Look at the San Antonio Spurs doing their part to properly sell the NBA. For a time there was a chance that Victor Wembanyama might be making his handful of NBA Summer League games in Sacramento and not during the league’s big event in Las Vegas.
The Spurs have decided that it is best to present Wembanyama on a grand stage, to a national audience. They have announced that he will not even be with the team in Sacramento. It will be Las Vegas where the generational prospect makes his summer NBA debut.
Gregg Popovich wryly grinning with a glass of red wine in Vegas, while the league’s premier summer show goes on without its biggest star would be a reasonable scenario. Although, maybe It should have been obvious that the Spurs were going to cooperate when the NBA advertised that the No. 1 and No. 2 overall picks will be playing against each other, on July 7, on national television.
During the Spurs’ glory years, especially in the early 2010s, Popovich did not hesitate to hold his stars out of games. Sometimes Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, and others wouldn’t even get on the plane to sit on the sidelines in street clothes for a nationally televised game.
Maybe the Spurs by themselves weren’t the biggest draw in the league even with their seemingly never-ending dominance. However, when matched up against juggernauts that the average sports fan enjoyed watching, styles make fights. It’s why the 2013 NBA Finals was one of the greatest postseason series ever played when the Miami Heat defeated the Spurs in seven games.
For many years the Spurs sold HEB grocery stores better than they did NBA basketball. The residents of the San Antonio area knew that Kawhi Leonard was a “fun guy,” way before the rest of the country would be able to recognize the sound of his voice.
Popovich being impossible in post-game and on-court interviews never bothered me. I enjoyed his Abbott and Costello act with the late Craig Sager. The press conference in which he was supposedly being “mean” to reporters, I thought that was livening up a monotonous routine. My only problem was with the resting of players.
Maybe he thought that it was funny to choose some of the most important regular-season games to do so, but I never liked that joke. As an NBA fan, I did appreciate the Spurs even if I wasn’t thrilled about watching them play against the Detroit Pistons in the 2005 NBA Finals. Any time that his top players didn’t take the TNT or ESPN stage was a bummer.
The league could get away with that in a more streamlined television market, but not today. A Vegas summer league with no Wembanyama would have hurt the entire league, Spurs included.
With all of this hype, Wembanyama could quickly become one of the league’s most popular players. A player capable of making the Spurs appointment television. His games last year against G-League Ignite and Scoot Henderson were aired on ESPN2 during the NFL season. In July, he will be on regular ESPN with the undivided attention of the sports world on him.
Keeping Wembanyama away from that is a joke that only Popovich would have enjoyed. Instead of him giggling in the stands at the Thomas and Mack Center, he, and the Spurs have decided to fully participate in the marketing of the league. On July 7, Wembanyama goes up against Brandon Miller. Two days later is Wembanyama vs. Scott II.
