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

[ItsDanger]

If healthy, Wemby will be a problem for defenses. Jokic just won the championship.

When are other teams going to adjust their rosters to combat them properly?

[Pachinko_]

I liked Bassey next to Wemby, he is big enough to do most of the pushing and reboundinf but at the same time he switches on guards and contests everything. Add to that Wemby swatting anything that comes near and a forward like Sochan who chases players like a dog and also helps with the rebounding, and you have a pretty stifling defensive front court.

[babyjax13]

Do we think Wemby is a bigger mismatch in the medium term at power forward or center? I'm thinking power forward, just so much height combined with that mobility. If you can get any kind of stretch five with size you have so much rim protection. I'm all in on the hype now, he's just incredible.

[AdagioPace]

Do we think Wemby is a bigger mismatch in the medium term at power forward or center? I'm thinking power forward, just so much height combined with that mobility. If you can get any kind of stretch five with size you have so much rim protection. I'm all in on the hype now, he's just incredible.

defensively he'll be a center. Offensively you're probably right, sky is the limit (literally).

[Exp0sed]

quite a few subtle things Wemby has been doing in these preseason games, demonstrate a pretty shocking reality imo - his basketball I.Q, situational awareness, reading plays as they happen (and even before they happen) - is well above average already at 19

meaning - he has a higher I.Q than at 19 than at least half of current NBA players and as we know, those skills are more about innate traits and not a skill you can improve on significantly so his age isn't all that relevant but his skill level is also off the charts for his frame and age.

he's really a video game player, as so many have been saying.

not saying he's got the mind and reading abilities of a Lebron or a Jokic but just having him be above average in that aspect as well...i mean how do u deal with that?
if he'll remain healthy enough to have a long career (a big if, obviously), this dude has legit Goat potential

obviously pound for pound, he won't be the "best player ever" and wouldn't even come close but Bball isn't played pound for pound

there were indications of his I.Q and positive demeanor throughout the past couple of years but seeing him think a step quicker than his NBA counterparts is very indicative imo, of the shape of things to come.

[manlisten]

It takes a special ego to see all this going on, for all of two games, and think, “I know what to do with him better than Gregg Popovich”

It takes complete DELUSION to think “he should play more like LaMarcus Aldridge”

Wemby will be 20x the player Aldridge was.

Imagine looking at a Ferrari- no, a flipping UFO - and thinking, “we should swap in a Volkswagen transmission.”

Exactly. Why would you want to limit his ability in any way? This isn't Andrew Bynum shooting pull up 3s in transition. This is truly a position less player.

[ShaqAttac]

Wemby is going to learn the skyhook and dominate

how many players can skyhook. is it just cap

[Bornstellar]

Man, just imagine Victor at 25 years old. Crazy that he is barely scratching the surface of his potential

[bisme37]

All that skill and Wemby has a head on his shoulders too. Knows exactly which players to emulate in order to take his game to the next level.

[greekbuck34]

This will never stop being funny. It looks like you pressed the wrong button in the NBA2K.

[levon]

If I'm gonna be honest, the step back jumper stuff seems more like something for highlight tapes, and I don't entirely disagree with Phreak mainly because I'm not sure I want this guy's body to be doing changing-direction stuff like a guard for 15 years. We bring up Durant, but Durant's been injured every year from his age 30-35 season now.

The truly transformational stuff will be the defense and rebounding. He's rebounding regularly without jumping and with minimal effort, or tipping to a teammate. He's already warped the floor on day one. He's going to get 3 DPOY's in a row.

Also, I disagree with the "Giannis with a jumper" comp. Giannis is a bulldozer. Wemby's center of gravity is set higher than most players' heads. I'd be surprised if he ever becomes a "go through you" player, and he obviously doesn't need to be one because he can go over.

It’s the modern 7ft or 7ft plus skill set from Dirk to Durant and now Wembanyama.

Don’t care for flash because Dirk had better offensive effect by virtue of keeping it simple.

At the end of the day a 7 footer is going to get their shot whenever they want, it’s what they do beforehand is ultra important imo.

Right, and if I was coaching Wemby I'd tell him to run hard and get an early seal for cheap buckets or fouls drawn that way. If he gets pushed out by a stout post defender, just make the catch, turn, face-up, and shoot a jumper that will be uncontested anyway. Keep it extremely simple with economy of motion. I wouldn't want him regularly dribbling up and doing spin moves into traffic and stuff, despite it looking like a Men In Black x Space Jam crossover.

Guards have to diversify their attack because the defense schemes and counters. With players like Wemby or Shaq, it takes a long time for defenses to find enough success to force the player to diversify. In certain matchups, no good counters even exist. So why prematurely diversify?

[Heat_team02]

Watch on YouTube

[Ferulci]

It takes a special ego to see all this going on, for all of two games, and think, “I know what to do with him better than Gregg Popovich”

It takes complete DELUSION to think “he should play more like LaMarcus Aldridge”

Wemby will be 20x the player Aldridge was.

