Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama breaks silence on Minneapolis shootings

Two things mainly stick out from Wembanyama’s comments this morning. The first one is how he started his answer. “PR has tried, But I’m not going to sit here and give some politically correct answer.” Are teams or the NBA as a league encouraging players not to speak out against the recent shootings in Minneapolis, or at least not get into specifics of what’s going on?

Second, “I’m conscious of also saying everything that’s on my mind will have a cost that’s too great for me right now, so I’d rather not get into too many details.” Wembanyama has never been afraid to speak out, and he didn’t appear to hold back much here, but it was fascinating to think that he has that much more to say, but can’t for fear of the repercussions he or his brand will face as the future face of the NBA.

The league has not seen a lot of players speak out thus far, but Tyrese Haliburton of the Indiana Pacers and Guerschon Yabusele of the New York Knicks were among the players who have spoken out.

Now in this third year in the NBA, Victor Wembanyama has dominated in limited time. Through his first 32 games played, Wembanyama is only averaging 28.9 minutes per game as he manages his recent injury history. But in nearly five fewer minutes per game this season, his numbers are nearly identical to what he was averaging last season.

At 31-15, the Spurs are currently tied with the Denver Nuggets for the second seed in the Western Conference and trail only the Oklahoma City Thunder, who boast a record of 37-10.