Victor Wembanyama said San Antonio's NBA Finals loss brought sleepless nights and hard emotions as the Spurs begin another title pursuit.
Victor Wembanyama opened his fourth NBA season Monday at San Antonio Spurs media day at the Victory Capital Performance Center, 107 days after the New York Knicks won the NBA Finals with a 94-90 victory in San Antonio.
New York took the series in five games. The Spurs led by as many as 29 points in Game 4 at Madison Square Garden and lost 107-106.
Wembanyama Still Processing NBA Finals Loss
Some of what came after, Wembanyama worked through alone. The rest was better done as a team.
"I can't answer that question because it's not over," Wembanyama said. "It evolves with time. But it's — I've had a few sleepless nights. Of course, maybe not sleepless nights, but hard to find sleep sometimes or hard emotions haunting sometimes. But there is just a point where you accept that you have to go through it and you have to feel all of it. And we don't want to hide from anything."
"So we're going to face these emotions, face the reality that we have 100 games to play and 100 plus," Wembanyama continued. "And this is the reality of it. We're in a great spot. We're very hopeful, very ambitious, and we're ready."
Wembanyama appeared in 22 of San Antonio's 23 playoff games. He averaged 23.8 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 3.5 blocks in 34.1 minutes per game, and his 239 total rebounds led all players in the postseason.
The Spurs beat the Portland Trail Blazers in five games, the Minnesota Timberwolves in six games, and the Oklahoma City Thunder in seven games. San Antonio closed out the defending champion Thunder in Game 7 on May 30 in Oklahoma City, and Wembanyama was named Western Conference finals MVP.
He "couldn't imagine a better motivation" for this season than the Finals loss, Wembanyama said.
The Finals were his second championship-game loss to New York in six months. The Knicks beat the Spurs 124-113 in the NBA Cup final in December. Before that, Wembanyama and France lost the 2024 Olympic gold-medal game to the United States in Paris.
Spurs Want No Less Than Top of Western Conference
Sitting near the top of the Western Conference feels normal to Wembanyama now. It already felt that way last season, as the Spurs closed in on the conference lead.
"We have some goals between us that we're going to keep between us as teammates," Wembanyama explained. "But we have some other goals that are obvious. We won the West last year. We don't want to do anything less this year. And we want to be the first seed. And we want to keep fighting for this top spot."
San Antonio went 62-20 in 2025-26 and finished second in the West. It was the franchise's first 60-win season since 2016-17. The Spurs went 12-6 in the 18 regular-season games Wembanyama missed.
Wembanyama averaged 25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 3.1 assists in 64 games. He led the league with 3.1 blocks per game for the third straight season.
In April, he became the first unanimous Defensive Player of the Year in league history. He also made All-NBA First Team and finished third in MVP voting. On July 10, he signed a five-year, $252 million rookie-scale extension that begins in 2027-28.
Over the summer, San Antonio added Tobias Harris on a two-year, $31 million contract and re-signed Julian Champagnie and Harrison Barnes.
Wembanyama Embraces Pressure That Comes With Contending
Going through a Finals run felt to Wembanyama like something of great magnitude. He understands that being near the top of the league also makes San Antonio a target.
"We're fighting for the top spot of the mountain and we're going to have to move people in our way," Wembanyama said. "That's just the way it is. So I take it as a great sign, a great sign of respect as well. I think for the majority of it, it's all a fair sport and fans will love if you're on their team and hate if you're not."
"It's just the way people experience their own competitiveness," Wembanyama added. "It's normal. I don't have nothing against it. I don't feel any sort of way against it."
Wembanyama Says Attention Can Be 'Too Much'
Attention is not what Wembanyama works for. Even so, he views it as one of the consequences of the Spurs' success.
"It is too much, often," Wembanyama said. "But it's fine, it's all part of it. This is not what I work for, but this is a symbol of success to some extent. So, yeah, it's the part I like the least about the finals or the playoffs expedition in general, but it's a good sign. So, yeah, I still want it."
Training camp opens Tuesday. The Spurs open the preseason Oct. 8 against the Atlanta Hawks at Frost Bank Center at 7 p.m. CT.
The regular season opens Oct. 20, when the Thunder visit Frost Bank Center at 8:30 p.m. CT on NBC in a rematch of the Western Conference finals. San Antonio plays at the Knicks on Christmas Day at 11 a.m. CT on ABC and ESPN. New York visits San Antonio on March 7.
