Spurs' Victor Wembanyama still working on conditioning, knows it's 'not an excuse'

Victor Wembanyama looked gassed when Gregg Popovich pulled him out of the game with 5:59 left in the fourth quarter of the Spurs' 120-109 opening night loss to the Mavericks on Thursday.

While Popovich was justified to sit his star player when the game was nearly out of reach, with the Mavs leading 111-90, he may have been forced to pull Wemby out of the game either way. 

The Frenchman visibly struggled with his conditioning after spending less than 40 minutes on the floor in two of San Antonio's five preseason games. After Thursday's opener, Wembanyama admitted that he was still finding his legs and was nowhere near his peak conditioning level.

"None of us really have played four games since [the] middle of the summer for me," Wembanyama said, via ESPN's Michael C. Wright. "It's a struggle. Every player in the NBA goes through it. Conditioning is not an excuse [for missed shots]. I'll have different weapons we need to know when to use. So, for the missed shots, it's more getting used to taking shots, getting used to again taking shots in a game."

One of the key markers of Wembanyama's poor conditioning was his lack of mobility on defense and inability to contest shots at the rim. After leading the NBA with an incredible 3.6 blocks per game as a rookie, the 7-foot-4 phenom had just the solitary block on Thursday when he rejected Dereck Lively II's layup attempt at the end of the first half. 

On the offensive end, Wembanyama finished with 17 points at a subpar clip of 5-of-18 mark from the field, going 1-of-8 from three-point range. He also committed an uncharacteristic four turnovers.

Despite the rough opener, Wemby sounded optimistic about working himself back into shape in "one or two games" and was thankful for "some good basketball moments" he shared on the court with his peers, including new teammate Chris Paul.

The Spurs will host the Rockets in their first home game on Saturday. Wemby will be matched with blossoming Rockets superstar Alperen Sengun, who had a monster stat line of 25 points and 18 rebounds in his team's season opener against Charlotte.