This is going to be a fun week of hoops for the 25-3 Oklahoma City Thunder. It starts on Monday night as the Thunder and Memphis Grizzlies are each short handed for that contest, but only heats up throughout the week highlighted by the Thunder’s baseball-style series against the San Antonio Spurs starting on Tuesday in San Antonio before taking center stage in the mid-day stand alone Christmas Day slot on Thursday inside the Paycom Center.
These two teams will meet three times in the span of two weeks, with the first matchup taking place last Saturday in Vegas during the NBA Cup Semi Final. In that contest, the Spurs got Victor Wembanyama back from a multi-week absence as the star nursed a calf strain. He came off the bench to the tune of 21 minutes played, scoring 22 points, hauling in nine rebounds, dishing out two assists, getting a steal and two blocks while being a +21 during his time on the hardwood. A dominating performance from the soon to be superstar.
Since that night, Wembanyama has continued to come off the bench, including in the Spurs most recent contest against the Washington Wizards. In that outing, the Global Icon put up 14 points, 12 rebounds, two assists and as many blocks in just 22 minutes of action during San Antonio’s 124-113 blowout win.
With a day off on Monday, the Spurs have announced their initial injury report for Tuesday’s tilt with the Thunder this evening. On it, a surprise, the seven-foot-six big man is tabbed as questionable due to injury management on that left calf strain he has been dealing with that caused him to miss a month of action before playing in San Antonio’s last five games.
If Wembanyama is ruled out for Tuesday’s affair, this would give the big man three days off to get set for the grand stage on Christmas Day, his second outing on the Holiday Hoops slate as the NBA knows they have a budding superstar.
However, if he is able to play through managing this calf strain, all eyes will be on him as he caused havoic for Oklahoma City the last time out almost single handedly handing the Thunder one of their three losses this season.
For the Thunder, they will not release an injury report until mid-afternoon on Tuesday as they play on the second night of a back to back first needing to deal with the scrappy Memphis Grizzlies in the Paycom Center on Monday.
For this game against the Grizzlies, the Thunder are without Chet Holmgren, Isaiah Hartenstein, Jaylin Williams and Alex Caruso, it is yet to be seen if these key rotation members will return for the second night of this back-to-back set.
Stay tuned to Thunder on SI for complete coverage of this fun week of Oklahoma City Thunder basketball and all season long.