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

[_jin]

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

I didnt check your team flair before, now I understand why you feel that way about french players, can't really blame you given the history

[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.

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

FWIW I named 3 of the most elite basketball minds the world has ever seen. I don’t think we will see that mentality and focus for decades, or ever, given how spoiled and social media driven most of the young athletes are these days.

[eyeatoma]

Not sure if this was already posted but this is insane.

Read on Twitter

Poor guy, comes to a new country, and gets this weird Britney story following him around. He's probably already feeling some pressure with his underwhelming debut.

[Archx]

Delusional fans: Yo, apologize to Britney because she ran behind you, wanted to grab you and then she hit herself on the face !!!!

[DwayneSchintzus]

the entire discourse around this kid is so weird - "apologize to Brittney", "don't be honest, make up an excuse about being sick", and someone in this thread says he "blows" after one summer league game.

Go Spurs Go

[G R E Y]

LOVE IT!

Read on Twitter

[Pachinko_]

Yeah that's what I thought, he was just tired in that first game. This is more like him.

[Ballerhogger]

Conditioning inadequate,not strong enough, questionable shot, post game isn't good. Offensively its a work in progress. Defensively he can make an immediate impact.

His ceiling for me right now is Rudy Gobert

[G R E Y]

Conditioning inadequate,not strong enough, questionable shot, post game isn't good. Offensively its a work in progress. Defensively he can make an immediate impact.

His ceiling for me right now is Rudy Gobert

[Ballerhogger]

Conditioning inadequate,not strong enough, questionable shot, post game isn't good. Offensively its a work in progress. Defensively he can make an immediate impact.

His ceiling for me right now is Rudy Gobert

[NoDopeOnSundays]

Conditioning inadequate,not strong enough, questionable shot, post game isn't good. Offensively its a work in progress. Defensively he can make an immediate impact.

His ceiling for me right now is Rudy Gobert

What?

[John Murdoch]

Thon Maker anyone

[TheGOATRises007]

Conditioning inadequate,not strong enough, questionable shot, post game isn't good. Offensively its a work in progress. Defensively he can make an immediate impact.

His ceiling for me right now is Rudy Gobert

I don't even think that's his floor.

[Ritzo]

Wemby stumbles and falls a lot, getting pushed around easily by small players. That's really not a good sign for a player that is 7'4.

[TheGOATRises007]

Wemby stumbles and falls a lot, getting pushed around easily by small players. That's really not a good sign for a player that is 7'4.

Once he grows more into his body and matures, that won't happen.

[remi_222]

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

How abt blaming a bit Borego for Batum's case ?

[thelead]

LOVE IT!

Read on Twitter

This is so ridiculously awesome to read. Hope he keeps this focus.

[Raps in 4]

After cementing his legacy as French Bargnani following the first game, he has since re-established himself as the best prospect since Lebron. More hot takes to follow after the next game.

[kuclas]

Let’s just hope he stays healthy. He’s this generation Ralph Sampson coming into the nba. Ralph was very good before he got injured. So he’s gonna have to add some weight obviously but hopefully doesn’t get any lower body injuries that could be impacted by weight gain.

[peZt]

The numbers make it look better than he actually played yesterday. It genuinely sometimes looks as if he picked up a Basketball last year for the first time. So uncoordinated at times, weird and tough layup attempts, doesn't know where to move on defense.
I know everybody raves about the midrange jumper, but he almost lost his handle again on the drive attempt and had to pick up the ball and settle for a jumper. I don't care if the shot went in or not when evaluating a player. I'm more concerned about hiim almost losing his handle again for the 129313th time on that crossover attempt than I'm thrilled about that made jumper.
The putback dunk came after a super weird and bad layup attempt which looked like someone who is 7'5 would attempt his first layup or hook shot ever.
I really only have seen highlights of him before and if you just watched the highlights of this match you would think that he had a great performance as well but he really didn't. I still have as many red flags and question marks about him like after the first game.

If he didn't look so lost on both ends of the floor I would be much more confident in him maximizing his performance. But he somehow looked like a guy who is 7'5, super quick for his size but doesn't know how to use those tools on the Basketball Court and is just figuring out how to play Basketball. Which wouldn't be as big of a red flag if he wasn't playing Basketball for over 10 years.
And he somehow still managed to put up 27 points which shows how valuable those tools alone are.

And I have never seen a player fall down and lose his balance as much as Wemby did in the first two games. It's like his legs just can't support his body and crumble under the smallest pressure. And it seemed like he lost the ball on almost every single drive to the basket. And sometimes not even due to a defender but sometimes simply because he doesn't have a good grip on the ball. He has such huge hands, the ball should be glued to his hands but it looks like he has butterfingers.
And despite the 10 rebounds Ive never seen a player his size look so bad boxing out or going for loose balls. He's gonna give up so many offensive rebounds during the regular season.
He's also a very bad screen setter and roll man.

I know the potential is insane but he looks so much worse and unready than I had anticipated. On both ends of the floor. I don't care how many blocks he got, he looks lost moving around on defense.