Wembanyama, I'm concerned (Part 2)

ItsDanger · Post #101 » by **ItsDanger** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 4:50 pm

He's not a winning player yet. Big surprise in just his 2nd season. People got excited too quickly and Spurs record coming back to reality.

Post #102 » by **tsherkin** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 4:53 pm

ItsDanger wrote:He's not a winning player yet. Big surprise in just his 2nd season. People got excited too quickly and Spurs record coming back to reality.

I mean, look at what he's working with.

Would you call Jordan a winning player in 87 when they won 40 games? Did he really change that much compared to 88, when they won 50? Or was it more about the supporting cast?

Post #103 » by **165bows** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 4:59 pm

dautjazz wrote:
316Hornets wrote:Wemby is an amazing talent but I think people are starting to realize the limitations. There's just better shooters a lot of plays so Wemby isn't being used as often and the scoring isn't as consistent. Defensively is easily one of the best but if the scoring on the other end isn't there, they'll need a lot of offensive pieces around him to compete.
Victor just turned 21, and he's already top 5-10 in the league. His shot will get better.

Top 5-10 offensively? Hard to justify that if that's what you are saying.

Ambrose · Post #104 » by **Ambrose** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 5:00 pm

ItsDanger wrote:He's not a winning player yet. Big surprise in just his 2nd season. People got excited too quickly and Spurs record coming back to reality.

When he's on the court they're a playoff team and when he's off the court they are the 2nd worst team in the league. He's a winning player.

Bornstellar · Post #105 » by **Bornstellar** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 5:02 pm

ItsDanger wrote:He's not a winning player yet. Big surprise in just his 2nd season. People got excited too quickly and Spurs record coming back to reality.

Not true at all. I don't think you appreciate how bad the roster around him is. When he is on the court, Spurs look like a legit NBA team. As soon as he goes to the bench, everything collapses. He is 21 year old sophomore tasked with completely anchoring the team on BOTH ends of the court while being surrounded by defensive turnstiles on D and one-dimensional players with terrible spacing on O. There is no player in the NBA that is asked to do as much, with as little help, as Victor is right now. Cut him some slack. His best teammate is a 40 year old

Kineto · Post #106 » by **Kineto** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 5:04 pm

165bows wrote:
dautjazz wrote:
316Hornets wrote:Wemby is an amazing talent but I think people are starting to realize the limitations. There's just better shooters a lot of plays so Wemby isn't being used as often and the scoring isn't as consistent. Defensively is easily one of the best but if the scoring on the other end isn't there, they'll need a lot of offensive pieces around him to compete.
Victor just turned 21, and he's already top 5-10 in the league. His shot will get better.

Top 5-10 offensively? Hard to justify that if that's what you are saying.

Last year, Gobert was probably top 30 player in the league with 0 offensive skill

We got a player who is alredy better than Gobert defensively and who put 25 pt with league average efficiency .

yeah, Wemby is probably top 5-10 player allready

ItsDanger · Post #107 » by **ItsDanger** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 5:06 pm

Bornstellar wrote:
ItsDanger wrote:He's not a winning player yet. Big surprise in just his 2nd season. People got excited too quickly and Spurs record coming back to reality.

Not true at all. I don't think you appreciate how bad the roster around him is. When he is on the court, Spurs look like a legit NBA team. As soon as he goes to the bench, everything collapses. He is 21 year old sophomore tasked with completely anchoring the team on BOTH ends of the court while being surrounded by defensive turnstiles on D and one-dimensional players with terrible spacing on O. There is no player in the NBA that is asked to do as much, with as little help, as Victor is right now. Cut him some slack. His best teammate is a 40 year old

I am cutting him slack. I always give top young players 2 seasons before I expect a better winning style vs the top teams in their conference. This was a classic pump the brakes moment for the Spurs. Management is still experimenting with roster around him anyways.

Post #108 » by **165bows** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 5:09 pm

Kineto wrote:
165bows wrote:
dautjazz wrote:Victor just turned 21, and he's already top 5-10 in the league. His shot will get better.

