For a young Spurs team, making a run to the NBA Finals and losing there \u2014 at times in heartbreaking fashion \u2014 was a lot to process. There were a couple of ways they needed to deal with that, something Victor Wembanyama touched on Monday at San Antonio Spurs media day.<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t imagine a better motivation,\u201d Wembanyama said of losing to the New York Knicks in five games \u2014 kind of the classic \u201cMamba mentality\u201d response.<\/p>\n
However, it\u2019s more than just motivational fuel the young Spurs need to process, and Wemby understands that. Getting together as a team this summer and working out in Houston \u2014 something De\u2019Aaron Fox put together \u2014 and in Paris, organized by Wembanyama, helped the team deal with a lot of emotions.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we have to go through some emotions, and you do some of that alone. But it\u2019s better to do it as a team,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cI take a lot of positive things of everything we did this summer. Just being together, honestly, it was amazing. Especially Paris for me, that was really touching, very emotional for me…<\/p>\n
“[Dealing with the loss] It\u2019s not over. It evolves with time, but I\u2019ve had a few sleepless nights, maybe not sleepless nights, but hard to find sleep sometimes… But there\u2019s just a point where you accept that you have to go through it and you have to feel all of it, and we don\u2019t want to hide from anything. So, we\u2019re gonna face these emotions. Face the reality that we have 100 games to play [to get back to the NBA Finals]. And this is the reality of it. We\u2019re in a great spot. We\u2019re very hopeful, very ambitious, and we\u2019re ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Here are some other things Wembanyama touched on during his media day press conference.<\/p>\n
On the Spurs being the hunted now, a team with Finals expectations: \u201cIt feels like we\u2019re in our place. It already felt like this last year when we were getting closer to the top of the conference. It feels normal. I would say it felt weird not being in that place in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n
On training this summer (along with teammate Harrison Barnes) with French rugby club Provence Rugby in Aix-en-Provence: \u201cIt was a great experience seeing the kind of team spirit they have over there. Very inspiring. The relationships between teammates, coaches and fans. It was so interesting for me. The training in itself was really hard. I think it was really good for the vestibular system and new movement patterns and new ways to develop strength as well. But honestly, I\u2019m more grateful for the experience in itself and how I was welcomed there. I\u2019ve never been welcome like this anywhere. I mean, I\u2019m not part of the team, and they treated me like I was.\u201d<\/p>\n
On dealing with his heightened level of international fame, something he said he wanted before he was drafted: \u201cIt is too much often, but it\u2019s fine. It\u2019s all of it. This is not what I work for, but this is a symbol of success to some extent. It\u2019s the part that I like the least about the Finals or the playoffs expedition in general. But it\u2019s a good sign. So yeah, I still want it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On him going from the young, rising player everybody loved to one that other fan bases don\u2019t like (because he\u2019s beating their team): \u201cWe\u2019re fighting for the top spot of the mountain, and we\u2019re gonna have to move people in our way. That\u2019s just the way it is. So, I take it as a great sign of respect as well…. Fans will love if you\u2019re on their team, and hate it if you\u2019re not. It\u2019s just the way people experience their own competitiveness. It\u2019s normal. I don\u2019t have nothing against it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For a young Spurs team, making a run to the NBA Finals and losing there \u2014 at times…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[82,84,83],"class_list":["post-450659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}