Popovich on Victor Wembanyama checking himself in: ‘He is frustrated’

It’s been a rough season for the San Antonio Spurs. Despite the addition of rookie phenom Victor Wembanyama, the Spurs find themselves in the basement of the Western Conference. They’ve lost four games in a row and only have one win since the start of December, but they’ve been in some close games.

On Tuesday night, the Spurs found themselves in a close game against the Memphis Grizzlies. Unfortunately, Wembanyama is on a minutes restriction, but late in the game, the Spurs had a chance to win. The rookie decided to check himself back in even though he didn’t have any minutes left to play.

Head coach Gregg Popovich promptly sat him back down within a minute, and when asked about the incident, he said that Wembanyama is just “frustrated” with the minutes restriction.
“Definitely he is frustrated with the minutes’ restriction, but he’s also intelligent enough to understand long-term is what we are interested in,” Popovich said via Tom Osborn of the San Antonio Express-News.

San Antonio ended up losing the game by a score of 106-98, but Wembanyama put up some impressive numbers. He ended the game with 20 points, seven rebounds, one assist, and four blocks while shooting 8-of-16 from the floor and 2-of-5 from distance in 26:04 of action.

The following game, the Spurs battled the Milwaukee Bucks, and Wembanyama got a chance to save some minutes for the end of the game. Unfortunately, the Spurs once again fell short.

Wembanyama’s long-term health needs to take top priority, but in the meantime, it seems unlikely that the rookie’s frustration will subside.