Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor?

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Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#1 » by DatAsh » Thu Jun 22, 2023 4:25 am

I've been watching all his games lately, and I'm just not seeing it

Just to clarify, I'm talking strictly my feelings of how good Victor can be versus how good I thought Lebron would be before he entered the league. I'm not talking taking into account hindsight of what Lebron has become. I've seen many say Victor is the best prospect of all time, but I'm just not seeing it. He's scoring 20ppg in a much weaker league, and shooting less than 30% from three.

The one area I do think he'll be an all time great is on defense, but I'm not high on his offense at all.
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#2 » by thekdog34 » Thu Jun 22, 2023 5:18 am

If he's a goat level defender and good on offense, is that not LeBron level prospect?
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#3 » by HeartBreakKid » Thu Jun 22, 2023 5:46 am

A much weaker league than what? High school? 18 year old volume scoring in France sounds pretty good to me. 20 points is a lot.


Giannis averaged 9 points playing in the third best league in Greece.
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#4 » by 70sFan » Thu Jun 22, 2023 6:28 am

Victor played in a significantly tougher league than LeBron, come on...
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#5 » by MyUniBroDavis » Thu Jun 22, 2023 7:13 am

70sFan wrote:Victor played in a significantly tougher league than LeBron, come on...



He’s talking compared to the nba I think?
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#6 » by MyUniBroDavis » Thu Jun 22, 2023 7:15 am

People need to keep in mind bron shattered his ceiling by being an all time great wing defender at his best, developing a great jump shot, iq being GOAT level even as a game manager, having GOAT longevity, etc etc etc


Victor shattering his ceiling in the same way would be the GOAT but there are pretty clear issues such as the fact that he may not even be a good shooter
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#7 » by 70sFan » Thu Jun 22, 2023 9:04 am

MyUniBroDavis wrote:People need to keep in mind bron shattered his ceiling by being an all time great wing defender at his best, developing a great jump shot, iq being GOAT level even as a game manager, having GOAT longevity, etc etc etc


Victor shattering his ceiling in the same way would be the GOAT but there are pretty clear issues such as the fact that he may not even be a good shooter

Well yeah, expecting Victor to be next LeBron or Kareem is absurd. No prospect deserves such expectations, even the real Kareem who was the GOAT prospect.
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#8 » by trelos6 » Thu Jun 22, 2023 9:54 am

70sFan wrote:
MyUniBroDavis wrote:People need to keep in mind bron shattered his ceiling by being an all time great wing defender at his best, developing a great jump shot, iq being GOAT level even as a game manager, having GOAT longevity, etc etc etc


Victor shattering his ceiling in the same way would be the GOAT but there are pretty clear issues such as the fact that he may not even be a good shooter

Well yeah, expecting Victor to be next LeBron or Kareem is absurd. No prospect deserves such expectations, even the real Kareem who was the GOAT prospect.


Kareem had 3 years in college, dropping 26.5 ppg, 15.5 rpg, 64% from the field. 3x NCAA champion. 2x AP POY (missed out because Hayes got nearly 37/19 for Houston)
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#9 » by OhayoKD » Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:42 am

DatAsh wrote:I've been watching all his games lately, and I'm just not seeing it

Just to clarify, I'm talking strictly my feelings of how good Victor can be versus how good I thought Lebron would be before he entered the league. I'm not talking taking into account hindsight of what Lebron has become. I've seen many say Victor is the best prospect of all time, but I'm just not seeing it. He's scoring 20ppg in a much weaker league, and shooting less than 30% from three.

The one area I do think he'll be an all time great is on defense, but I'm not high on his offense at all.

He's a much better defensive prospect and might have a higher offensive ceiling than someone like Kareem. Prospects hitting their cieling is inherently unlikely and both injury-issues lower his floor, but I don't see why he's a clearly lower caliber of talent.

Now off course he's also entering a much more talented league than what Lebron or Kareem entered so even hitting that ceiling may not translate to being more dominant.
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#10 » by RCM88x » Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:44 am

70sFan wrote:Victor played in a significantly tougher league than LeBron, come on...

