On the court, Victor Wembanyama has rarely looked louder. Off it, almost five months on from the Finals defeat to the New York Knicks, he still will not say a word about it.
The 22-year-old poured in a season-high 43 points on a career-high 34 shots in a 121-111 win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on 31 October, adding seven rebounds, six blocks and four assists as the San Antonio Spurs stretched their run to four straight after an 0-2 start.
Away from the floor he is giving the opposite answer.
French reporter Maxime Aubin, speaking on HoopsHype’s Around the Beat about his conversations with Wembanyama’s camp, said the Spurs star has not been willing to revisit the series.
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“I talked to his people, to his agents, and they said basically he does not want to talk about the finals,” Aubin said, in comments relayed by Sportando. “From what I understand now, this is still something that hurts him, what happened in the finals.”
The Game 4 collapse that still lingers
San Antonio lost the Finals 4-1 and were in command for long stretches before letting the series slip. Across the five games Wembanyama averaged 26 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.6 blocks, but the moment that still sits over the summer is Game 4: the Spurs led by 29, were run down in the second half and lost 107-106.
In his only extensive comments on the defeat, after Game 5 at the Frost Bank Center on 14 June, Wembanyama called it the biggest lesson of his career.
“It’s painful, but I’m not running away from that. I’m using that to fuel me,” he said at his postgame press conference, via Eurohoops.
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That was then. In Aubin’s reporting, the sense now is that Wembanyama has not wanted to say more.
43 points, six blocks, no words
The fuel, at least, is visible. The 43-point night against Minnesota made Wembanyama the first Spurs player since David Robinson in 1996 to post at least 40 points and five blocks in a game, and the first player anywhere in the NBA to do it since Joel Embiid in 2022.
Teammate Dylan Harper, speaking to reporters after the Timberwolves win in comments carried by Yahoo Sports, had a shorter description of what that looks like from the other end of the floor.
“He’s just so dominant. I feel like he goes out there and when he puts his imprint on the game, he’s unstoppable,” Harper said.
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Head coach Mitch Johnson credited the screening and the pull Wembanyama creates when he commits to opening the floor for Harper and the Spurs’ guards, pointing to the gravity he puts on defences.
Wembanyama’s own explanation for how he picks his spots, delivered in the same postgame setting, was shorter still.
“The brain, after playing so many games now in the NBA, knows what kind of game to go toward to have fun,” he said.
Over his last three games he has averaged 28.0 points, 10.7 rebounds, 3.0 assists and 4.2 blocks, with San Antonio sitting at 4-2.
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