Thunder vs. Spurs: Victor Wembanyama is laying eggs in the biggest game of his life

If the San Antonio Spurs can’t win two games in a row in the Western Conference finals trailing 3-2 to the Oklahoma City Thunder, Victor Wembanyama will regret his performance in Game 5 for a long time. This was the biggest game of his career and he netted 20 points and six rebounds on 4-of-15 shooting in a 127-114 loss. You only reached 20 points because you collected 12 free euros.

Six rebounds is no excuse for Wembanyama, a skyscraper of a person at 7-foot-4. The four buckets speak volumes for Wembanyama’s weaknesses — in more ways than one — as a 22-year-old who is still, as crazy as it sounds, in the infancy stage of his basketball development.

And here it is: Wembanyama still works evenly enough in the paint. It’s not really sad that a dude who can get close to the lane without lifting his feet off the floor has to play close to the basket, but it’s true nonetheless.

Sometimes Wembanyama goes down there, as it did in Games 1 and 4. Not a coincidence, those are the games won by Spurs in this series. And sometimes he doesn’t, as was the case in Games 2 and 3, and most painfully, Game 5 on Tuesday. If all you do is chart Wemby’s Game 1 (41 points, 24 art points) next to his Game 5 shooting chart (Tuesday night’s clunker), you already know which game the Spurs won and which they lost.

It’s been said that a great strength can also be a great weakness, and in this case, Wembanyama’s ability to play a skill- and all-too-common perimeter-based game that no one his size has been able to play, at least not yet, has clouded his offensive judgment as to where his true advantage lies.

The big goalscorers score according to their goals, in their areas, but Wembanyama does not have any strong names or spots yet. He is something of an offensive free agent, willing to listen to any defensive offer and accept any option that hits him at the moment.

That needs to change. And it will be. Wembanyama needs to create an offensive office — the places and images he goes to when it’s time to work. Not because the custodian broke some rule to allow it, but because he owned the property in the first place. This is Kevin Durant at the elbow. Luka Dončić or Houston James Harden go back. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander splits down the middle. Carmelo Anthony looking up. Stephen Curry who “screws it” when the off-ball move doesn’t work and just runs with the high pick 3 pull.

It is very clear in a game like the one on Tuesday night that if the situation is not playing in a certain way, Wembanyama cannot keep bending it to do his will. Defensively, he’s the best player in the world and he’s not even close. Offensively, he’s a jack of all trades but owns one. Paint needs to be his artistic point.

But understanding this need to set up and operate from a deeper perspective is only part of the equation. The other half has the physical strength to actually do it. That is a real weakness in Wemby’s game right now. Thunder coach Mark Daigneault has put Isaiah Hartenstein on himand the 250-pound Hartenstein just harasses him outside the court. In the first 19 minutes of Game 5, Wembanyama had two buckets and one double. He is 7-foot-4. That’s a guy who literally gets kicked out of the game.

There are different ways to rule in paint. Wembanyama is obviously a terrific roller, but he doesn’t do this often enough. He often sets up the puck and goes out to the 3-point line. Sometimes, he burns and simply acts as a floor spacer for the entire property.

If he tries to grab his elbow and attack downhill from there, he usually isn’t strong enough to hold his line to the basket. At certain points, he’ll have to resort to shooting balls from behind to try to get a rebound because his initial attack looked like, an extremely tight guy running into a brick wall.

After the Miami Heat lost the 2011 Finals to the Dallas Mavericks in a series where he was exposed, embarrassingly, for his inability, or unwillingness (or perhaps a combination of both) to punish Dallas by guarding him with small defenders in the post, LeBron James spent the summer working with Hakeem Olajuwon to improve his backbasket game. It took his reign to rise to another level in the coming years, and his goals are still increasing at the age of 41.

In general, the offense after the offense is not how the game is played today. Groups looking for vacancies. Wembanyama, as a 3-point threat, takes opposing centers out of the paint, which is good for separation. He will probably never be the guy who always plants himself on the block. You shouldn’t, actually.

But he needs to develop both strength and mentality to force his way into the paint when push comes to shove. Be it as a roller, looking up from deep pre-pass positioning (which requires more power to benefit), or simply attacking quickly with real intent before the defense stops, good things will happen even if it’s not Wembanyama who scores because of all the attention his presence in the paint. Like this:

There wasn’t enough offense like this from Wemby in Game 5. Post-ups. Symptoms. There weren’t enough rebounds, he only had one. You just can’t stress the obvious enough: This is the tallest guy on the court by a wide margin. Sure, it’s nice to be able to shoot 3s and show off your handle and pull up in any contest, but winning is even better.

And right now, this feels like the difference between the Spurs winning and losing this series. If Wembanyama plays in the pen, they win. If he doesn’t, they lose. This game was there for the taking. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander had another average night by his standards (32 points, yes, but only 7 on 19 shooting) and Jalen Williams and Ajay Mitchell didn’t even play.

The Spurs were between eight and seven minutes of play despite shooting 29% on 3 and killing themselves with out of control and, at times, direct airhead turns. In comparison, Wembanyama was not seen this season when the signing would have resulted in the Spurs returning home with a 3-2 lead and a chance to win the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks instead of a playoff finish.

But there is still room to be taken. It is not that Wembanyama has never strengthened himself internally. You do it about half the time. If Game 6 on Thursday is the right half for San Antonio, we might be looking at Game 7. At that point, throw everything out the window; anything can happen in one game.

Understand, this isn’t so much a criticism of Black as it is an opinion. The emergence of a star does not happen all at once. Wembanyama has risen at a rapid pace, but annoyingly, he is not at the level of the best players in the world, although his overall contribution warrants inclusion in that conversation.

But he is much better than on Tuesday, when he and the Spurs missed a good chance to take control of the series.