The Spurs' Loss in the Finals Gives the Sixers Something to Think About

Maybe, just maybe, the answer is to push harder.

May 4, 2026; New York, New York, USA; Philadelphia 76ers center Joel Embiid (21) reacts during the first quarter of game one of the eastern conference semifinal round of the 2026 NBA Playoffs against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden. Mandatory Credit: Brad Penner-Imagn Images | Brad Penner-Imagn Images

From Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals through Game 5 of the NBA Finals, Victor Wembanyama logged at least 35 minutes in each game.

The circumstances were unusual.

He was giving his San Antonio Spurs a chance to be immortalized. And in some ways, he was giving himself a chance to already cement his legacy. A Defensive Player of the Year award and a championship before the age of 23.

Something that no player has ever done.

You get so far into the NBA season that it's you and one other team left standing. Your natural instinct is to put your best foot forward. That best foot is an emotional and psychological tie to your best player. So, whether it's for the best or not, you make sure that best player is on the court.

So Wembanyama played and played and played some more.

He played at times in which he didn't have to play (see Game 4).

And it was in that decision that the paradox revealed itself.

There was one stretch of games during the entire 2025-26 regular season in which Wembanyama played such a sequence of games at that high of a minute count. Three games in the middle of November.

36 minutes against the Chicago Bulls, 36 minutes against the Golden State Warriors and 38 minutes against those Warriors after a day of rest in between games.

After missing the Spurs' next 12 games with a strained left calf, Wembanyama averaged fewer than 30 minutes per game in each of the remaining months of the regular season.

A conservative minute management plan to say the least. There's nothing unreasonable about protecting your young asset. There's nothing unreasonable about building trust in his supporting cast through the regular season. If they're good enough to sustain winning and you're able to protect your crown jewel, you're having your cake and eating it, too.

More than 1,700 miles northeast of San Antonio, the Sixers were on a slow roll of their own. Their crown jewel—a damaged one, but still a jewel—is built far differently than Wembanyama is. Joel Embiid has far more wear and tear on his body. His body is carrying around more weight. His jersey packs pieces of trauma that existed far before he ever played a game in the NBA.

They're different players being managed similarly for different reasons.

The Spurs want to keep Wembanyama from aging his body too quickly. The Sixers need to keep Embiid from further damaging his body over the duration of a contract that will be considered paralyzing as long as his availability is only on a part-time basis.

The Spurs feel empowered to protect Wembanyama because they have the pieces around him to win comfortably in the regular season. The Sixers got themselves in this situation because they couldn't comfortably win in the regular season without Embiid racking up the miles.

There was a price to pay for San Antonio having a supporting cast that was so darn competent.

You could see Wembanyama's endurance fail him as the Conference Finals transitioned to the Finals.

The French big man shot 6-for-21 and committed six turnovers in Game 1 of the Finals. Better shooting, but four more turnovers in Game 2, including an inexplicable pass off Stephon Castle's back for a critical blunder late in crunch time. A 2-for-9 fourth quarter in Game 4, including a pair of missed free throws in the guts of the game. And then a 1-for-5 showing in the fourth quarter of Game 5 to seal the Spurs' second-place finish.

To be clear, this isn't to shovel all fault on Wembanyama's back. Mitch Johnson could have not seemingly made a blood pact with De'Aaron Fox to let him run the offense through a meltdown while Dylan Harper was very clearly San Antonio's second best player.

Johnson could have not played Wembanyama 11 minutes and two seconds in the third quarter of Game 4—a period that started with a 27-point Spurs lead—and, in turn, left him with nothing in the tank as the Knicks made their furious run in the fourth quarter.

But always heavy is the head that wears the crown. Wembanyama was not good enough. It has something to do with his body. There's lot of muscle that needs to and will be added to that frame if Wembanyama is as serious about being great as he says he is.

But it also has something to do with the way San Antonio managed him all season. He could not be prepared to both manage the Knicks' physicality while also asserting his dominance over the course of 40 intense minutes per game in the Finals.

Sure, Wembanyama played 64 games in the regular season. He was available. But because the Spurs are built so well, the boundaries that most stars have to press never were. Conservative management left him short on gas in the biggest games of his life.

And it probably cost San Antonio, which led each game of the Finals by double digits, a spot in history.

It should call into question just how beneficial a conservative approach to your star's workload really is. Maybe, just maybe, the answer is to push harder.

Maybe that's another paradox. Pushing harder will probably expose Embiid to more risk, but it also may prepare him better for the moments Philadelphia dreams of.

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