I recommend reading this article. Basically it’s about last night post game, when wemby was late to the team bus & how the team accompanied him rather than isolating him. I don’t know if it’s already been posted so forgive me if it has.
https://www.expressnews.com/sports/spurs/article/victor-wembanyama-hits-rough-patch-spurs-pull-18479050.php
by RealLilUzi
7 Comments
Pay Wall unfortunately
NEW YORK —The team plane, fueled and ready at the airport, waited for the team bus. The team bus, engine idling outside Madison Square Garden, waited for its final passengers. It was late, and getting later, and the last person on the bus was going to be in trouble.
Even if the last person was a 7-foot-3 international sensation.
But only if he was alone.
If seven guys were last, together? Well, the way Devin Vassell figured it, the man in charge couldn’t yell at all of them. Like they say, safety in numbers.
So right there in the hallway by the locker room, Vassell and Keldon Johnson formulated a plan. Jeremy Sochan, Zach Collins, Tre Jones and Charles Bassey all nodded in agreement.
On this night, which already had been painful enough, the kid was not going to be last.
Not by himself, anyway.
“We don’t want him to be the only one still here,” Johnson said, watching Victor Wembanyama. “He’s saying goodbye to his mom.”
This is why Gregg Popovich doesn’t worry about losing them. This is why the Spurs don’t fear that blowouts like Wednesday’s, a 126-105 trouncing by the Knicks, will break them. This is why the jealousy and resentment that often loom as threats to rock bands and sports teams featuring a singular, set-apart superstar aren’t yet looming here.
As a vulnerable 19-year-old allowed himself to be wrapped up in his mother’s arms in that hallway Wednesday night, six NBA veterans did not leave him behind. They stood there watching her pull her son close, while she whispered words of encouragement in a language they did not understand. They watched him hug his father.
Then, when the kid was ready, the vets smiled and slapped him on the back, and they walked out of the arena together, toward the waiting bus. If Wembanyama was going to be in trouble, then so would they all.
Popovich was not watching this little scene of quiet solidarity. It wouldn’t have meant as much if he had been. But it represented exactly what he and the Spurs’ brain trust hoped would develop when they added the most hyped basketball prospect in generations.
They had to change some things for Wembanyama. They had to allow him a spotlight no other Spur receives, or has received. They had no choice. But they also trusted his teammates to understand all of this, and even to welcome it.
“Obviously, they can see that he’s going to be treated differently and more attention is going to be pointed toward him,” Popovich said. “But I think they have the character to understand that they don’t have to take that personally.”
It’s not that the Spurs took any of this for granted. Last week, a staffer talked about watching a Netflix documentary about the national-champion Florida Gators football teams led by Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. The scenes that stuck out, the staffer said, were the ones chronicling the locker-room tension stemming from so much outside focus on one player.
Ever since the Spurs won the NBA draft lottery last May, they’ve been conscious of precisely those perils. Would Wembanyama’s teammates, many of them established and productive pros in their own right, tire of answering questions about the rookie over and over and over and over again?
Would they see the special accommodations made for him to address large media throngs, at morning shootarounds for instance, and feel slighted? Would they think the kid receives too much credit when they win? Would they think he doesn’t get enough blame when they lose?
Would it be possible for him to just be one of the guys?
So far, the answer to that last one is a resounding yes. And the thing is, for this to work, Wembanyama does not need to emulate Tim Duncan, eschewing every interview, hiding from every camera, keeping every interesting piece of his personality behind closed doors.
But he also doesn’t have to be peak LeBron James, embracing every aspect of being the face and voice of the NBA right away.
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“He’s probably in between the two,” Popovich said. “I don’t see him in love with it, or running away from it.”
This, fittingly, also describes the Spurs’ approach to their new high profile. In no way are Popovich or his players enamored with their new status as one of the season’s biggest draws in every city they visit. But now that nobody is overlooking them, and that they’re getting opponents’ best shot most nights, they’re not shying away from that challenge, either.
“That’s what we want,” Johnson said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get better.”
During weeks like this, they realize just how much better they need to be. On Sunday, they blew a 22-point lead in an overtime loss to Toronto. On Monday, they were downright terrible in a 41-point beatdown in Indiana. Then against the Knicks, they were overwhelmed from the beginning again.
Throw all that together, and shouldn’t Wednesday have been the night when things started to boil over? Shouldn’t those “OV-ER-RAT-ED!” chants from the Madison Square Garden crowd sting the rookie in a way he hadn’t been stung before? Shouldn’t a humiliation on national television made his teammates wonder if all this hoopla was doing more harm than good?
Apparently not. Apparently, it was a reminder to Vassell and Johnson that they just needed to pull the kid closer, much like his mother did. Apparently, it was a chance to remind the rookie that the spotlight might be on him, but that they’re in this together, win or lose.
And when they finally made it to the waiting bus?
Nobody was in trouble, because there was safety in numbers.
The kid could get used to this.