Imagine looking at a Ferrari- no, a flipping UFO - and thinking, “we should swap in a Volkswagen transmission.”

It's truly mind-boggling. While I agree that eventually Wemby will have to focus on his most efficient areas, we have yet to see what they'll be. Imagine if we told the Dirk/KG "You need to play like Larry Nance" or Lebron/Giannis "you too tall to handle the ball, model your game after James Worthy" . LMA was a very good player but when you get a singularity such as Wembanyama, the worst thing to me is to put a ceiling on his skills before he played a single NBA game.

[DreamTeam09]

He's definitely an alien. He needs not to dribble so much tho. He should only be dribbling out of the triple threat, or when he grabs rebounds and pushes. He wants to be on the perimeter and leak out. His length makes him dominant on the weakside blocks, and blks in general, but he's not dominating on the glass as much as he can.

[Exp0sed]

He's definitely an alien. He needs not to dribble so much tho. He should only be dribbling out of the triple threat, or when he grabs rebounds and pushes. He wants to be on the perimeter and leak out. His length makes him dominant on the weakside blocks, and blks in general, but he's not dominating on the glass as much as he can.

seems like his natural inclination is leaking out and I can see alot of sense in that. yes, he gives up some rebounds he could have gotten but the pressure he puts on defenses by always lurking to leak out is just tremendous, partly because he can rebound or tip the ball so far from the basket

when ur facing that kind of leak-out threat, that can run, dribble, shoot and is 7'4 - teams would basically be punting alot of offensive rebound opportunities and just electing to stay back, not even going for the O Reb in the first place

[MrBigShot]

Very good thing Wemby has Pop as his coach and an older pop at that. He'll give him the freedom to push his boundaries while making sure he doesn't build bad habits.

[dbrog24]

My only complaint about Victor is that he seems a bit trigger happy with the three ball. Other than that, barring injuries, I don’t see how he doesn’t become the best player in the league in the next 5 years. He had this one move last night where he was driving and crossed between his legs, got to the free throw line area and hit a smooth fadeaway. At his size that level of fluidity and coordination is not fair.

I'd rather him take too many threes, get more reps in. I would guess a player who takes 5 threes a game and makes 33% of them is more valuable than a player who shoots 2 per games at 37%, simply because the defense knows he's gonna shoot and they have to contest. Sometimes having a reputation as a three point threat is almost as valuable as actually making the shot.

Except they aren't though. Wemby settles a lot for jumpers when there is no need to. If you look at Jokic, he shoots like 2 or 3 threes per game and a bunch of time, you see him fake or think about it, and decide against it. This leads to him getting on the block and making a great pass or shooting a little floater in the lane...and he DOMINATES the league doing this. Absolutely no reason Wemby can't do this (yes I know he's not as good a passer..though I think he could become close with his size).

Don't get me wrong, Wemby's jumpers and stepbacks are smooth when he's hitting them. There is a reason he's been 11/11 in/around the paint as another poster posted. I think he could absolutely be a beast if he just works inside-out rather than outside in (Tim Duncan was a master at this).

[Pachinko_]

I think the math is simple
If he shoots 60% in the paint that's 2points * 60% = 1.2 points per FG (plus all the and1s that come with playing in the paint and the foul damage it causes to opponents)
By the same calculation, to beat that with threes he needs to shoot better than 40%, and he's not gonna do that, he's not Klay.

So every time he shoots a three he loses some efficiency, therefore the goal for him must always be the paint.
Now, in order for him to get to the paint frequently he can't have people sagging back 5 steps from him, he needs to be somewhat of a threat so people will have to contest so he can fake and dribble past them.
And to be somewhat of a threat he needs to shoot his open threes without hesitation, that's all he has to do.

There is really no mathematical or statistical reason for him to take step back threes, other than it looks nice and it's preseason, followed by an experimental season for the Spurs, so it doesn't really matter. Let him play and have some fun, test his limits, and generate some data for the Spurs analysts to show him and explain what works best for him and the team. It's all good.

To me a more pertinent question is how efficient is his middle range jumper, but we need a lot of data to assess that. It might end up being the best shot for him, thats where KD kills people from. We'll see.

[Chinook]

Step-back threes are important because they create driving lanes, leading to easier shots in the paint. This isn't 2K, shots aren't just numbers. Folks are going to try to take away the most efficient shots for Wemby. He needs to develop and demonstrate counters.

[SNPA]

I’ll restate the offer I created before the draft.

Sac gives: Fox/Sabonis/Keegan/MikeBrown (COY)/Monte McNair (EOY)/all draft picks and swaps/Golden One Arena and all developments nearby/the Mayorship of Sac in perpetuity/the beam/all Oscar Robinson’s records/Vivek’s main house/Vivek’s other houses and cars/and free lunch anywhere in Mid-Town for life.

Deal Pop?