{"id":477808,"date":"2026-02-13T17:48:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:48:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477808\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T17:48:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T17:48:07","slug":"spurs-victor-wembanyama-always-wants-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/477808\/","title":{"rendered":"Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama always wants to win"},"content":{"rendered":"

At All-Star weekend last year,\u00a0Victor Wembanyama<\/a>\u00a0was so serious about winning that he decided to find loopholes in the rules. He and then-San Antonio teammate Chris Paul were teamed up for the skills competition, thought they outsmarted it and wound up getting disqualified.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a great moment. But it was another example of how, to Wembanyama, winning is everything.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s already one of the faces of\u00a0the NBA<\/a>, already one of the faces of the game on a global stage, and this All-Star weekend in California might only raise his stock even higher \u2014 if that\u2019s even possible at this point. The Spurs\u2019 7-foot-4 center from France is going to be one of the stars on the international squad in this new\u00a0U.S. vs. the World format<\/a>, and Wembanyama is making clear that he\u2019s playing to win.<\/p>\n

Considering how most All-Star weekends have gone in recent years, the league might find that to be a refreshing change.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen the All-Star Game and obviously, it hasn\u2019t been competitive,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cAnd I\u2019ve always thought, myself, that if I was in there, I\u2019m never stepping onto the court to lose or not care. Just like at home, I\u2019m never stepping into a board game, not caring, thinking I\u2019m going to lose or thinking it\u2019s OK to lose.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is what might separate his approach from other All-Stars. He\u2019s serious about board games. In recent years, All-Star may as well have been a bored game. All dunks and 3-pointers, which the league grew to despise. Nobody expects players to bring a Game 7, NBA Finals approach to the All-Star Game, but Commissioner Adam Silver has long wanted players to simply take it just a little bit seriously.<\/p>\n

Spurs coach Mitch Johnson will lead one of the two U.S. teams in the All-Star mini-tournament, meaning he\u2019ll be coaching against Wembanyama in at least one game \u2014 possibly two if their respective squads get to the title game. He knows Wembanyama will play hard; that\u2019s a given. What that means, we\u2019ll all find out on Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there can be a level of competitive and playing hard that can strike a balance in a game like that, where it doesn\u2019t feel maybe like it\u2019s too unserious, I guess,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cAnd I don\u2019t know what that balance is and I think the players have to be the ones that set the tone in a situation like that and I think they also deserve the right \u2014 they\u2019ve earned the right \u2014 to set that tone, whatever that tone might be.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose guys are there during a break for everybody else, and they give a lot of time and a lot of sacrifice to be there. And I think they all are very, very deserving to be able to voice whatever they think that experience or weekend should look like.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spurs are coming into the break flying, winners of six straight and sitting No. 2 in the Western Conference. Playoffs should be on Wembanyama’s schedule for the first time, though he isn’t acting like the Spurs have locked anything up quite yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen everybody put in the work. I\u2019ve seen everybody sacrifice things, all different kind of things,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cSo, it’s very believable, but doesn\u2019t mean it was easy by any means.\u201d<\/p>\n

The All-Star Game is already missing some All-Star power, with Golden State\u2019s Stephen Curry and Oklahoma City\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander having been ruled out with injuries and Dallas’\u00a0Cooper Flagg set to miss Rising Stars<\/a>\u00a0as well. But for as big of names as those three are \u2014 Steph is Steph, SGA is the reigning MVP from the champion Thunder and Flagg is already must-see TV \u2014 it\u2019s easy to envision their absences just meaning more eyes on Wembanyama this weekend.<\/p>\n

Look at what he did against a Los Angeles Lakers team that was missing Luka Doncic, LeBron James and Austin Reaves, among others, earlier this week: 25 points in the first quarter, 37 in the first half, finished with 40 because he barely played in the second half in a San Antonio rout.<\/p>\n

It was classic Wemby, in a way. He didn\u2019t care that the Lakers\u2019 best players weren\u2019t out there. It was a game, and in his mind, you always play games to win. It\u2019ll be the same approach on Sunday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be out there,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cMight as well win.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At All-Star weekend last year,\u00a0Victor Wembanyama\u00a0was so serious about winning that he decided to find loopholes in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":477809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[58195,3979,64,63,590,44,12837,243078,85,3370],"class_list":{"0":"post-477808","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-app-sports","9":"tag-associated-press","10":"tag-au","11":"tag-australia","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-san-antonio","15":"tag-san-antonio-what-you-need-to-know","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=477808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/477808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/477809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=477808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=477808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=477808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}