I don't think he's saying American D3 highschool is a tougher league than France, but France is a weaker league than the NBA which is obviously true. So therefore his offensive game doesn't project well into the NBA because he's not dominating a lesser league.
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#11 » by 70sFan » Thu Jun 22, 2023 10:58 am

RCM88x wrote:
70sFan wrote:Victor played in a significantly tougher league than LeBron, come on...

I don't think he's saying American D3 highschool is a tougher league than France, but France is a weaker league than the NBA which is obviously true. So therefore his offensive game doesn't project well into the NBA because he's not dominating a lesser league.

It project better than HS players dominating HS teams, that's for sure.
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#12 » by homecourtloss » Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:09 pm

MyUniBroDavis wrote:People need to keep in mind bron shattered his ceiling by being an all time great wing defender at his best, developing a great jump shot, iq being GOAT level even as a game manager, having GOAT longevity, etc etc etc


Victor shattering his ceiling in the same way would be the GOAT but there are pretty clear issues such as the fact that he may not even be a good shooter


Watching Victor, it seems to me the best way to maximize his impact in today’s league is to have him exert most of his energy on defense whilestill remaining a plus type player on offense in today’s NBA. Pushing him to play like Durant is going to be a mistake if it takes away from his defensive motor.

As for the bolded, I don’t think most people realize how difficult it is to have concentrated high impact on both ends, and how rare it is to see this in the NBA. Whenever we have one of those fantasy “whom would you rather have“ scenarios of some amalgam of like “Ben Wallace on defense, KAT on offense,” the fantasy aspect is that we expect there to be the same motor on both ends which is incredibly difficult and rare. LeBron providing such a motor and impact on both ends is a rare, rare thing.
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lessthanjake wrote: By playing in a way that prevents Kyrie from getting much impact, LeBron ensures that controlling for Kyrie has limited effect…
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#13 » by eminence » Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:34 pm

Agreeing with homecourt above that a Wemby that tries to play like KD doesn’t scare me that much as a rival fan.

The Wemby that scares me is Gobert+hands+touch
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#14 » by Dutchball97 » Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:36 pm

I see him more as a AD/Zion type prospect. Guys with clear MVP potential with serious health question marks. I think when you're coming in at that level Wemby definitely has GOAT potential but only if he further develops in the NBA and can overcome those health question marks by having a long and healthy career.
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#15 » by 70sFan » Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:44 pm

eminence wrote:Agreeing with homecourt above that a Wemby that tries to play like KD doesn’t scare me that much as a rival fan.

The Wemby that scares me is Gobert+hands+touch

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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#16 » by LukaTheGOAT » Thu Jun 22, 2023 2:48 pm

I think he has maybe the highest floor of any 19 and under prospect we have ever seen. I don't think his ceiling is as high as a couple other guys but his makeup as a player is more straightforward for being good in the NBA.

He could test the limits of how impactful someone can be on defense in today's NBA. And on offense he is at worst an elite lob-finisher, who can pass.

Assuming health, good chance to be an all-star level guy by his rookie year and definitely no later than his sophomore year.

Also if we are doing projections, I think he has a great shot of having at least having Garnett value on offense come PS.

So All-Star on O+ATG on D in today's league is a MVP level baseline.

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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#17 » by HeartBreakKid » Thu Jun 22, 2023 4:09 pm

RCM88x wrote:
70sFan wrote:Victor played in a significantly tougher league than LeBron, come on...

I don't think he's saying American D3 highschool is a tougher league than France, but France is a weaker league than the NBA which is obviously true. So therefore his offensive game doesn't project well into the NBA because he's not dominating a lesser league.


Lebron James did not dominate the NBA in his rookie year. If he didn't have a ton of hype and a ton of minutes he would not have even won rookie of the year (Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade were better). I don't really get how LBJ putting up a bunch of boxscore numbers playing 40 minutes on a terrible team is really indicative of "better" than putting up 20 points in France. There are probably a lot of great one and done rookies who could have put up empty stats on a bad team as a 18 year old.


