For as good as San Antonio Spurs rookie Victory Wembanyama has been to begin his NBA career, the young big man hasn't had the smoothest of sailing. There was the minor kerfuffle over his minutes and playing time, but also more recent concerns that teammates were "icing out" Wembanyama from getting the ball on offense.
After the Spurs picked up their second straight win for the first time since early November, though, Wembanyama addressed the allegations that he was being frozen out of the offense.
In his post-game press conference, the rookie said,"There's no one on this team that doesn't want to pass me the ball".
The 20-year-old added and said that his past teammates in France had trouble getting the ball because he is a unicorn.
Victor Wembanyama addresses Spurs struggles to feed him on offense
While the French national has shown a lot of promise during his rookie season, Wembanyama hasn't been able to show his full potential as the team has struggled to get him the ball at times. San Antonio doesn't have a true point guard who can get Wembanyama the ball in the proper spots.
At least to the media, the rookie is making excuses for the team's lack of ability to get him the ball. Still, the team can find ways to improve the situation.
Now, the Spurs don't have the personnel to fix this problem on their current roster. Earlier in the season, San Antonio tried Jeremy Sochan at point guard but the team hasn't had any success with him running it. Gregg Popovich then turned to Tre Jones to run some point guard minutes, but that hasn't been a cure-all either, specifically for Wembanyama.
At the end of the day, it's clear that the Spurs will need to upgrade at the ball-handler spot in short order. Wembanyama has shown great promise this season but the team has limited his development in the short term. San Antonio needs to get a more polished point guard who has experience getting the ball to players like Wembanyama.
While Kristaps Porzingis is a different kind of player, the Spurs should look for guys who have had success getting the Celtics big man the ball. The team should either do that or find a way to get an elite veteran ball-handler. No matter what happens, it seems like this is a problem that the rookie will most likely need to get used to for the rest of the season.