'A tanking team,' Victor Wembanyama highlights Portland’s past amid playoff push

Victor Wembanyama gave the San Antonio Spurs and their fans a pretty direct read on what’s coming next: the Portland Trail Blazers may be a No. 7 seed, but this is not a team anyone should treat like a warm-up act.

Ahead of San Antonio’s first-round playoff series, Wembanyama said Portland is “not an easy team to play,” making it clear the Spurs expect a physical, competitive matchup despite entering as the higher seed.

That matters because the Spurs, who finished 62-20 and grabbed the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference, are no longer sneaking up on anyone. They are one of the conference’s real contenders, and when you’re sitting that high in the bracket, every quote gets examined.

Wembanyama’s comments showed respect, but they also revealed something else: San Antonio knows Portland’s turnaround is real, even if it came faster than most people expected.

1. Victor Wembanyama is not overlooking Portland

Wembanyama described the Trail Blazers as “very intense” and “hard to play,” while also pointing to their recent history. “They’re in the playoffs this year, but they’ve been a tanking team in past years and now a playoff team trying to contend,” Wembanyama said. “No matter through the years they’re still hard to play. They have an identity. They’re strong."

2. Why this matchup matters for the Spurs

San Antonio should still be favored, and by a healthy margin. The Spurs won 62 games for a reason, and Wembanyama has become one of the league’s most dominant two-way players. He finished the regular season averaging 25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 1.0 steals, and 3.1 blocks. Those numbers are absurd enough on their own. Add in his defensive range and playoff-stage presence, and it’s obvious why the Spurs believe they can make a serious run. But the Spurs also know first-round series can get weird. Portland already proved this season that it can compete with San Antonio. The teams met three times, and while the Spurs won two of those games, the Blazers showed they could hang. That kind of regular-season sample doesn’t decide a playoff series, but it does remove any illusion that the underdog is just happy to be here. For years, San Antonio spent time building toward this moment. Now the Spurs are the team with expectations, the team everyone assumes will advance, the team expected to look calm and polished under pressure. That sounds great until a lower seed starts throwing haymakers and turning every game into a street fight in sneakers. A big reason this series has more bite than a standard 2-vs-7 matchup is Portland’s turnaround. The Blazers were near the bottom of the conference not long ago. Now they are back in the playoffs, with All-Star Deni Avdija leading the way and veteran champion Jrue Holiday bringing the experience every young locker room craves this time of year. That blend gives Portland something every dangerous underdog needs: belief. That doesn’t mean the Blazers are likely to win the series. It does mean San Antonio probably won’t get a single easy night. There is a dynamic between Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson, who were heavily linked during the draft process. The rivalry hasn’t exactly become Magic-Bird, but it adds another thread to a series that already has plenty of competitive tension.

3. Wembanyama’s health remains the biggest key

If there is one issue that could swing the tone of this series more than anything else, it’s Wembanyama’s health. The 22-year-old recently dealt with a rib injury, though he offered a positive update before the series. “I’m really close to being there,” Wembanyama said. “But during the season, you’re never really at 100%, there’s always something. But yeah, if we compare to regular season form, I’m close to being really good.” That’s encouraging news for San Antonio. The Spurs need him available and effective, full stop. Their ceiling in this postseason is tied directly to what version of Wembanyama shows up. A healthy one changes everything. A limited one changes the math in a hurry. The Spurs made sure Wembanyama qualified for end-of-season awards by getting him into one of their final three regular-season games, but now the focus is much simpler: win four before Portland does. San Antonio enters this series as the better team on paper, and eventually on the floor, too. But Wembanyama’s comments made one thing clear: nobody inside that locker room expects a cakewalk.

• Tags:
• Victor Wembanyama