You're giving the OP a lot of credit because he is obviously just thinking from the perspective of the NBA. He says "just" 20 points in France as if scoring is a 1:1 in every league.

Wemb is the 2nd leading scorer in France. The person who is #1 averages 21 points per game and is a player who is in his absolute peak (and played way less games so more favorable sample size).

It's being painted as if he is struggling to score when he is a lead leader in scoring in a major league. His comparison is Lebron James averaged 20 points in the NBA 20 years ago on a terrible team, therefore Wamb can't possibly be that level of prospect makes little sense.


Wemb has the "best scorer" award and MVP - so it doesn't seem like he is "struggling" much at all. He is the best player in a major league in Europe at 18. Looking at what Luka did (and I am not saying Wemb was better or as successful than Luka at the same age) it seems like a pretty damn great template for success. Luka became a superstar in like two seconds in the NBA.
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#18 » by RCM88x » Thu Jun 22, 2023 4:31 pm

HeartBreakKid wrote:
RCM88x wrote:
70sFan wrote:Victor played in a significantly tougher league than LeBron, come on...

I don't think he's saying American D3 highschool is a tougher league than France, but France is a weaker league than the NBA which is obviously true. So therefore his offensive game doesn't project well into the NBA because he's not dominating a lesser league.


Lebron James did not dominate the NBA in his rookie year. If he didn't have a ton of hype and a ton of minutes he would not have even won rookie of the year (Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade were better). I don't really get how LBJ putting up a bunch of boxscore numbers playing 40 minutes on a terrible team is really indicative of "better" than putting up 20 points in France. There are probably a lot of great one and done rookies who could have put up empty stats on a bad team as a 18 year old.


You're giving the OP a lot of credit because he is obviously just thinking from the perspective of the NBA. He says "just" 20 points in France as if scoring is a 1:1 in every league.

Wemb is the 2nd leading scorer in France. The person who is #1 averages 21 points per game and is a player who is in his absolute peak (and played way less games so more favorable sample size).

It's being painted as if he is struggling to score when he is a lead leader in scoring in a major league. His comparison is Lebron James averaged 20 points in the NBA 20 years ago on a terrible team, therefore Wamb can't possibly be that level of prospect makes little sense.


Wemb has the "best scorer" award and MVP - so it doesn't seem like he is "struggling" much at all. He is the best player in a major league in Europe at 18. Looking at what Luka did (and I am not saying Wemb was better or as successful than Luka at the same age) it seems like a pretty damn great template for success. Luka became a superstar in like two seconds in the NBA.


Right, I agree completely. I was just specifically trying to explain the confusion over the "a much weaker league point", and how it didn't relate at all to Lebron in HS. But rather he's very good but perhaps not dominating some nothing burger league in France that few people have heard of until last year, and that doesn't really equate to being the "greatest prospect ever". Which, at the surface, I think is fair. The problem it's it's far deeper than that and in reality the league is really quite good, and with context he kind of is dominating at a level that projects him to already probably be a really good NBA player from the start.

So perhaps a better comparison would be Luka actually, his resume going into the draft was considerably stronger and he didn't even get picked top 2. I can understand someone saying that and questioning why Wemby is being hyped at GOAT levels. Now obviously him not going #1 was the wrong decision and criticized a lot at the time. And plus they're completely different players anyways so the comparison is not really a good one either.

Really, I think trying to compare him to anything is the wrong way to go. Just looking at him in a vacuum it's very easy to see why he's being touted as the best prospect in decades.
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#19 » by HeartBreakKid » Thu Jun 22, 2023 4:38 pm

RCM88x wrote:
HeartBreakKid wrote:
RCM88x wrote:I don't think he's saying American D3 highschool is a tougher league than France, but France is a weaker league than the NBA which is obviously true. So therefore his offensive game doesn't project well into the NBA because he's not dominating a lesser league.


Lebron James did not dominate the NBA in his rookie year. If he didn't have a ton of hype and a ton of minutes he would not have even won rookie of the year (Carmelo Anthony and Dwyane Wade were better). I don't really get how LBJ putting up a bunch of boxscore numbers playing 40 minutes on a terrible team is really indicative of "better" than putting up 20 points in France. There are probably a lot of great one and done rookies who could have put up empty stats on a bad team as a 18 year old.


