In an effort to preserve Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs are expected to play him fewer and fewer minutes each season. Fortunately, they've long since planned for it.
The San Antonio Spurs, much to their credit, have gone out of their way to make Victor Wembanyama last. Granted, he's only 22 years old and has no real injury history, but the Spurs would rather play him less and keep it that way.
Wembanyama is one of the most game-breaking players in NBA history, so the idea of keeping him on the floor for 40 or more minutes per game has to be enticing. There were times earlier in his career when, as soon as he stepped off the floor, the Spurs would collapse. San Antonio simply didn't have a good enough backup center to stay competitive.
With the addition of Luke Kornet, though, the Spurs have a steady hand coming off the bench. Granted, Kornet disappeared in the NBA Finals, but his larger body of work points to him being a capable backup.
The rest of the bench is just as strong.
Spurs Boast One of NBA's Best Benches
Looking at the players on the Spurs' bench, it's pretty clear they all pass the eye test. Julian Champagnie, Dylan Harper, Keldon Johnson, and even Luke Kornet and Harrison Barnes might be starters on other teams. Instead, the Spurs have all of them as luxuries.
Devon Birdsong's graph above measures Player Impact Estimate and Defensive Box Plus/Minus. PIE looks at a player's full body of work compared to the number of events (points, rebounds, steals, etc) that happen in a given game. DPM measures the amount of points saved compared to a league-average defender.
All of the Spurs' major bench pieces are above-average in at least one of those categories. Kornet, Harper, Champagnie, and Barnes are all above the diagonal red line, which is a rough estimate of how well-rounded they are.
Johnson, meanwhile, hovers around average on defense and is slightly better than average on offense. Next season, he will be fourth or fifth on the wing depth chart, so his being "around average" is actually incredible.
Bryant, meanwhile, lags behind, but he's only a second-year player coming off a season where he saw limited minutes.
So how does this apply to Wembanyama? It's pretty simple: if Mitch Johnson can trust the bench to build on a lead, then there's no reason to put the stars back in. And the less Wembanyama plays, the fresher he'll be when the Spurs need him the most.