Top 5-10 offensively? Hard to justify that if that's what you are saying.

Last year, Gobert was probably top 30 player in the league with 0 offensive skill

We got a player who is alredy better than Gobert defensively and who put 25 pt with league average efficiency .

yeah, Wemby is probably top 5-10 player allready

Thanks for blatantly ignoring my question lol.

Bornstellar · Post #109 » by **Bornstellar** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 5:14 pm

ItsDanger wrote:
Bornstellar wrote:
ItsDanger wrote:He's not a winning player yet. Big surprise in just his 2nd season. People got excited too quickly and Spurs record coming back to reality.

Not true at all. I don't think you appreciate how bad the roster around him is. When he is on the court, Spurs look like a legit NBA team. As soon as he goes to the bench, everything collapses. He is 21 year old sophomore tasked with completely anchoring the team on BOTH ends of the court while being surrounded by defensive turnstiles on D and one-dimensional players with terrible spacing on O. There is no player in the NBA that is asked to do as much, with as little help, as Victor is right now. Cut him some slack. His best teammate is a 40 year old

I am cutting him slack. I always give top young players 2 seasons before I expect a better winning style vs the top teams in their conference. This was a classic pump the brakes moment for the Spurs. Management is still experimenting with roster around him anyways.

Saying he's not a winning player when the metrics point to him being super impactful isn't cutting him slack though. The season is barely halfway over and it's entirely possible Spurs end up above .500 (especially if they get Fox). Everything points to the Spurs being a solid if not good team when he is on the court and one of the worst teams in the league when he is off. Victor cannot control the game when he is on the bench and sadly he cannot play 48 minutes a game. To call him not a winning player at this stage because he's playing the with the most bum roster in the league is silly and false. IMO

Kineto · Post #110 » by **Kineto** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 5:19 pm

165bows wrote:
Kineto wrote:
165bows wrote:Top 5-10 offensively? Hard to justify that if that's what you are saying.

Last year, Gobert was probably top 30 player in the league with 0 offensive skill

We got a player who is alredy better than Gobert defensively and who put 25 pt with league average efficiency .

yeah, Wemby is probably top 5-10 player allready

Thanks for blatantly ignoring my question lol.

He is the favorite for DPOY.

If he was already a top 5 offensive player, he should be in the MVP race, so no, of course he is not a top 5-10 offensive player.
I think it's clear that no one is implying that.

dautjazz · Post #111 » by **dautjazz** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 6:35 pm

165bows wrote:
Kineto wrote:
165bows wrote:Top 5-10 offensively? Hard to justify that if that's what you are saying.

Last year, Gobert was probably top 30 player in the league with 0 offensive skill

We got a player who is alredy better than Gobert defensively and who put 25 pt with league average efficiency .

yeah, Wemby is probably top 5-10 player allready

Thanks for blatantly ignoring my question lol.

I didn't say he was top 5-10 offensively, I meant overall. My point is he's already putting superstar numbers and he just turned 21 this month. He's got all the time in the world to improve his shooting, and he's already about league average in terms of 3pt shooting, and an excellent free throw shooter.

Post #112 » by **tsherkin** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 6:42 pm

dautjazz wrote:he's already about league average in terms of 3pt shooting,

Hmmm. He's shooting 35.3% on the season against a league average of 35.9%, FWIW. I'd be careful looking at that as too far above average, with some obvious consideration for his huge (and still somewhat inappropriate) volume.

ITYSL · Post #113 » by **ITYSL** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 7:03 pm

I don't know why anyone needs to be concerned with Wemby. He has fallen out of the top 10 in some impact stats like LEBRON WAR and EPM Wins, but it's his sophomore season and the guy is a beast. Offensively he should be pounding it inside a bit more to get some easy buckets and to get the opponent in foul trouble more often. Defensively he is clearly DPOY level already.

dautjazz · Post #114 » by **dautjazz** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 7:03 pm

tsherkin wrote:
dautjazz wrote:he's already about league average in terms of 3pt shooting,

Hmmm. He's shooting 35.3% on the season against a league average of 35.9%, FWIW. I'd be careful looking at that as too far above average, with some obvious consideration for his huge (and still somewhat inappropriate) volume.

