The Spurs are in a weird place right now. They've exceeded expectations as a group, and Victor Wembanyama is playing out of his mind right now. He gets contributions from different players on a nightly basis, but the last two games raised questions about what the roster can achieve if they continue to bench their backup big men in big games.
San Antonio played against Portland three games ago and Charles Bassey played 18 minutes that night. He went 7/9 from the field, and it felt like he was solidifying himself as Wemby's substitute, only for Bassey to log a lowly six minutes in Philadelphia and none in New York.
To make matters worse, none of the backup bigs logged a single minute on Christmas, and that's a large indictment of a couple of guys who fans thought would be battling each other for minutes.
The Spurs need to trade for a backup big man
The Philadelphia 76ers lost Joel Embiid in the first half due to an ejection because he lost his temper with a referee. That may have something to do with Mitch Johnson's decision to leave the other big men on the bench. Andre Drummond only played six minutes, and the center position was manned by Guerschon Yabusele—an undersized big—for most of the night.
Interestingly enough, the Knicks aren't that large of a team either, but the difference between those teams is what they did on the offensive glass. New York had almost double the amount of offensive boards (17) as Philly had (9). There needed to be more size on the court to end possessions with a defensive rebound.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen, and the Knicks ended up shooting 17 more shots than the Spurs as a team. They are the third seed in the Eastern Conference, and San Antonio entered the night battling for a play-in spot. It was always going to be an uphill battle, but the climb is almost insurmountable if the team is going to give up almost 20 more attempts.
This issue was little more than a nuisance earlier in the season. Zach Collins was playing well offensively and was at least present on defense, but that feels like so long ago. His production dropped at a concerning rate, leading to his benching. Collins hasn't played a single minute since December 8. The first two games were missed due to injury, but not the last four.
Meanwhile, Sandro Mamukelashvili doesn't play unless it's garbage time on most nights. He can't seem to crack the rotation with any consistency. Mamu has been in the same role for years, telling everyone that the Spurs don't believe he can be a regular contributor right now.
The NBA trade rumor mill has been heating up recently, and the Spurs have had their names tossed around in several proposals for good players. De'Aaron Fox, Brandon Ingram, and Jonas Valanciunas, to name a few. The first two don't solve their backup big man problem, but Valanciunas would fix it immediately, and he would be much cheaper than the first two.
Jonas is 32 years old, but he's only making nine million this season and ten in the next two years. A little extra veteran leadership wouldn't hurt this team. If the team is overly concerned about the age pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction, maybe there's another option somewhere, but something needs to happen to add a big man who coaches can rely on to play consistent minutes.
The staff has gone from rarely playing Wembanyama over 30 minutes to playing him most of a game. He played 40 minutes on Christmas and 36 minutes in Philadelphia. That's fine when the Alien is on a heater like he was in New York, but that has to be the reason. It can't be because the backups are so bad the superstar has to play extended minutes.
The reigning Rookie of the Year was 5/8 in the fourth quarter on Christmas Day, but he didn't score in the last six minutes. It's hard to know whether he got tired, but he played all 12 minutes in the period. He's a very large individual, so it's probably not a stretch to assume fatigue may have played a factor in the lack of scoring after he couldn't be stopped for three and a half quarters.
Wemby has been on an unfathomable run lately, but the losses are still coming. The front office should see his spectacular play as a call to arms and add more talent to the roster to help with the winning he so passionately loves.
