{"id":349574,"date":"2025-12-16T19:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T19:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/349574\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T19:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T19:52:09","slug":"victor-wembanyama-explains-how-spurs-way-of-basketball-outclassed-thunder-ahead-of-nba-cup-final","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/349574\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama explains how Spurs’ way of basketball outclassed Thunder ahead of NBA Cup Final"},"content":{"rendered":"

Long before they made it to the NBA, basketball fans and scouts compared Victor Wembanyama<\/a> to Chet Holmgren. One was the homegrown talent, and the other looked poised to take the league by storm from overseas, and they even faced off in international competitions.<\/a><\/p>\n

Fast forward to today, and while Holmgren holds bragging rights in terms of silverware, Wembanyama has separated himself from the rest of the pack in terms of being one of the best players in the world.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That’s why, after the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> handed the OKC Thunder their second loss of the season<\/a>, some thought that Wembanyama was taking a shot at Holmgren’s team.<\/p>\n

He claimed that the Spurs played ‘ethical basketball,’ which seemed like a jab at the Thunder<\/a>‘s alleged foul-baiting. That’s why, after stirring the pot, he had to clarify his comments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Victor Wembanyama explains his ‘ethical basketball’ comments<\/p>\n

\u201cIn modern basketball, we see a lot of brands of basketball that don\u2019t offer much variety in dangers they propose to the opponents. Lots of isolation ball and, sometimes, kind of forced basketball. We try to propose a brand of basketball that can be described as more old school sometimes; the Spurs way as well. So it\u2019s tactically more correct basketball, in my opinion,\u201d Wembanyama said, per Jared Weiss.<\/a><\/p>\n

Wembanyama has always taken pride in playing hard on both ends of the floor, getting to work, and letting his game do all the talking. That’s why watching him take shots at anyone, be it his arch rival, still seemed a bit out of character.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wembanyama knows the Spurs aren’t in OKC’s level yet<\/p>\n

Even so, the French superstar didn’t want to take anything away from the defending champions. While they beat them in the regular season, he knows that they still have plenty of work left to do to reach their level:<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re not quite there yet but it\u2019s a good sign that people see that it\u2019s possible,” The former No. 1 pick admitted<\/a>. “It\u2019s not like we\u2019re the second seed right now. I don\u2019t think anybody right now can claim to have a rivalry with them in the league. They\u2019re in their own tier, but in the future, provided that they stay just as good and we reach that level, of course it\u2019d be great to have a rivalry. I\u2019m very interested by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Thunder have only lost two games this season, but the Spurs also held their ground even when Wembanyama was out with an injury.<\/p>\n

Whether they’re ready to take them down in a seven-game series remains to be seen, but barring injuries, their matchups should be must-watch television for years to come.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long before they made it to the NBA, basketball fans and scouts compared Victor Wembanyama to Chet Holmgren.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349575,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-349574","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349574"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349574\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}