Photo of Mike Finger
Written By
Mike Finger
In case anyone wants to read the article
NEW YORK —The team plane, fueled and ready at the airport, waited for the team bus. The team bus, engine idling outside Madison Square Garden, waited for its final passengers. It was late, and getting later, and the last person on the bus was going to be in trouble.
Even if the last person was a 7-foot-3 international sensation.
But only if he was alone.
If seven guys were last, together? Well, the way Devin Vassell figured it, the man in charge couldn’t yell at all of them. Like they say, safety in numbers.
So right there in the hallway by the locker room, Vassell and Keldon Johnson formulated a plan. Jeremy Sochan, Zach Collins, Tre Jones and Charles Bassey all nodded in agreement.
On this night, which already had been painful enough, the kid was not going to be last.
Not by himself, anyway.
“We don’t want him to be the only one still here,” Johnson said, watching Victor Wembanyama. “He’s saying goodbye to his mom.”
This is why Gregg Popovich doesn’t worry about losing them. This is why the Spurs don’t fear that blowouts like Wednesday’s, a 126-105 trouncing by the Knicks, will break them. This is why the jealousy and resentment that often loom as threats to rock bands and sports teams featuring a singular, set-apart superstar aren’t yet looming here.
As a vulnerable 19-year-old allowed himself to be wrapped up in his mother’s arms in that hallway Wednesday night, six NBA veterans did not leave him behind. They stood there watching her pull her son close, while she whispered words of encouragement in a language they did not understand. They watched him hug his father.
Then, when the kid was ready, the vets smiled and slapped him on the back, and they walked out of the arena together, toward the waiting bus. If Wembanyama was going to be in trouble, then so would they all.
Popovich was not watching this little scene of quiet solidarity. It wouldn’t have meant as much if he had been. But it represented exactly what he and the Spurs’ brain trust hoped would develop when they added the most hyped basketball prospect in generations.
They had to change some things for Wembanyama. They had to allow him a spotlight no other Spur receives, or has received. They had no choice. But they also trusted his teammates to understand all of this, and even to welcome it.
“Obviously, they can see that he’s going to be treated differently and more attention is going to be pointed toward him,” Popovich said. “But I think they have the character to understand that they don’t have to take that personally.”
It’s not that the Spurs took any of this for granted. Last week, a staffer talked about watching a Netflix documentary about the national-champion Florida Gators football teams led by Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. The scenes that stuck out, the staffer said, were the ones chronicling the locker-room tension stemming from so much outside focus on one player.
Ever since the Spurs won the NBA draft lottery last May, they’ve been conscious of precisely those perils. Would Wembanyama’s teammates, many of them established and productive pros in their own right, tire of answering questions about the rookie over and over and over and over again?
Would they see the special accommodations made for him to address large media throngs, at morning shootarounds for instance, and feel slighted? Would they think the kid receives too much credit when they win? Would they think he doesn’t get enough blame when they lose?
Would it be possible for him to just be one of the guys?
So far, the answer to that last one is a resounding yes. And the thing is, for this to work, Wembanyama does not need to emulate Tim Duncan, eschewing every interview, hiding from every camera, keeping every interesting piece of his personality behind closed doors.
But he also doesn’t have to be peak LeBron James, embracing every aspect of being the face and voice of the NBA right away.
“He’s probably in between the two,” Popovich said. “I don’t see him in love with it, or running away from it.”
This, fittingly, also describes the Spurs’ approach to their new high profile. In no way are Popovich or his players enamored with their new status as one of the season’s biggest draws in every city they visit. But now that nobody is overlooking them, and that they’re getting opponents’ best shot most nights, they’re not shying away from that challenge, either.
“That’s what we want,” Johnson said. “That’s the only way we’re going to get better.”
During weeks like this, they realize just how much better they need to be. On Sunday, they blew a 22-point lead in an overtime loss to Toronto. On Monday, they were downright terrible in a 41-point beatdown in Indiana. Then against the Knicks, they were overwhelmed from the beginning again.
Throw all that together, and shouldn’t Wednesday have been the night when things started to boil over? Shouldn’t those “OV-ER-RAT-ED!” chants from the Madison Square Garden crowd sting the rookie in a way he hadn’t been stung before? Shouldn’t a humiliation on national television made his teammates wonder if all this hoopla was doing more harm than good?
Apparently not. Apparently, it was a reminder to Vassell and Johnson that they just needed to pull the kid closer, much like his mother did. Apparently, it was a chance to remind the rookie that the spotlight might be on him, but that they’re in this together, win or lose.
And when they finally made it to the waiting bus?
Nobody was in trouble, because there was safety in numbers.
The kid could get used to this.
Beautiful… Thanks for sharing that.
It wasn’t behind a paywall for me.
I loved the story and how the guys stayed with him and understand with all the attention towards him mean they have to stick together even tighter.
I feel like a true vet would really help here too
Fuck. Yes. gsg