The Master wrote:cupcakesnake wrote:CptCrunch wrote:
Anyone who thought Chet was better at any point in the season should have their votes taken away
Nah. Chet was better over the first third of the season. Then Wemby put it together and reached a whole other level.
First 20 games, Weby was shooting 43%fg, 27% from 3, and turning the ball over a ton. Chet was playing his role perfectly on a very good team while Wemby was thrown into a bigger fire and took a minute to fireproof himself.
Since then? Wemby figured it out and has been stretching our imaginations in terms of what we thought was possible on a basketball court. He figured it out 20 games into his career and now we just get to see how far he can take this.
Wemby started this season as a power forward with Sochan as a point guard in his first 20 games, that's why we got this slow start, he was misused on both ends of the floor.
And that's why these convos about Holmgren vs Wemby had started, because Chet was surprisingly good and Wemby looked like a typical inefficient rookie on a bad team (who he's not).
I don't think there's been ever a serious discussion about who's a better prospect (with Wemby being visibly younger), so it's a weird revisionism to laugh at Chet vs Wemby ROTY discussions (as Holmgren in his first 20 games was 17-8-3-2 on 63 TS% vs Wemby's 19-10-3-3 on 52 TS%) or suggest people thought that Chet is a better prospect (maybe some OKCs most loyal fans and Chet's family). Since then, yeah, Wemby is 22-11-4-4 on 58 TS% in 29 minutes and everyone has an understanding what does such production in the age of 20 means short/long-term.
As a starting center, Wemby is at 3.8 BPG in 29 minutes, will be interesting to follow if he can get to the 5 bpg territory once his minutes increase. This is surreal to even make such claim in 2024 with number of blocks decreased, game being played on perimeter etc.
I have no pushback on the why of Wemby's early struggles. I understood them then and now, and never had any concerns about his quality as a prospect. He was always a better prospect that Chet for early reasons.
But like you're suggesting ROY isn't best prospect, it's best rookie season. At the time, Chet was having a better season than Wemby.
Best prospect vs. best rookie season sometimes creates some tension amongst fans/media. A lot of fans want it to go to guy who they think is going to be the best (as long as the player gave some proof of concept in their rookie season). There were tinges of that last year in Paolo vs. J-Dub/Kessler, but it goes back in my recollection to things like Lebron vs. Melo, Okafor vs. Dwight, Amar'e vs. Yao, Brogdon vs. Embiid, Zion vs. Ja etc.