Victor Wembanyama Mega-Thread - For all your Wembanyama needs!

[NoDopeOnSundays]

May as well change the defensive player of the year award to his name, he's going to have a stranglehold on it. I thought he looked fine, he missed a couple of easy shots, people saying he looked slow must be crazy cause I saw young Kristaps and he didn't move this well. He moves around the court like a wing, and his playmaking looks much better than expected. He's not strong enough to drive through the defenders chest, but that will change in the future, he had a couple of drives stopped where strength was the main culprit. I saw the aggression to do it, but the tools to execute it aren't there yet.

2-3 years he will be virtually unguardable if they get the right strength coach for him, he needs to remain wirey but strong, like a KG / Giannis build. Stay away from the urge to bulk up his upper body.

[dWadeOwnzYou]

I'm sorry but no way he's NBA ready from what I've seen so far. Slow, weak physically and uncoordinated. He will need a full NBA season to be ready. So don't label him a bust if he doesn't produce in his first year. A good comparison for him is Yao Mingo. Who also dominated the Chinese league prior to his NBA debut. He struggled the first year but got the hang of it midway through the season and then dominated the years after. Best case scenario for Victor is to model after Yao. That saddest part about all of this is the expectation the media put on the kid with the "best" prospect since Lebron James talk. Hope that doesn't kill his spirit.

[KingDavid]

No need to overreact, y'all. Give him time to adjust and adapt and see what the end result is. Thought we all recently learned this lesson with Trae Young and Luka Doncic.

[ItsDanger]

He's lucky the league is soft these days. Getting Edward Scissorhands vibes from him.

[madvillian]

No need to overreact, y'all. Give him time to adjust and adapt and see what the end result is. Thought we all recently learned this lesson with Trae Young and Luka Doncic.

To be fair most of what I'm seeing is "slow the roll on the best prospect ever" talk. His offense was obviously way overhyped. Even from a single SL game you can see that. He'll have to hang his hat on defense for a couple years while he works on every aspect of his offense and getting stronger.

[madvillian]

He's lucky the league is soft these days. Getting Edward Scissorhands vibes from him.

I dunno about that, did you watch the Finals? There were stretches were you could have called a foul on every possession, bodies were flying everywhere, Bam was hip checking dudes and so on -- the game doesn't have the non basketball fouls of the 80s and 90s, but it's much more physical now than it was say 5 years ago and similar overall physicality to the 90s imo.

He's going to need to put on a good 20lbs of muscle before he's 23 if he wants to really flourish.

[ItsDanger]

He's lucky the league is soft these days. Getting Edward Scissorhands vibes from him.

I dunno about that, did you watch the Finals? There were stretches were you could have called a foul on every possession, bodies were flying everywhere, Bam was hip checking dudes and so on -- the game doesn't have the non basketball fouls of the 80s and 90s, but it's much more physical now than it was say 5 years ago and similar overall physicality to the 90s imo.

He's going to need to put on a good 20lbs of muscle before he's 23 if he wants to really flourish.

LOL, not remotely close to the 90s.

[madvillian]

He's lucky the league is soft these days. Getting Edward Scissorhands vibes from him.

I dunno about that, did you watch the Finals? There were stretches were you could have called a foul on every possession, bodies were flying everywhere, Bam was hip checking dudes and so on -- the game doesn't have the non basketball fouls of the 80s and 90s, but it's much more physical now than it was say 5 years ago and similar overall physicality to the 90s imo.

He's going to need to put on a good 20lbs of muscle before he's 23 if he wants to really flourish.

LOL, not remotely close to the 90s.

You have notalgia covered glasses on. I'm old enough to have watched the league then, and every other month or so I'll go back and watch some classic 90s games. On average, every player was playing with 10lbs less lean mass. That right there is a huge difference.

As I said, there was more non basketball BS like dudes getting closes-lined going to the basket. That doesn't mean that today's game isn't physical. Go rewatch the finals, that **** was like a pickup game at times.

[ItsDanger]

I dunno about that, did you watch the Finals? There were stretches were you could have called a foul on every possession, bodies were flying everywhere, Bam was hip checking dudes and so on -- the game doesn't have the non basketball fouls of the 80s and 90s, but it's much more physical now than it was say 5 years ago and similar overall physicality to the 90s imo.

