The Spurs won each of Victor Wembanyama’s six games as a reserve, including three against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder. G Fiume / Getty Images
After coming off the bench in the team’s previous six games, All-Star center Victor Wembanyama returned to the San Antonio Spurs’ starting lineup Saturday against the Utah Jazz.
It is his first start since Nov. 14, when the Spurs lost 109-108 to the Golden State Warriors.
Since spending a month on the sidelines, missing 12 games with a left calf strain, Wembanyama has been the league’s most potent sixth man. Spurs coach Mitch Johnson has been vague about the process to return him to the starting lineup, emphasizing that the team is going to be as patient as possible with his ramp-up program to protect him for the long term.
In his six games as a reserve, Wembanyama averaged 18.0 points while shooting 54.9 percent overall and 46.7 percent on 3-pointers. He added 9.5 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 1.8 blocks while averaging 21.5 minutes of action. He averaged a plus-minus of plus-15.8.
Wembanyama’s bench role had no impact on the Spurs’ winning streak, as they beat the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder three times in the past two weeks and have won eight consecutive regular-season games. The Spurs lost the NBA Cup final to the New York Knicks, but that game does not count toward the official standings. This eight-game winning streak is their longest in a season since they won nine in a row from Feb. 27 to March 18, 2019.
San Antonio entered Saturday’s game against Utah with an NBA-best 15-3 record since Nov. 16, the date of the Spurs’ first game without Wembanyama. They rank third in overall net rating (plus-8.0), with the league’s fourth-best offense and 10th-ranked defense. On the season, they have a plus-15.1 net rating when Wembanyama plays compared with a mark of plus-2.6 when he sits. They entered Saturday 2 1/2 games behind the Thunder.