Victor Wembanyama's "immature" elbow still bothers critics, but he was his own enforcer

ESPN's Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon spent part of Tuesday morning's Hoop Collective going back through Victor Wembanyama's playoff run. The verdict was "streaks of immaturity," along with questions about his leadership and how the Spurs organization handled the fallout from his Game 4 ejection in Minnesota.

Five months past a Game 7 win in Oklahoma City and a trip to the Finals, and we're still talking about this with a ridiculous frame.

I'll concede a narrow point, but go no further. The ejection cost San Antonio a game. Wemby finished Game 4 with four points and four rebounds in 13 minutes, and the Silver and Black lost 114-109 without him on the floor. Nobody wants to see that happen again. But too many people are pretending we weren't watching teams abuse him, and I refuse to act like it wasn't happening.

Mitch Johnson already said what the elbow was actually about

Coach Johnson could have gone for some sort of cliche after the game about how you have to be mature and your team needs you, and while that's true, it wouldn't be honest. Instead, he called it like it was and told the media that Victor was getting hit on every play.

Johnson even went so far as to call it "disgusting" how little protection his star was receiving, outright saying Wemby would have to protect himself if the officials wouldn't do it. That's a head coach whose franchise player just torched a playoff game, choosing to defend the context rather than saving himself with a quick disavowal.

Mitch was criticized by some in the media for that, but again, it was honest. Spurs fans were beside themselves for much of that series and the playoffs as a whole because of the blatant physical attacks Wembanyama was forced to deal with without any acknowledgment from the refs. It was a large topic of conversation in the fan base.

Go back to the possession in question. As Wemby goes for an offensive board, Reid has his arm wrapped around Vic's thigh before Jaden McDaniels joins the fray with a push on his back. After the Alien secures the rebound anyway, McDaniels hits him in the head before grabbing the DPOY's left arm with both hands. All of this happened before the elbow on the same play, with no whistle.

Call a foul on any of those acts, and the elbow never happens. Don't poke the bear if you don't want the bear to eat your face, and hearing people cry about it afterward, completely ignoring the egregious provocations, is ridiculous.

The Spurs' handling it in-house isn't the same as ducking it

The leadership accusation truly bothers me more than anything else here because it assumes accountability only counts when it's performed for the masses. It's actually the opposite. Wembanyama had no enforcer on this roster. Nobody whose job was to make the next guy think twice about grabbing him.

Many of us come from an era where if you get hit, you hit back, and the reason was never about ego. If you don't defend yourself, the hits will never stop. San Antonio's French superstar had to be his own enforcer because nobody was coming to do it for him.

If it were one physical game where he overreacted, that's one thing. However, he was being beaten up for the entire series, and it didn't stop when they faced OKC in the next round. In Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Chet Holmgren looks down at Wemby's ankle at the free-throw line and then steps on it when Vic moved to go after the rebound.

The video had three million views. Wembanyama didn't react or retaliate, either. He just kept playing, despite how dangerous a play like that was. Funny how that part never makes the immaturity reel, though.

As an organization, the Spurs have never run their business based on public opinion, and they won't start now. This is the franchise that created a dynasty in San Antonio, cut bait with Kawhi Leonard, and handled Pop's succession with the utmost professionalism, to name a few.

They've earned the benefit of the doubt that whatever needed saying got said inside the building. The absence of a public apology is evidence of how they operate, not evidence that nothing happened.

Look what came next. Wembanyama put up 27 and 17 in a 126-97 Game 5 rout. He then declined to revisit the incident when reporters got to him, and his team won that series and won the next one in seven games, reaching the NBA Finals. That's not a locker room that lost faith in its leader. Those guys ride for him.

I'll take this version every time. Give me the 22-year-old who refuses to be bullied over the one who pleads with officials for seven games and gets shoved around anyway. He'll learn to pick his spot, but he already knows how to stand up for himself, and that's an absolute win.

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