Wembanyama on the verge of shutting down erroneous preseason narrative

Victor Wembanyama is five games away from reaching the 65-game threshold, and knowing him, he'll be fighting the staff to play in every remaining contest this season. Observers entered the year with questions about his durability, and too many straight up predicted he wouldn't make it here, calling him injury-prone. Those people are dangerously close to eating those words.

Wembanyama hasn't come close to earning the "injury-prone" label

These people forgot that the French destroyer played in 70 games as a rookie. He could have played in more, but he was held out a few nights due to an overabundance of caution from San Antonio's organization. They, rightfully, wanted to ramp up his body for such a heavy load, as the NBA season is a long one and his frame rare.

A similar approach was taken this year as well. When he suffered a calf injury, there was no way the team staff would rush him back. They'd do the opposite to ensure he was completely clear of the possibility of re-injuring it. Vic was telling us he was ready well before we saw him back on the floor. That's the nature of the beast in SA.

From the beginning, he's expressed his desire to play in as many games as possible every year, but that's a back-and-forth fight with the franchise that will never end. The Spurs are notoriously cautious, and they emphasize extending the careers of their players as much as possible. They did it with the Big 3 of Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker, and they'll keep doing it.

A fake injury-prone narrative won't save the NBA from Wemby

In his second season, he'd only been ruled out six times before his DVT diagnosis. The Alien suited up for 46 of a possible 52 games, putting him on pace for about 73 appearances. Blood clots are not injuries and thus should not count as such in the imaginary tracker people seem to be keeping on his ailments.

Well, they need to start tracking his achievements because he's about to start stacking them up. Politics robbed him of Defensive Player of the Year as a rookie, and last year's health scare ruined his bid as a sophomore, but that's likely only added fuel to the raging fire that already existed in this kid's heart.

This year he's at the top of the ballot for both DPOY and MVP. The terrorizing has already begun as he's led the Spurs to nearly 60 wins for the first time in almost a decade, with blowouts happening left and right. This is still just the beginning. Wembanyama is still getting better, and he's going to be on that floor way more than he's not, so the league is just going to have to deal with it.