{"id":732936,"date":"2026-05-13T03:33:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:33:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/732936\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T03:33:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T03:33:40","slug":"stephen-a-smith-assumes-timberwolves-want-victor-wembanyama-on-court-because-hes-skinny","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/732936\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen A. Smith assumes Timberwolves want Victor Wembanyama on court \u2018because he\u2019s skinny\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victor Wembanyama<\/a> is considered one of the most dominant players in the NBA by just about everyone, except for maybe Stephen A. Smith.<\/p>\n

The San Antonio Spurs<\/a> and Minnesota Timberwolves<\/a> are tied 2-2 in their Western Conference Semifinals series. But it\u2019s fair to wonder whether the Spurs would be holding a 3-1 lead if Wembanyama wasn\u2019t ejected in the second quarter of Game 4<\/a> for throwing a vicious right elbow at Timberwolves center Naz Reid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Luckily for the Spurs, Wembanyama didn\u2019t receive a suspension for the elbow, meaning he\u2019ll be available to play in Game 5. That\u2019s seemingly bad news for the Timberwolves, however, who surely would prefer to play the game without having to face arguably the league\u2019s most dominant force, right? Not according to Smith.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow do you know they don\u2019t want Wemby on the basketball court tonight?\u201d Smith asked on First Take. \u201cThey might want it, even though he\u2019s 7\u2019 5\u201d. They might want him out there! Especially because this is not the Diesel.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s somebody like Shaquille O\u2019Neal walking around 330, 340 (lb) and dunking on your mug, that would be different. But because of how skinny he is, you might have some cats that might want him out there. As great as he is, they might want him out there, just so they can make sure he feels them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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If that\u2019s the case, why didn\u2019t Naz Reid, Anthony Edwards<\/a>, and others on the Timberwolves stand up and plead with the officials to let Wembanyama avoid an ejection Sunday night?<\/p>\n

As big as Wembanyama is, Smith seems to focus on the physical traits he lacks. Like his weight, or his \u201cmeat<\/a>\u201d as he previously stated. But even though Wembanyama might be skinny, he\u2019s still an imposing player. Even someone with a more Shaq-like physique, like Kendrick Perkins<\/a>, thinks so.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m willing to bet everything that I have, that if you took a survey in that Minnesota locker room, whether they want Wemby on the floor, or him not on the floor, I guarantee you they will say they don\u2019t want him on the floor,\u201d Perkins said to push back on Smith\u2019s ridiculous take.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no way Wembanyama\u2019s ejection was met with any pushback from the Timberwolves. And there\u2019s equally no chance anyone on the Timberwolves was rooting for Wembanyama to avoid a suspension. That\u2019s not to say Minnesota is afraid of Wembanyama being on the court. But if they could choose playing against the Spurs with or without a 7\u2019 5\u201d MVP-caliber player known as \u201cThe Alien\u201d for his unique ability to dominate both ends of the floor, they would choose without.<\/p>\n

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The post Stephen A. Smith assumes Timberwolves want Victor Wembanyama on court \u2018because he\u2019s skinny\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Awful Announcing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama is considered one of the most dominant players in the NBA by just about everyone, except…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3782],"tags":[375,38042,7,2058,307,152,3954,520,6,474,2603,2594,308,693],"class_list":["post-732936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-anthony-edwards","tag-awful-announcing","tag-basketball","tag-kendrick-perkins","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-timberwolves","tag-minnesotatimberwolves","tag-naz-reid","tag-nba","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-stephen-a-smith","tag-the-spurs","tag-timberwolves","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116565167620326544","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732936","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=732936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}