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OKLAHOMA CITY -- The San Antonio Spurs will hold rookie Victor Wembanyama out of Wednesday night's game against the Oklahoma City Thunder because of right ankle injury management. The Spurs are playing on a back-to-back and are being cautious with Wembanyama, who has played in 70 games this season. Wembanyama expressed his desire to play but Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and the team made the call to rest him after traveling into Oklahoma City following a win Tuesday night in Memphis. "I feel badly because he's not a happy camper right now with me," Popovich said Wednesday. "He wants to be out there, but I'm looking at the long view and we've had some trouble with this particular injury during the season, and as everybody knows, we've had to limit minutes for quite a while and had to keep him out of back-to-backs. "Down the stretch in the season here, the last back-to-back, it just doesn't make sense to me to push it, because if something did happen, I'd have to look in the mirror and say, 'What the hell were you thinking?' So I've got to think long-term like we did with (Tim Duncan) in this sense. Fortunately for me, he's smart enough to understand that, even though he doesn't like it." Wembanyama rolled his right ankle three times in a span of 12 days in December and the team had him on a minutes restriction and held him out of back-to-backs for a month after that. He last missed a game on March 25 against the Phoenix Suns because of a left ankle sprain. He rolled his right ankle against the Pelicans on April 5 but finished that game and wasn't on any restrictions in the Spurs' past two games. He is expected to be available for the Spurs' next game Friday at home against the Denver Nuggets. San Antonio wraps up the season Sunday against the Detroit Pistons. With Wembanyama out, there won't be a matchup of the expected top two vote-getters in the Rookie of the Year race with Chet Holmgren set to suit up for the Thunder. Holmgren, the No. 2 overall pick in the 2022 NBA draft, has played in all 79 games this season for Oklahoma City after missing last year because of a foot injury. San Antonio will also be without Keldon Johnson (left foot sprain), Devin Vassell (right foot stress reaction), Jeremy Sochan (left ankle impingement) and Cedi Osman (right ankle sprain). Oklahoma City says Lu Dort (rest) will miss the game while Jaylin Williams (low back contusion) and Gordon Hayward (left posterior tibialis strain) are both questionable.
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