Wembanyama suffers from familiar issue vs Jokic in international big man clash

Spurs fans are looking forward to next season. The team improved by drafting Stephon Castle, adding Chris Paul in free agency and picking up Harrison Barnes in a trade that only required San Antonio to forfeit season tickets to Six Flags. It's been an exciting summer, and the anticipation for the NBA to resume action is mounting by the day. Thankfully, this is an Olympic year, giving us additional opportunities to see the big Frenchman take the court to represent his country.

Team France has played 4 exhibition games thus far; however, Victor Wembanyama missed the second game against Germany due to an illness. He resumed action in the team's most recent matchup versus reigning NBA MVP Nikola Jokic and his home country, Serbia. It was a highly anticipated matchup for fans, but Victor couldn't put his normal stamp on the game as his team fell into a trap Spurs fans are all too familiar with.

Team France failed to prioritize Wembanyama

This is Wemby's first summer playing with the Olympic team, so they will naturally have kinks to work out, but this wasn't that. They dropped the game to Serbia 79-67, allowing Jokic to pour in 20 points while grabbing 12 rebounds. France boasts a frontline of Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert, so you would think they could contain him better than that, but the Joker is a 3-time MVP for a reason.

They needed more offense to offset the performance of Serbia's monster, and Victor was the best man for the job. He walked on to their national team as the premier athlete on their team; making him a priority each game should be obvious. He only took eight shots during the game in almost 29 minutes of action—his most so far. Victor finished the game with 14 points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots.

He had 14 and 16 field goal attempts in his two previous games against Turkey and Germany. They won those games by a combined 74 points and Wembanyama played less than 20 minutes both times. Not force-feeding him the ball is basketball cruelty that every team he'll ever be a part of needs to resist. That shouldn't need to be said out loud.