Victor Wembanyama couldn’t help but chuckle a little when he got T’d up during Tuesday night’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The San Antonio Spurs phenom got called for a technical for appearing to bounce the ball above his 7-foot-4 frame after he was called for a foul.
The 19-year-old, who finished with just eight points in the Spurs’ 123-87 blowout loss to the Thunder in an In-Season Tournament game, quickly apologized to referee JB DeRosa for his mistake.
Wembanyama clearly didn’t mean much by the show of frustration, but the officials called him for the infraction by the letter of the law.
“I understand this is how they’re taught to call a technical foul, but all he did was try to bounce the ball hard and it got away,” ESPN analyst Stan Van Gundy said on the broadcast of the game.
Spurs forward and former St. John’s star Julian Champagnie even cracked a smile as he saw the ball soar into the air after Wembanyama had bounced it a bit too hard.
But there weren’t many smiles on the San Antonio side when the final buzzer sounded as the Spurs lost their sixth straight, dropping to 3-8 on the season and 0-2 in the tournament.
Wembanyama was just 4-of-15 shooting from the floor, going 0-for-3 from 3-point range.
The Spurs became the second team to have three 30-point losses in their first 11 games, joining the 1990-91 Denver Nuggets.
“We’ve got a long-term vision,” Wembanyama said. “We’re not close, but we’re on the right path.”
The first-overall pick in the year’s draft did pull down a game-high 14 rebounds and made two blocks in the loss.
The French rookie also had an impressive slam dunk early in the first quarter when he went behind the back before using a sidestep move to get to the rim for a monster jam.
In his first 10 games before Tuesday’s game against OKC, Wembanyama averaged 19.7 points per game and 8.8 rebounds, along with 2.4 blocks.
His highest-scoring game this season came on Nov. 2 against the Phoenix Suns when he dropped 38 points and pulled down 10 rebounds in a Spurs win.
— with AP
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