He's going to need to put on a good 20lbs of muscle before he's 23 if he wants to really flourish.

LOL, not remotely close to the 90s.

You have notalgia covered glasses on. I'm old enough to have watched the league then, and every other month or so I'll go back and watch some classic 90s games. On average, every player was playing with 10lbs less lean mass. That right there is a huge difference.

As I said, there was more non basketball BS like dudes getting closes-lined going to the basket. That doesn't mean that today's game isn't physical. Go rewatch the finals, that **** was like a pickup game at times.

BS, the fouls back then are ejections today

[HotRocks34]

Wemby probably has some work to do in order to reach Ralph's impact at the NBA level.

[hardenASG13]

It's hard not to react after one summer league game, but it's going to be a learning process for him. He's 19, from another country, and was the hottest ticket in Vegas on a Friday night for his debut. He looked like he didn't want to make a mistake, which is no way to play basketball. He can/will fix that. He was alarmingly timid running the floor or pursuing rebounds, and I think he was surprised his handle or back downs weren't as effective as he anticipated.

[KillMonger]

Looking for a bounce back game 2

Sent from the phone in my hands

[bb22]

I was surprised by his handles. Better than I thought.

They were playing playground type basketball. Pop will know how to put him in the right situations/positions to get easy baskets. I don’t see him in many perimeter iso actions once the season starts. Wouldn’t be surprised if Timmy came back to help him develop that post and midrange game, too.

All that matters is his health and motivation to succeed. If he has the MJ/Lebron/Kobe mentality, he will be a legend.

[KembaWalker]

I was surprised by his handles. Better than I thought.

They were playing playground type basketball. Pop will know how to put him in the right situations/positions to get easy baskets. I don’t see him in many perimeter iso actions once the season starts. Wouldn’t be surprised if Timmy came back to help him develop that post and midrange game, too.

All that matters is his health and motivation to succeed. If he has the MJ/Lebron/Kobe mentality, he will be a legend.

Given that his mentors are Batum, Diaw, and Gobert I think we can probably go ahead and rule that out now

[_jin]

I was surprised by his handles. Better than I thought.

They were playing playground type basketball. Pop will know how to put him in the right situations/positions to get easy baskets. I don’t see him in many perimeter iso actions once the season starts. Wouldn’t be surprised if Timmy came back to help him develop that post and midrange game, too.

All that matters is his health and motivation to succeed. If he has the MJ/Lebron/Kobe mentality, he will be a legend.

Given that his mentors are Batum, Diaw, and Gobert I think we can probably go ahead and rule that out now

So you just named 3 random french players as his mentors, even though he has no relationship with Batum or Diaw and has only trained with Gobert that one time that everybody's seen, and based on that fact that you made up, decided to conclude that he'll definitely be a loser lol

[KembaWalker]

I was surprised by his handles. Better than I thought.

They were playing playground type basketball. Pop will know how to put him in the right situations/positions to get easy baskets. I don’t see him in many perimeter iso actions once the season starts. Wouldn’t be surprised if Timmy came back to help him develop that post and midrange game, too.

All that matters is his health and motivation to succeed. If he has the MJ/Lebron/Kobe mentality, he will be a legend.

Given that his mentors are Batum, Diaw, and Gobert I think we can probably go ahead and rule that out now

So you just named 3 random french players as his mentors, even though he has no relationship with Batum or Diaw and has only trained with Gobert that one time that everybody's seen, and based on that fact that you made up, decided to conclude that he'll definitely be a loser lol

Boris Diaw literally runs the Metro 92 team that Wemby played for. Batum owned the team Wemby played on before that, ASVEL. Not naming random guys at all bud, French basketball is a pretty small and tight knit community.

[_jin]

Given that his mentors are Batum, Diaw, and Gobert I think we can probably go ahead and rule that out now

So you just named 3 random french players as his mentors, even though he has no relationship with Batum or Diaw and has only trained with Gobert that one time that everybody's seen, and based on that fact that you made up, decided to conclude that he'll definitely be a loser lol

Boris Diaw literally runs the Metro 92 team that Wemby played for. Batum owned the team Wemby played on before that, ASVEL. Not naming random guys at all bud, French basketball is a pretty small and tight knit community.

Yea I know, I live in France. Diaw quit the Mets92 in 2020, he works for INSEP nowadays, they never met, and ASVEL's owner is TP, not Batum. He met Wemby once for like 10 secs.

