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Michael C. Wright, ESPN writer
IN HIS FIRST On the day of rookie training camp in 2023, Victor Wembanyama explained how the San Antonio Spurs could best position him and the franchise for success.
About 90 days passed after the French phenom was selected No. 1 overall in the 2023 NBA Draft.
Conventional basketball wisdom said the 7-foot-3 Wembanyama should live in the paint and take his shots close to the basket. He should block, rebound and defend. Block shots. Give the ball to the guards to facilitate the offense. That’s what most big men do.
But Wembanyama is not just any great man. He knew it. So the 19-year-old sat down with the Spurs staff and discussed how conventionalism would stifle his creativity and therefore limit the team’s ceiling with him as the centerpiece.
“The best way to help is not to pigeonhole myself,” Wembanyama told the Spurs before his first NBA season. “[Spurs coach Gregg Popovich] he knows it. He learned to know me and I am learning to know him. “We know we’re going to do something original, something special.”
It didn’t take long.
Wembanyama led all rookies in points (21.4), rebounds (10.6) and blocks per game (3.6), ranking fourth in assists (3.9) and second in steals per game (1 ,2). He was the first player to average at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks in less than 30 minutes per game, and he finished his rookie campaign as the first player in a season to accumulate at least 1,500 points, 700 rebounds and 250 assists. , 250 blocks and 100 triples on the way to being unanimously voted rookie of the year.
He averaged the most points per possession of any rookie since Michael Jordan (minimum 1,000 minutes). He also had two triple-doubles, one with assists and one with blocks. Wembanyama recorded a 5×5 game against the Los Angeles Lakers that included 27 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 blocks and 5 steals, earning him recognition as the youngest player in NBA history to do so.
This season has been no different: a multifaceted one that shows the power of his incomparable versatility.
When Wembanyama recorded his first triple-double of this season on Dec. 1 in a 127-125 win over the Sacramento Kings, 15 of his 34 points came from 3-pointers. He shot seven 3-pointers among his first 10 attempts and only two from 5 feet or less.
But with San Antonio trailing 97-92 entering the final frame, Wembanyama returned to the convention.
Instead of continuing his barrage of three-pointers, Wembanyama moved inside, lighting up Sacramento for 13 points on 4-of-5 shooting with 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks. None of those five shots came from beyond the arc. Three landed from 7 feet or less.
The performance provided one of this season’s first glimpses of how Wembanyama learns how to, and most importantly, when to deploy his vast set of skills. And how ruthlessly effective it can be. After the match, Wembanyama again warned not to lock him up.
“Don’t do it,” he said.
“I won’t fit in.”
ALTHOUGH WEMBANYAMA DRILLED 4 of 6 shooting from deep in the first half of the win over the Kings, Spurs interim head coach Mitch Johnson noted that his second-year player “had some very poor moments in the first three quarters in terms of of fundamentals and solid basketball.”
Johnson said Wembanyama committed four turnovers in that span and finished with a game-high five, due in part to dropped catches and errant passes.
“He can do everything,” Johnson said after the game. “So when you have so many options on the menu, thinking that you are going to choose the right one every time is difficult. He is a young player who is learning to use all the weapons he has. Obviously there is tremendous confidence and great support for him while learning when and where to use all those weapons.
Wembanyama’s diverse skill set can sometimes make it difficult for him to decide how best to deploy his talents on a game-to-game basis.
Of the players who have made 350 or more shots this season, Wembanyama ranks 13th in jump shot percentage made (63.4%), putting him on a list loaded with point guards and wings. Wembanyama raises a higher percentage of jumpers than Tyler Herro (62.9%), Jalen Green (61.7%), Darius Garland (59.2%), Kyrie Irving (57.7%), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (56 .4%) and even Trae Young (55.2%). ).
Wembanyama has an average shooting distance of 17.7 feet, almost the same as Donovan Mitchell and Luka Doncic.
Internally, the Spurs are often amused to hear so much talk and consternation about their young star’s shooting diet: One team source believes Wembanyama is closer to Kevin Durant than, say, Hakeem Olajuwon, which helps explain why what almost half of his shot attempts. They come from beyond the arc.
“It doesn’t surprise me because it’s conventional wisdom,” Johnson said of criticism of Wembanyama’s penchant for shooting 3-pointers. “For someone who is in tune with who they want to be and who they have the potential to be like Victor, it’s our job to respect that and partner with him to grow who he is. I think there’s just an element of understanding sometimes when and how to As he gets more experience, he’s gotten a lot better at that.”