I said "about league average", as in approximately. For a 7'3" player in his second year, I'd say that's great. Jokic had a career average of .350 in his first 9 seasons in the NBA, and now he's third in the league. Embiid who is considered a pretty good shooting center, has an average of .341 for his career.

Wemby struggled at the beginning of the season, but since then he's averaged .380 from behind the arc over the last 29 games.

Post #115 » by **tsherkin** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 7:09 pm

dautjazz wrote:I said "about league average", as in approximately.

Awhoops! I read that as "above league average," wherefore my reply. xD

Wemby struggled at the beginning of the season, but since then he's averaged .380 from behind the arc over the last 29 games.

One hopes he will eventually shoot less, though, because it compromises other important parts of his game. It's still a relevant weapon, but his volume is a little insane right now.

toooskies · Post #116 » by **toooskies** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 7:19 pm

CoP wrote:I don't know why anyone needs to be concerned with Wemby. He has fallen out of the top 10 in some impact stats like LEBRON WAR and EPM Wins, but it's his sophomore season and the guy is a beast. Offensively he should be pounding it inside a bit more to get some easy buckets and to get the opponent in foul trouble more often. Defensively he is clearly DPOY level already.

Mostly agree, but I don't even think he should be putting wear and tear on his body battling too much inside until the roster is more developed around him.

ITYSL · Post #117 » by **ITYSL** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 7:29 pm

toooskies wrote:
CoP wrote:I don't know why anyone needs to be concerned with Wemby. He has fallen out of the top 10 in some impact stats like LEBRON WAR and EPM Wins, but it's his sophomore season and the guy is a beast. Offensively he should be pounding it inside a bit more to get some easy buckets and to get the opponent in foul trouble more often. Defensively he is clearly DPOY level already.

Mostly agree, but I don't even think he should be putting wear and tear on his body battling too much inside until the roster is more developed around him.

Yeah, I hear that. I still think he could spend more time under the basket, he's like a guaranteed bucket from there.

Post #118 » by **tsherkin** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 7:38 pm

toooskies wrote:
CoP wrote:I don't know why anyone needs to be concerned with Wemby. He has fallen out of the top 10 in some impact stats like LEBRON WAR and EPM Wins, but it's his sophomore season and the guy is a beast. Offensively he should be pounding it inside a bit more to get some easy buckets and to get the opponent in foul trouble more often. Defensively he is clearly DPOY level already.

Mostly agree, but I don't even think he should be putting wear and tear on his body battling too much inside until the roster is more developed around him.

I don't think he should be doing too much "battling inside" in general. He's never going to be a dominant low block guy. It's more about learning to use the mid/high post a little more, IMHO. That's less physically taxing on him and increases chances for improved draw rate and consistency, which is desirable.

He's doing great and he isn't playing on a good team, so patience should be a thing, for sure though.

TheGeneral99 · Post #119 » by **TheGeneral99** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 7:40 pm

He's 21 years old and already averaging 25 and 11 with 4 blocks and is arguably the best defender in the league.

He'll be a top 5 player easily as long as he's healthy...the biggest hurdle of course will be health for someone that huge.

I wouldn't be surprised if he is someone who averages 30, 15, 5 and 5 in his prime.

toooskies · Post #120 » by **toooskies** » Wed Jan 29, 2025 8:03 pm

TheGeneral99 wrote:He's 21 years old and already averaging 25 and 11 with 4 blocks and is arguably the best defender in the league.

He'll be a top 5 player easily as long as he's healthy...the biggest hurdle of course will be health for someone that huge.

I wouldn't be surprised if he is someone who averages 30, 15, 5 and 5 in his prime.

I don't think it's arguable. I think Wemby might unanimously be the best defender in the league. Podcasts that discuss midseason awards are skipping over DPOY or instead discussing who else is going to receive votes.