Luka Soph vs Wemby Soph

[Ryoga Hibiki]

Who is/was better?

[RoyceDa59]

Wemby over everybody.

[brackdan70]

It might be pretty close. Luka was pretty good. 4th in MVP voting and 1st team all NBA.
Wemby is probably going to be in a similar place. Luka only played in 61 games though.
I give the edge to Wemby.

[jasonxxx102]

How many of these Wemby vs X player threads do we need?

[Lockdown504090]

How many of these Wemby vs X player threads do we need?

A lot of them. Probably a few more tbh

Luka led those bois to a 115 offensive rating, kinda nuts for a child to do that. And he was on demon time in the bubble. He took the last of kawhis prime to beat him

[Mavrelous]

It's very close, I'd give the edge to Wemby.

[EmpireFalls]

If Wemby has a good playoff performance I would say him but what Luka did in the bubble was crazy.

[UglyBugBall]

Luka. Not even close. Look at raw stats. Anyone voting for wemby lacks development in the prefrontal cortex and is unable to think further back than 3 months ago.

[DwayneSchintzus]

Luka is a terrible defender, Wemby is an unprecedented defender.

[og15]

Luka is a terrible defender, Wemby is an unprecedented defender.

Luka isn't a terrible defender, though second year Luka, okay, not particularly good.

Luka is easily the better offensive players, better playmaker, better shot creator. On the other hand, Wemby is a DPOY level impact guy and he's a versatile defender to boot, and that's what can give him a slight edge.

Wemby is 30ish games in though, so it's odd to compare a whole season where we also saw a playoff series vs 30ish games.

I don't know how resilient Wemby would be against playoff defense for example, he's improving every week, but his strength is still a limiting factor in generating offense against tighter defense, but also the Spurs roster has a lot of holes to plug.

How many of these Wemby vs X player threads do we need?

A lot of them. Probably a few more tbh

Luka led those bois to a 115 offensive rating, kinda nuts for a child to do that. And he was on demon time in the bubble. He took the last of kawhis prime to beat him

Dallas was definitely interesting in those first Luka years, and it was certainly related to Carlisle's offensive coaching and their roster build, but in the regular season, they had a 118.7 Ortg with Luka, and 115.0 Ortg without and the no Luka lineups (1590 minutes) had a +4.2 NetRtg compared to a +5.4 NetRtg with him (2048 minutes). His playoff performance was also steller, guy was killing it.

Spurs have a +6.2 with Wemby but a -9.2 when he's off the court, yikes!

[DwayneSchintzus]

Luka is a terrible defender, Wemby is an unprecedented defender.

Luka isn't a terrible defender

did you watch the finals? they targeted him over and over and over.

don't give me that bull about injuries. its the same thing all the time, that was just the most egregious example of it.

Watch on YouTube

[zimpy27]

I'd go Luka, but it's close

[Ryoga Hibiki]

It might be pretty close. Luka was pretty good. 4th in MVP voting and 1st team all NBA.
Wemby is probably going to be in a similar place. Luka only played in 61 games though.
I give the edge to Wemby.

you rememeber it was rhe bubble year?

[brackdan70]

It might be pretty close. Luka was pretty good. 4th in MVP voting and 1st team all NBA.
Wemby is probably going to be in a similar place. Luka only played in 61 games though.
I give the edge to Wemby.

you rememeber it was rhe bubble year?

That’s right. Thanks.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

How many of these Wemby vs X player threads do we need?

I think we do need this one, as Luka was the best soph since Timmeh (who came out as a senior) and arguably he was the best 20yo of all time.
This is actual all time vs all time level.

[og15]

Luka is a terrible defender, Wemby is an unprecedented defender.

Luka isn't a terrible defender

did you watch the finals? they targeted him over and over and over.

don't give me that bull about injuries. its the same thing all the time, that was just the most egregious example of it.

Watch on YouTube

Targeting the weakest perimeter defender on the opposing team who is also an offensive star, which means you force him into more actions and cause him to expend even more energy and not get to hide doesn't mean the player is a terrible defender lol

It certainly means he is most likely the weakest man to man defender in the lineup, but it also means there's strategic advantage to doing it more than just how good a defender he is.

[SNPA]

Luka isn't a terrible defender

did you watch the finals? they targeted him over and over and over.

don't give me that bull about injuries. its the same thing all the time, that was just the most egregious example of it.