And while such diversity in Wembanyama’s game offers options for Spurs, it creates unpredictability for the opposition.
“You can tell he knows his players very well,” Portland coach Chauncey Billups said before Wembanyama had seven assists on Dec. 13 in the Spurs’ comeback victory over the Trail Blazers. “You can just drive it and throw it knowing the guy is going to cut.”
Even so, Wembanyama said he still feels comfortable creating plays.
“Facing a fair amount of double teams, it’s my responsibility to give my teammates a chance to take advantage,” Wembanyama said. “Before I came to the league, I never had 10 assists or more and I rarely had more than seven. So, it’s in my development and it’s a step I’m willing to take because I’m trying to force teams to defend me with more than a player.”
Veteran teammate Harrison Barnes said that despite all the headaches, like Logo’s 3-point attempts early in the possession, they were all made for the right reason.
“A lot of people have so many criticisms they want to talk about. ‘He should be this. He should be that. He should play this way,'” Barnes said. “My thing is that he’s going to play his style and he’s going to do it his way. It may not be exactly the mold that people want him to be in or expect him to be in. But he’s going to do it his way, and the most The important thing is that he wants to win. That is his North Star.
1:24
Wemby powers Spurs to win with 30-point, 10-block performance
Victor Wembanyama lights up the Spurs with 30 points, 10 blocks and 7 rebounds in their win over the Blazers.
IN THE AFTER After the triple-double against the Kings, Wembanyama leaned back in a chair inside a narrow, dark room and thought about some of the changes he had already made to his game.
Wembanyama admits that his wide range of assets sometimes causes confusion, but he credits the Spurs’ video team for helping him slow down the game. Before each game, the video team loads an iPad full of clips of the various defensive looks the opponent used against him in the last matchup.
“The real difficulty is adapting to the defense in real time, to the type of coverage,” Wembanyama said. “Because the answers are always there when we watch the film later. It’s easy to spot them. But reacting in real time is very difficult.”
But thanks to his film study, Wembanyama is beginning to recognize all the patterns used against him. Billups explained before Saturday’s game that the only way to defend Wembanyama is with a defensive scheme as varied as his skills.
Heading into Monday’s matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers (7 p.m. ET, NBA TV), Wembanyama is coming off two historic performances. On Thursday, Wembanyama’s 42-point performance against the Atlanta Hawks made him the first NBA player to hit seven 3-pointers and total 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks in the same game. And his 30-point, 10-block performance Saturday against the Blazers put him back in strange air.
San Antonio trailed by three points during its 133-126 overtime victory against Atlanta when Wembanyama re-entered the game. He started the sequence with an 8-foot jumper, followed by a 3-foot stepback and a floater off the glass.
On San Antonio’s next possession, Wembanyama scored near the free throw line with Hawks center Clint Capela defending. As the shot clock ticked down, Wembanyama took a step out, then back in, before ducking under Capela’s outstretched arms to float the ball off the glass, just as Spurs forward Julian Champagnie cut in. the basket Wembanyama caught his own alley-oop on the backboard with 1 second left on the shot clock for a two-handed play that tied the score at 101 as the 17,852 fans at the Frost Bank Center erupted.
He then closed the sequence by throwing a seemingly impossible lob from beyond the 3-point line to Jeremy Sochan, who completed the play with Bogdan Bogdanovic and Dyson Daniels defending within reach.
The 11-point run gave the Spurs a 103-101 lead, with Wembanyama contributing nine of those points and providing Sochan’s assist. In overtime, Wembanyama scored eight of the Spurs’ 13 points, going 3 of 4 from the floor and 2 of 2 from 3-point range.
“Vic, I know I have to be careful not to take [him] “For sure,” point guard Chris Paul said. “I missed a layup tonight and I was like, ‘Vic, where are you?’ He just covers up so many mistakes. I don’t know how many blocks he had tonight. He’s just…he’s different.”
That’s fine for a Spurs organization that shares Wembanyama’s vision of what it could become. Coaches and teams have told Wembanyama for as long as he can remember what to do, what not to do, what he is and what he isn’t.
“That everyday fight you talk about is something I’ve gone through, of course, growing up a lot,” Wembanyama said. “But now I’m experiencing levels of freedom that I’ve never had the opportunity to have before. And for me, it’s also the clearest path to how to improve and how to get to the highest level.
“So it makes sense that we see creativity on the court because I think that’s the best way to help my team. They’re not pigeonholing me, and I’m not going to be pigeonholed either.”
