{"id":181616,"date":"2025-07-19T16:25:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-19T16:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/181616\/"},"modified":"2025-07-19T16:25:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-19T16:25:09","slug":"southwest-notes-spencer-marshall-nembhard-wembanyama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/181616\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Notes: Spencer, Marshall, Nembhard, Wembanyama"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an exclusive interview with Mark Medina of Sportskeeda<\/a>, Grizzlies guard Cam Spencer<\/a> discussed the \u201cshocking\u201d trade that sent Desmond Bane<\/a> to Orlando, how his competitive fire was stoked by growing up playing against older brother Pat Spencer<\/a>, and what he has learned from Ja Morant<\/a> and Jaren Jackson Jr.<\/a>, among other topics.<\/p>\n

After spending his rookie season on a two-way deal with Memphis, Cam Spencer signed<\/a> a four-year standard contract with the Grizzlies on Monday. The 2024 second-round pick is thrilled to have an opportunity to stay with the team long term.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super excited,\u201d Spencer told Medina. \u201cThere\u2019s no other organization that I\u2019d rather compete with. I\u2019m super grateful. It makes you think about all of the people that helped you get to this point. But I\u2019m more motivated than ever. I told (GM) Zach (Kleiman) that I\u2019m going to prove him right every single day. I\u2019m going to get after it for him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spencer is also looking forward to a full season under new head coach<\/a> Tuomas Iisalo, who had his interim tag lifted in early May.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach Tuomas coming in, I think we have a lot of momentum going into this year,\u201d Spencer said as part of a larger quote. \u201cHe\u2019s been great. He\u2019s a super-smart coach and very personable as a player. He really communicates what he wants from us out there on the court. I think we\u2019re all going to be on the same page in a big way this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more from around the Southwest:<\/p>\n

Mavericks wing Naji Marshall<\/a> is coming off a 2024\/25 season in which he averaged career highs in points (13.2), rebounds (4.8), assists (3.0) and steals (1.0) and minutes (27.8) per game, while shooting a career-best 50.8% from the field. However, Dallas failed to make the playoffs amid a wave of devastating second-half injuries. While the 27-year-old said he was \u201cpretty good\u201d last season, he believes he has \u201cmore in the tank he can accomplish\u201d in \u201925\/26, according to Eddie Sefko of Mavs.com<\/a>. \u201cNo question (that a deep playoff run is the next step). Just win,\u201d Marshall said. \u201cIt\u2019s beautiful. I feel good. I feel like we have all the right pieces to do what we all want to do. I\u2019m looking forward to it.\u201d
\nAfter going undrafted out of Gonzaga last month, Ryan Nembhard<\/a> quickly agreed<\/a> to a two-way contract with the Mavericks. The 6\u20190\u2033 point guard, who led all Division I players in assists last season, tells Christian Clark of The Athletic<\/a> that signing with the Mavs wasn\u2019t a coincidence. \u201cThey showed the most love (during the pre-draft process),\u201d Nembhard said. \u201cI think they really wanted me. They showed the most care for me. And I feel like I have a chance to come do something over here.\u201d The 22-year-old averaged 11.3 PPG, 6.7 APG and 2.7 RPG in three Summer League games in Las Vegas.
\nSpurs star Victor Wembanyama<\/a> did kung fu training with monks at a Shaolin temple in China this offseason and believes the sessions helped him improve his \u201cmental focus\u201d and taught him \u201cmore about how to achieve optimal body positioning through a better range of movement,\u201d sources tell Michael C. Wright of ESPN<\/a>. The French center thinks the training will help him on the court as he prepares for his third season, Wright adds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an exclusive interview with Mark Medina of Sportskeeda, Grizzlies guard Cam Spencer discussed the \u201cshocking\u201d trade that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,8675,686,149,4057,497,178,496,166,5989,6,868,9856,1139,693],"class_list":{"0":"post-181616","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cam-spencer","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-dallasmavericks","13":"tag-desmond-bane","14":"tag-ja-morant","15":"tag-jaren-jackson-jr","16":"tag-mavericks","17":"tag-naji-marshall","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-pat-spencer","20":"tag-ryan-nembhard","21":"tag-tuomas-iisalo","22":"tag-victor-wembanyama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114880834880991072","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181616"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181616\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}