You're giving the OP a lot of credit because he is obviously just thinking from the perspective of the NBA. He says "just" 20 points in France as if scoring is a 1:1 in every league.

Wemb is the 2nd leading scorer in France. The person who is #1 averages 21 points per game and is a player who is in his absolute peak (and played way less games so more favorable sample size).

It's being painted as if he is struggling to score when he is a lead leader in scoring in a major league. His comparison is Lebron James averaged 20 points in the NBA 20 years ago on a terrible team, therefore Wamb can't possibly be that level of prospect makes little sense.


Wemb has the "best scorer" award and MVP - so it doesn't seem like he is "struggling" much at all. He is the best player in a major league in Europe at 18. Looking at what Luka did (and I am not saying Wemb was better or as successful than Luka at the same age) it seems like a pretty damn great template for success. Luka became a superstar in like two seconds in the NBA.


Right, I agree completely. I was just specifically trying to explain the confusion over the "a much weaker league point", and how it didn't relate at all to Lebron in HS. But rather he's very good but perhaps not dominating some nothing burger league in France that few people have heard of until last year, and that doesn't really equate to being the "greatest prospect ever". Which, at the surface, I think is fair. The problem it's it's far deeper than that and in reality the league is really quite good, and with context he kind of is dominating at a level that projects him to already probably be a really good NBA player from the start.

So perhaps a better comparison would be Luka actually, his resume going into the draft was considerably stronger and he didn't even get picked top 2. I can understand someone saying that and questioning why Wemby is being hyped at GOAT levels. Now obviously him not going #1 was the wrong decision and criticized a lot at the time. And plus they're completely different players anyways so the comparison is not really a good one either.

Really, I think trying to compare him to anything is the wrong way to go. Just looking at him in a vacuum it's very easy to see why he's being touted as the best prospect in decades.


That has more to do with a perpetual ignorance of non-Europeans of European basketball. Because most people not from Europe do not watch European ball they do not really know what is considered good and what is not. There isn't any reason for ESPN and the likes to push European basketball either to help people contextualize it.


For instance, Luka is an all time great prospect. You're absolutely correct that someone could scale it in a way by saying "well, he went #3 so he's obviously not that heralded". And it's pretty simple, he went number 3 because the GMs above him were dumb and American media correspondents do not care much about him either because their job is to promote the NCAA not La Liga. Michael Jordan went #3 also and despite popular belief he very much an all time great prospect, he would go #1 in many draft classes easily.

But people who actually follow draft prospects as a hobby absolutely thought Luka was a big deal, and thought so since he was 15 or 16 years old. He was thought to be the best prospect of his draft class for a very long time and it is really just European skepticism that went against him.


Wemby should be compared to his peers of his same age playing in the same era when judging his scalability of being a prospect. In which case dominating France is more impressive than dominating the NCAA or playing in the G-League. That is already grounds for him being an all time great prospect because those are the same people he'll be playing against when he hits his prime. Those are the players he will create his legacy against.


And yeah I agree, they are very different players which makes the comparison less relevant. Wemby is a center and still much of the masses do not really understand what centers do or why they are important. Luka and James are ball dominant players and their value is much more directly tied to their points scored. The fact that Wemby is able to drop 20 as a center is already a massive check mark because obviously his defense will be the thing that is coveted (potentially).
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Re: Anyone else not seeing a Lebron level prospect in Victor? 

Post#20 » by frica » Thu Jun 22, 2023 5:01 pm

MyUniBroDavis wrote:People need to keep in mind bron shattered his ceiling by being an all time great wing defender at his best, developing a great jump shot, iq being GOAT level even as a game manager, having GOAT longevity, etc etc etc


Victor shattering his ceiling in the same way would be the GOAT but there are pretty clear issues such as the fact that he may not even be a good shooter

I wouldn't be too worried about Victor's shooting as his free throw is 80% these days
https://www.proballers.com/basketball/player/180211/victor-wembanyama/totals

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