'Not Enough': Wembanyama Reacts to Spurs' 50th Win, Reflects on Goals

When the Spurs play their pre-game hype video at home, Kendrick Lamar's 'tv off' often accompanies the pyrotechnics.

No. 1 is always the last member of the starting five to be introduced, and he sits still and meditative until the announcer finishes saying, "A 7-foot-4 center from France, VICTOR WEMBANYAMAAAAAAA!"

Perhaps Wemby has been meditating on Lamar's words in the Mustard-fueled masterpiece. Monday night's win in Los Angeles propelled San Antonio to a 50-win season for the first time since 2016-17, when current Clipper Kawhi Leonard led the Spurs with an MVP caliber season. Asked what the milestone meant, Wembanyama channeled LA's poet laureate with a response that was confident but hungry for more.

"It's growth... but it's still not enough," Wembanyama said.

"I want to get to at least 60 to balance out my rookie season," he said, laughing but also completely serious.

Wembanyama is not shy about his goals. In the last few weeks he's been honest about his desire to win MVP, Defensive Player of the Year, and a championship this year. Before the season started, he told reporters at media day that his goal for the team was to make one of the top six seeds in the Western Conference. At the time it was seen as ambitious, but he had good reason to expect success.

"I hope we can be this locked in for all the off seasons to come, because it was a really high level of preparation, mentally, physically, for everybody, the amount of film we did, and this is the reason we were so ready for this," Wembanyama said. "My goal was never to make the play-in or win the play-in, it was to get into the playoffs with no question. And that would have made a successful season at the time."

Times have changed rather quickly, though, for a Spurs team that most experts agree could very well win the championship this year, even though they are so young. Wembanyama is the biggest reason why, and he's focused on both the big picture and the next steps in front of him.

"It's hard to always look at a season as a whole. We can look at the season as our worst stretch at the end of 2025, or our best stretch in the month of February, pretty much right now. Even though the season will be somewhat successful, when you look as a whole, we still got 14 games. And it's very much possible that those last 14 games are satisfying, or not. And this is where we get to take each step at a time."

The Clippers celebrated French heritage on Monday night and gave away bobbleheads of Nicolas Batum, a French National Team hero who Wembanyama grew up watching before winning an Olympic silver medal together. Since Wemby was young, Batum has spoken glowingly about his mentality and his focus on his goals.

"As a kid, I guess I didn't have this self awareness, but I knew what I wanted for sure. I'm very methodical. I try to leave the least things possible - in my training I'm talking about - to chance," Wembanyama said.

"A big thing for me has been also holding everybody that works with me to the standard... I'm talking EVERYBODY, because I know I can't be, I cannot have the best knowledge as a trainer or as even an analytics guy, or a mental (health specialist), so I have to surround myself with the best people possible and hold them to the standard," Wembanyama said.

Someone he's worked closely with since arriving in San Antonio is head coach Mitch Johnson. When Wemby got here, Johnson was the member of the staff who put him through all of his pre-game warmups.

"I miss Mitch during my warm ups a little bit... He's more busy now," Wembanyama said. "We still have a great, obviously great relationship, and I think one of his best qualities is that he, not long ago, he was with all of us doing the extra hours work in the gym, and all the individual skills coaching. You can tell with the interactions with the guys, especially guys who have been there for years, you can tell he knows them, and he knows how to talk to them. And I think that's actually, apart from his natural talent as a coach, that's his best quality."

Like Wembanyama, Johnson knows that the Spurs have bigger fish to fry than hitting the 50-win mark. But Johnson has been with this organization for the last decade. He arrived the last year San Antonio hit 50 wins, and he's been here for the entire eight-year drought since. He knows this accomplishment is worth celebrating, or at least acknowledging before moving on to the next step.

"It's one of those things we've done this year where we're not going to avoid that... 50 wins this league is tough. We don't need to make it more than that, and we're not going to avoid it, 50 wins in this league is hard to get," Johnson said.

"That team tonight played their butts off and took us to the end, 48 minutes without their best player," Johnson said. "So we're not going to apologize for 50 wins. We're not going to avoid it like that's not hard to do in this league. And with that being said, it's just a part of the journey, and hopefully it makes us hungry to try to get 51."