Watch on YouTube

Targeting the weakest perimeter defender on the opposing team who is also an offensive star, which means you force him into more actions and cause him to expend even more energy and not get to hide doesn't mean the player is a terrible defender lol

It certainly means he is most likely the weakest man to man defender in the lineup, but it also means there's strategic advantage to doing it more than just how good a defender he is.

Such an embarrassment. Being a bad defender is one thing, just not even bothering to get into anything resembling a defensive stance is another. Any high school kid would get pulled and told to bend his damn knees or ride pine forever.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

did you watch the finals? they targeted him over and over and over.

don't give me that bull about injuries. its the same thing all the time, that was just the most egregious example of it.

Watch on YouTube

Targeting the weakest perimeter defender on the opposing team who is also an offensive star, which means you force him into more actions and cause him to expend even more energy and not get to hide doesn't mean the player is a terrible defender lol

It certainly means he is most likely the weakest man to man defender in the lineup, but it also means there's strategic advantage to doing it more than just how good a defender he is.

Such an embarrassment. Being a bad defender is one thing, just not even bothering to get into anything resembling a defensive stance is another. Any high school kid would get pulled and told to bend his damn knees or ride pine forever.

I am not sure that was Luka's sophomore year, though.
Why didn't you take some clips of Luka being targeted by Kawhi or Paul George, instead?

[phanman]

Given that we know how Luka's sophomore season played out with the playoffs included, it's not hard to choose him. He was arguably the best player on the court during that first round series against the Clips with Kawhi and PG fully healthy. Especially considering KP only played 3 games in that series. 20yo Luka was also in incredible shape and his bubble physique was probably the best we've ever seen from him.


With that said, it's only fair to compare using a 30 game sample as that is what Wemby has played so far:

Luka - 29.1pts, 9.6reb, 8.9ast, 1.2stl on 61.2%TS (47/33/80) w/19.7FGA (9.2 3PA & 9.2FTA) in 32.4mpg
Wemby - 25.7pts, 10.7reb, 3.8ast, 1stl, 3.9blk on 60.8%TS (48/36/88) w/ 19.2FGA (9.3 3PA & 4.4FTA) in 33.1mpg

The numbers are absolutely insane for a 20yo to average on both sides so you really can't go wrong with either choice here. The Mavs were 10 games above .500 at 22-12 at his 30 game mark and Spurs are only 1 game above at 18-17. Obviously having KP as your 2nd best player vs CP3 will do that for you but at best it's a wash if your not taking into account Luka's playoff performance.

I give the slight edge to Wemby though because what he is doing defensively and that wild +15.5on/off is hard to ignore. Him shooting slightly more more 3s than Luka on a better percentage is also pretty shocking and his 3.8ast is quite significant too.

[og15]

did you watch the finals? they targeted him over and over and over.

don't give me that bull about injuries. its the same thing all the time, that was just the most egregious example of it.

Watch on YouTube

Targeting the weakest perimeter defender on the opposing team who is also an offensive star, which means you force him into more actions and cause him to expend even more energy and not get to hide doesn't mean the player is a terrible defender lol

It certainly means he is most likely the weakest man to man defender in the lineup, but it also means there's strategic advantage to doing it more than just how good a defender he is.

Such an embarrassment. Being a bad defender is one thing, just not even bothering to get into anything resembling a defensive stance is another. Any high school kid would get pulled and told to bend his damn knees or ride pine forever.

Everyone has their moments. We have the clip of Kuzma pushing Lebron to make his rotation for example.

Here's what an NBA player would say:
https://youtube.com/shorts/3BmsP29xoo0?si=6VF9cD59geCQgj93

Like I said earlier, there is a reason beyond his actual defensive ability that a team would hunt him. You know he has a huge offensive load, you know that while his conditioning is good, it's nowhere near optimal for two way play, so you know that if you make him work on defense, okay, he starts to get tired on offense. If he conserves on defense so his offense doesn't suffer, he will give up opportunities to your team. Still, there's space between horrible defender, and guy taking plays off and good defender. Luka is in that space, but he's not horrible.

Don't get me wrong, I'm in no way suggesting that he doesn't have defensive flaws that have a lot of tie into conditioning and effort, he does, yes, it tends to be better in the playoffs though, and improves as the season goes on, as he still has not taken the being in shape before the season stuff as a priority.