries. Or that Shaquille O’Neal faltered in the Finals at 22 in 1995 before winning four of his next five trips.
It’s worth pausing to realize that these are the names Wembanyama deserves to rubs elbows with in discussion. Barring injury, there is no reason to believe that he won’t have a similar run to the same generational dominance. He is ultimately chasing Michael Jordan, who posted a 6-0 record in Finals but took his own lumps breaking through the sharp-elbowed Boston Celtics and Detroit Pistons in the early stages of his career.
Reaction to Wemby’s NBA Finals loss
He gets all the flowers and praise when things go well. It also means that he’s on the hot seat and under the microscope when things fall apart. On Monday’s Get Up, the ESPN panel attempted to answer if his lack of maturity had been exposed over the past five games. Which is perhaps an unfair question, yet entirely expected as Wemby rides a timeless narrative arc of a sport’s next biggest thing forced to endure an early failure.
“He has shown he is not a finished product,” NBA insider Brian Windhorst said. “We saw a streak of immaturity that really came to the fore in this postseason. Some of his decisions were really hurtful to his team, including the flagrant fouls … We also saw a player who under the immense pressure didn’t have the offensive moves to go to. And he was self-critical of that, even more so when he answered questions in French, when you see the translations, he was self-critical of how much he needs to improve. I know that some of his comments came off as arrogant and I definitely thing there is a streak of arrogance in him as well but I think all in all, him talking about how much needs to improve and how much his shortcomings affected his team is the correct way to respond to how this series went.”
It will be fascinating to see how Wembanyama responds to getting so close to realizing his biggest dream only to have it slip away on the results of a handful of possessions. He deserves criticism for not playing up to his potential yet some are going to go embarrassingly far in placing blame at his feet. Either way, the noise will be loud and the harsh truth of rings culture is that he cannot fully answer the critics until the next time he’s in the Finals. With the Thunder still in the West, it will not be a cakewalk to return.
So will this be one of his precious golden opportunities gone by the wayside creating a prolonged “what if” period for Wembanyama? Or will it be his animating moment, the scar that heals in the shape of multiple NBA crowns in a Hall of Fame career? We’ve learned a ton about the face of the league in a few short weeks. We’ve seen that face swell with pride and joy. We’ve seen it overcome with emotion and pained by coming up short.
We’re going to learn a lot more on the heels of this roller coaster of highs and lows. It feels silly to bet on anything other than Wembanyama meeting the moments to come, armed with more experience and the knowledge of just how much it hurts to not finish the job. Something tells me he’s going to do everything in his power to follow through on his vow to never see the media again on the losing side of a Finals.
