SAN ANTONIO — After holding his own against Los Angeles Lakers center Anthony Davis on Wednesday night at Frost Bank Center, 19-year-old San Antonio Spurs rookie Victor Wembanyama on Friday night shared the very same court with the only player for whom his over-the-top introduction to the NBA can be compared.
LeBron James had missed the Lakers’ 122-119 Wednesday night win with a left calf contusion, but he was ready to go on Friday. Thanks to the NBA’s “baseball series” scheduling that occasionally pits teams against one another twice in the same venue over three days, fans didn’t have to wait long for what was billed as a matchup of generational talents.
The fact LeBron is of one generation, Wembanyama of another, matters little to NBA fanatics. A sellout crowd was there to compare and contrast and so was an ESPN audience.
Davis didn’t play Friday because of a sore ankle and neither did fellow Lakers starters D’Angelo Russell and Cam Reddish. That served to accentuate the LeBron versus Wemby nature of what turned out to be a shocking outcome: A 129-114 victory for a Spurs team that had lost its previous 18 games.
Friday’s game didn’t produce many mano-a-mano moments for the two stars. The 6-foot-9 James is a perimeter player; Wembanyama is a 7-foot-4 forward-center.
Occasionally, though, their paths crossed, and one such meeting stood out.
Mostly behind 8-of-17 3-point shooting, the Spurs had raced to a 25-point lead midway through the second quarter. Spurs partisans, painfully aware of the team’s tendency to cede big leads in no time at all, looked downtrodden as the Lakers cut 16 points from that advantage with a little more than a minute left in the first half.
Then, a Spurs turnover produced an opportunity for James in the right corner, where he was closely guarded by Wembanyama.
James stepped back and rose for a 3-point attempt. Some 40,000 eyes focused intently on Wembanyama as he went full extension to impede the shot, released by James with just a little extra loft to clear his fingertips.
“Of course, yeah,” Wembanyama said when asked if he had felt the attention when he and James were isolated. “That was a very high arcing shot.”
James has faced plenty of long defenders in his 20 NBA seasons. He knew exactly what to do.
“I was trying to get his hands to go down a little bit because I know his wingspan and he’s able to block shots outside his comfort zone,” James said afterward. “I was trying to create a little more room and shoot a little bit higher and was able to knock it down.”
Nobody was surprised when the ball settled in the bottom of the net, San Antonio’s lead sliced to six points with 48 seconds left in the half.
Rarely has a six-point lead seemed smaller.
It was the type of play that typically disheartens teams going through the travails of a long losing streak. But halftime arrived shortly after and Spurs coach Gregg Popovich reminded his players how to attack the zone defense the Lakers had used during their second-quarter rally. This allowed them to reverse a season-long trend of getting badly outscored in third quarters. This time, they added four points to their lead.
“The worry you have with guys like LeBron and superstars in the league is when the fourth quarter comes around,” said San Spurs center Zach Collins, adapting to a role off the bench after starting the first 20 games. “That’s when they’re at their best. Like Pop said, LeBron is one of the best game managers of all time and, obviously, in the league right now.”
James had been an eyewitness to Wembanyama’s statistical gem against Davis on Wednesday, when the Spurs rookie scored 30 points, grabbed 13 rebounds and blocked six shots. That put him in an exclusive club of NBA rookies who have produced 30-10-6 games, joining David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Shaquille O’Neal, Hakeem Olajuwon and Chris Webber.
What James saw while sharing the court with Wemby on Friday reinforced his belief that the young Spur is bound for greatness.
“Nothing has changed from what I’ve already said about him previously,” James said. “He’s a special talent.”
Wembanyama has admitted to youthful adoration of James, which puts him among a huge majority of teenage basketball fans. Was he somewhat starstruck as he took the court for tipoff and saw James around the center court circle?
“Starstruck?” Wembanyama replied to his questioner. “I don’t know that word.”
A brief explanation later, Wemby denied seeing James differently than any opponent.
“I would have thought I would have felt some type of way,” Wembanyama said, “but on the court, I was just trying to win, trying to defend, trying to make the right play. So, no, I didn’t have any feelings about him.”
Mostly, what Wembanyama felt Friday was relief that the losing streak had ended and gratitude to Devin Vassell, whose career-high 36 points included key baskets that helped the Spurs blunt the Lakers’ rally in the second period.
“It seemed like everything (he shot) went in,” Wembanyama said of Vassell’s career night. “Sometimes, I think if he didn’t make those shots (the Lakers) would have made more runs, but he kept the lead for us. Of course, I wish it would have been over earlier, that streak. But it just shows character. We never put our heads down. We never gave up.
“We’re back now and I’m sure there are going to be many more in the future. I like that. The easy option would have been just to just give up, but nobody in that locker room has had that attitude. I’m glad we’ve got the group we have.”
The team had gotten together for a Thursday night dinner at a popular Italian restaurant, during which talk of basketball was forbidden, according to starting guard Malaki Branham.
“We had some good team bonding,” Wembanyama said of the dining out experience, “and now that we’ve got our eyes on the goal again, I’m sure that the spirit is going to be even better.”
The spirit that truly moves Wembanyama is winning, and when Friday’s victory was completed, nearly six weeks removed from the last time he experienced the feeling, he raised both arms over his head and grabbed Vassell for a meaningful hug.
“I’m addicted to winning,” Wembanyama said.
LeBron knows there’s no kicking that basketball jones.
(Photo of LeBron James and Victor Wembanyama: Andrew D. Bernstein / NBAE via Getty Images)
