Victor Wembanyama could not hold it together Saturday night, and that is exactly why the San Antonio Spurs are about to be a problem for the rest of the league.
The 7-foot-5 Frenchman broke down in tears the moment the buzzer sounded on the Spurs’ 111-103 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder in Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals. Cameras caught Wemby hugging every teammate he could find, then the coaching staff, then the equipment guys. Then he wiped his face and hugged some more.
“WEMBY CAN’T BELIEVE IT,” NBA Central posted alongside the clip. He could believe it. He had been chasing this moment since the day the Spurs drafted him first overall in 2023.
Wembanyama walked out of the building as Western Conference Finals MVP. He had 22 points and 7 rebounds in Game 7 against an Oklahoma City team that just won a championship 12 months ago. Across the seven-game series, he averaged 23.6 points, 9.7 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 3.3 blocks per game, outperforming Chet Holmgren on both ends of the floor by a margin that was hard to watch if you live in Oklahoma.
But he did not want to talk about himself.
“This Western Conference Finals MVP trophy doesn’t mean anything, but the fact that we’re a team. We’ve done it together,” Wembanyama said.
That answer is why the Spurs are different. Wembanyama has every right to make this about himself. He carries the franchise. He is the reason San Antonio is a draft destination, a free-agent destination and a national TV staple. He is the player everyone tunes in to watch. And the first thing he does after winning a Game 7 in the most hostile arena in the playoffs is hand the credit to seven other guys.
Some fans have given Wembanyama a hard time about his on-court emotions in the past. He was mocked for crying after a regular-season win over the Clippers in February. He responded by saying he would never apologize for the way he feels things. After Game 7, nobody is laughing. That same passion is what dragged the Spurs through two double-overtime games in this series and what kept them on script when the Thunder went on runs that would have buried lesser teams.
This is also a portrait of a player who knows how fragile success is. Wembanyama lost his entire 2024-25 season to a blood clot. He was the favorite for Defensive Player of the Year when the diagnosis came in. He missed the playoffs and watched his team lose in the play-in. He could have spent this whole season managing himself, taking nights off, playing it safe. He did the opposite. He treated every minute like he might never get another one.
Now he is four wins from a championship at 22 years old.
The New York Knicks are next. Jalen Brunson, Karl-Anthony Towns and Tom Thibodeau have a punch puncher’s chance to flip this thing. But the Spurs have something the Knicks do not have, and it is not just a 7-foot-5 unicorn. It is a 7-foot-5 unicorn who cries because his teammates mean that much to him.
Good luck guarding that.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
