Top overall pick Victor Wembanyama has played all over the field since San Antonio opened training camp.
VictorWembanyama’s position on the pitch will be difficult to determine due to his versatility.
SAN ANTONIO – San Antonio Spurs forward Victor Wembanyama made his debut Wednesday before the start of a season expected to be packed with players.“He arrived later than I expected,” he said.
“But at the end of the day, I’m happy that [Spurs coach Gregg Popovich] yelled at me.”Lost in all the new verbiage and information overload flooding the club’s sprawling new training facility, Wembanyama took part in his second training session at the training camp.
He found comfort in San Antonio’s refusal to impose limits on his play in 2023-24.“There are really no restrictions. In many set pieces it really depends on where you are.
I can be the leader just as I can be the winger. It does not matter.”Acknowledging the difficulty of dealing with so much that has been thrust upon him by a team, the rookie has now stressed that winning is as important this season as development was a year ago.
“What will come quickly is all the information, the new set, the principles,” Wembanyama said. “There are a lot of things I’ve never seen before and don’t know. It’s difficult.
You have to be focused when you’re on the pitch because if you lose concentration one second, you’re screwed in the next fifteen seconds.
The French phenom quickly learned how a lapse in concentration leads to the entire team running in line to sprint all over the pitch. Wembanyama revealed that he has not yet been responsible for Spurs’ further conditioning.
He is already getting a lot out of it mentally, as a result of the almost positionless style of play that Spurs want to implement, with the 19-year-old at centre.
Position less practicesPopovich said at Media Day on Monday that one of the “really interesting questions we have to answer in training camp” is how to use the No. 1 overall pick.
The roster is already brimming with versatility with the No. 1 pick. 2022 No. 9 overall pick Jeremy Sochan, 2020 first-round pick Devin Vassell and Keldon Johnson, the 29th pick of the 2019 NBA Draft.Wembanyama finds itself taking on some of their responsibilities and others in just two practice sessions.
“Obviously, sometimes I play the same role as [point guard] Tre Jones, sometimes the same as [center] Zach Collins, sometimes the same as [forward guard] Devin Vassell,” he said.
Wembanyama said the Spurs have refrained from “experimenting too much” with lineups during the first two days of camp, noting that now is really not the time for that. But veteran forward Doug McDermott provided a cryptic preview of what’s to come.
San Antonio opens the preseason Monday at Oklahoma City (8 ET, NBA TV).“It will be different,” McDermott said. “We have a lot of guys who are interchangeable. With Jeremy [Sochan], he has an unorthodox game where he can play the role of a power forward.
There’s Keldon [Johnson] and Devin [Vassell], who are both scorers, and then Zach [Collins], who can really assert himself as a five-man player. It will be really cool to see. We are working to ensure that everyone is in a different location. You will never know where we will be on the field.
Michael C. Wright is a senior writer for NBA.com. You can email him here, find his archives here, and follow him on Twitter. The opinions expressed on this site do not necessarily reflect those of the NBA, its clubs or Warner Bros. Discovery.