[KembaWalker]

So you just named 3 random french players as his mentors, even though he has no relationship with Batum or Diaw and has only trained with Gobert that one time that everybody's seen, and based on that fact that you made up, decided to conclude that he'll definitely be a loser lol

Boris Diaw literally runs the Metro 92 team that Wemby played for. Batum owned the team Wemby played on before that, ASVEL. Not naming random guys at all bud, French basketball is a pretty small and tight knit community.

Yea I know, I live in France. Diaw quit the Mets92 in 2020, he works for INSEP nowadays, they never met, and ASVEL's owner is TP, not Batum. He met Wemby once for like 10 secs.

This is literally semantics lol, Batum and TP are co-owners of ASVEL though I will take the L on Diaw. Not that Tony Parker is a good influence either. The Frenchies all have the same, crappy attitudes as someone who had to go through basically all of them in his org except Gobert, who has made his very publicly apparent. Not sure what is wrong with the competitive culture there.

[_jin]

Boris Diaw literally runs the Metro 92 team that Wemby played for. Batum owned the team Wemby played on before that, ASVEL. Not naming random guys at all bud, French basketball is a pretty small and tight knit community.

Yea I know, I live in France. Diaw quit the Mets92 in 2020, he works for INSEP nowadays, they never met, and ASVEL's owner is TP, not Batum. He met Wemby once for like 10 secs.

This is literally semantics lol, Batum and TP are co-owners of ASVEL though I will take the L on Diaw. Not that Tony Parker is a good influence either. The Frenchies all have the same, crappy attitudes as someone who had to go through basically all of them in his org except Gobert, who has made his very publicly apparent. Not sure what is wrong with the competitive culture there.

Owning a team doesnt mean having a relationship with people who work there, he's just a shareholder. To your defense, I just checked Diaw's wikipedia page and the english one still lists him as Mets president. The french one is up to date, and he has actually been named chairman of the INSEP board recently which is a powerful position. I noticed english wikipedia pages of french personnalities were often deprecated.
I think TP has that winner mentality and is a good influence, he's obviously made some mistakes that we all know about but this doesnt make him a bad influence when it comes to basketball. I think Batum is as well, Gobert probably not, but the sample size of impactful french players in the NBA is not big enough to make any conclusions.
I dont think there's a problem of culture when it comes to competition in France. For a small country they still produce a lot of talents in all kind of sports. At the last Olympics they won gold in every men team sports except basketball where they got silver.

[KembaWalker]

Yea I know, I live in France. Diaw quit the Mets92 in 2020, he works for INSEP nowadays, they never met, and ASVEL's owner is TP, not Batum. He met Wemby once for like 10 secs.

This is literally semantics lol, Batum and TP are co-owners of ASVEL though I will take the L on Diaw. Not that Tony Parker is a good influence either. The Frenchies all have the same, crappy attitudes as someone who had to go through basically all of them in his org except Gobert, who has made his very publicly apparent. Not sure what is wrong with the competitive culture there.

Owning a team doesnt mean having a relationship with people who work there, he's just a shareholder. To your defense, I just checked Diaw's wikipedia page and the english one still lists him as Mets president. The french one is up to date, and he has actually been named chairman of the INSEP board recently which is a powerful position. I noticed english wikipedia pages of french personnalities were often deprecated.
I think TP has that winner mentality and is a good influence, he's obviously made some mistakes that we all know about but this doesnt make him a bad influence when it comes to basketball. I think Batum is as well, Gobert probably not, but the sample size of impactful french players in the NBA is not big enough to make any conclusions.
I dont think there's a problem of culture when it comes to competition in France. For a small country they still produce a lot of talents in all kind of sports. At the last Olympics they won gold in every men team sports except basketball where they got silver.

I don't think you will find a Charlotte fan that is particularly fond of high profile French players after Diaw and Batum put on two of the most pitiful displays of quitting I've ever seen with Diaw blowing up to the size of a Beluga whale and Batum admitting to quitting in a public apology to Hornets fans after taking a 22+ mil salary to the point where we just finally got done paying him $7 mil a year to be a solid role player for the Clippers in a waive and stretch. Even Parker signed a 2 year deal and bailed after one. I dunno, maybe Maledon can change our opinion