In the aftermath of an intense Christmas Day showdown against the New York Knicks, Victor Wembanyama dug deep to find an explanation for the defeat (final score: 117-114). According to Victor, the Knicks only won because his team started playing lazy and letting the opposition have their way.
“I don’t think it was a game about momentum,” said Victor. “I think it was a game about being dogs. When the clock starts going down, five minutes, three minutes, we let them get some rebounds on us. We let them move us a little too much. So that is what it was about. They didn’t win against us because they played better basketball. Not at all.”
As the first overall pick in 2023, there are high expectations for Victor’s career and he’s doing his best to live up to them. As a team, the Spurs are much improved from last season but at 15-15, they still have a long way to go before they can even come close to contending for a title.
Today, in Wembanyama’s first Christmas game ever, he played ridiculously well with 42 points, 18 rebounds, and 4 blocks on 16-31 shooting. But with everyone else on his team struggling to score, the Spurs were unable to win and Victor refused to give the Knicks credit for playing better basketball.
Naturally, Victor was heavily criticized on social media for his comments and fans were quick to condemn his post-game quote.
“They didn’t play better than us, they just did all the things on the court that we needed to do to win the game more than we did,” wrote one fan sarcastically.
Most fans can agree that Kicks just played better today, even if it was just in the final few minutes of the game. Wembanyama, however, doesn’t seem willing to acknowledge it.
“Well… I’m pretty sure that being dawgs, getting more rebounds at the end, and wrapping it up to get the win is playing better basketball,” posted one X user in response to Victor’s quote.
Someone even went so far as to call Wembanyama’s response “unprofessional” for a future face of the NBA.
“This is such an unprofessional response especially when the Spurs are a play-in team,” a fan explained.
To be fair to Wembanyama, the game was anyone’s to win down the stretch but due to good execution and consistent shot-making, the Knicks were able to do what the Spurs could not — execute in the clutch to win the game.
The hard truth for Victor is that his Spurs team isn’t experienced enough or talented enough to win games consistently and it makes sense that they took the loss tonight given how stacked the Knicks are at every position.
For most fans, Victor’s comments came across as salty, and many have started tagging him as a sore loser. Even now, with a clear lack of championship talent for the Spurs, Wembanyama wants to win every game and that’s a perfect reflection of his relentless motor and drive.
Victor will have his chance for revenge on Friday, December 27th against the Brooklyn Nets at Barclays Center at 7:30 PM EST. After that, they had to Minnesota for a game against the Timberwolves at Target Center (8:00 PM EST). Their last game of 2024 is against the Clippers, at home, at 7:00 PM EST.
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