Sophomore debut grade: Wembanyama still struggling with major issue

The NBA was just shown a prime example of why preseason basketball is important. San Antonio lost to the Mavs 109-120. Everyone who played significant minutes during the exhibition looked comfortable.

Spurs fans knew Victor Wembanyama would be rusty in the season opener. He played in two preseason games and only played 17 minutes in one and 23 in the other. But that didn’t make watching the performance any easier to stomach.

The reason is the juxtaposition of the unabashed excitement leading up to the first game of the year and the disappointing performance from your star player that followed.

In 28 minutes, Wemby shot 5/18 from the field and 1/8 from three for 17 points. He shot 6/6 from the free throw line—an encouraging sign—and added nine rebounds, one assist, and one block. His nagging turnover issue reared its ugly head early on with four turnovers in the first half. However, he cleaned that up, finishing the game with the same four.

There’s no concern that Wembanyama won’t knock off the rust and start to look like the franchise player Spurs fans have grown to love, but this game was a poor showing. But, the bad shooting was somewhat expected, so the disappointment goes beyond the numbers.

Wembanyama did not bring a strong enough presence

From the beginning of the game, the Mavericks were the more physical team. That has little to do with the strength of the players, which is important to note because Dallas is the older team with players with fully developed bodies. It’s an effort and determination thing.

As much good as Wemby brings, he’s not perfect, and tonight he was not as demonstrative as he needed to be. Losing the ball around the rim with minimal contact on offense and allowing the opponent to take the ball from him on rebounds is not what you expect from a 7’4” alien.

The bigs for Dallas are strong, but Wembanyama’s length should negate much of that. He has to work on strengthening his hands to firmly catch passes and rebounds. The ball should be secure in his hands as soon as he touches it. Right now, he fumbles with the ball too much, and it affects his ability to make quick moves.

When he has to think too much about securing the ball, it slows him down, forcing him to think more rather than play off instinct. We saw several instances of hesitation from Wemby, and while some of it is just due to rust, some of it is also because he's not catching passes cleanly. He struggled with this issue last season, and it has to get cleaned up quickly.

The next matchup will be Saturday against the Houston Rockets, when Wemby will look to shake off more rust. He’ll need to bring a more firm presence against Alperen Sengun, and Coach Popovich is likely telling him that. That will be a grade for another day—he’s earned the one he’s getting for game one.

Grade: C-