Victor Wembanyama Mega-Thread Part Two: Repurposed for your Wembanyama needs!

[TimDunkin]

The team has no depth and they can't sustain a starter (who may be a rotation player on a good team) or their sixth man going down. Much less both. They're 3-4 when they have their top 6 players (one loss where a starter was coming back from injury and off the bench). Down Vassell or Johnson, they have shown that they're a borderline unwatchable team.

[DoctorX]

The team has no depth and they can't sustain a starter (who may be a rotation player on a good team) or their sixth man going down. Much less both. They're 3-4 when they have their top 6 players (one loss where a starter was coming back from injury and off the bench). Down Vassell or Johnson, they have shown that they're a borderline unwatchable team.

They are even less fun to watch than last year and last year was pretty bad. I can only watch 1 game per a week when it comes to the Spurs. They are just that bad and unexciting to watch.

[_jin]

Some good points here. The first is that what we've done with Wemby so far has been with his input. It's because we talked to him and have heard what he wants not despite it.

He's said numerous times he wants to work with staff and team mates but not be boxed in from the start of his career.

The next point is that Zach is the 5. He protected the rim well enough last season which gave us the confidence to start him (he also stretches the floor and passes well for a big on O). Wemby's D role is more of a roaming super switching protection for anyone daring to come close. You can see guys pulling back when trying to drive. And because Wemby covers SO much ground he covers weak side swings as well. He has said he never played this type of D role but is liking learning and growing.

Next, just because we're taking however many games to assess how Wemby likes to be comfortable on the court does not mean it is permanent. More catered sets will come but after the assessment, not before, which makes sense given his unique talent and skill set. He isn't given free reign to do whatever he wants without consequence. Pop gets into him when he screws up a set play or a D assignment like he does anyone else.

Agree 100% with what you see Sochan mold like - the great vision passing big like Dray or Diaw. Last season, Sochan showed some real talent for finding cutters and making cross court swing passes to the weak side. I think this put the thought of the point-forward experiment into place.

But it's just that. An experiment. Sochan was great with those passes largely off ball. Running point you can tell he struggles with weaker handles, with slower reads, and with right decisions. He doesn't think like a PG and doesn't have the skills to break down defenders with the ball.

I do like that he's getting to guard a lot of the best players basically 1 through 4. Lost in the unraveling of the second half was Sochan's very good D, even on SGA. He's better now at keeping quicker perimeter players in front of him than at the beginning the season. This is valuable long term even if lost in the micro moment hot takes after a bad loss.

But I do think that this all may be more than Sochan can handle at once right now. Maybe more off ball, maybe playing more at the 3 on O interspersed with the point-Sochan experiment.

As for bad habits, well the good ones have to be reinforced, that's true. But young guys learning it all together requires teaching moments and instructing differently than a vet team. Like Keldon is our longest tenured Spur. Think about that.

And so blowouts will happen more with a team like this. Young teams tend to get affected on D more by O misses. They tend to make more mistakes. They tend to be more inconsistent, both with on court play and mental resilience.

Mavs looked abysmal yesterday. LAC have also lost 6 in a row.

Bad losses are not unique to us, but the sudden scrutiny and expectations of a team coming off a 22-win season has some people calling for all sorts of grand changes 11 games into the next season. It. Takes. Time. We will make adjustments. We will learn. We will get better.

I think Collins is a pretty weak rim protector but he compensates by being a pretty good all around offensive player. The problem is he doesnt seem like a natural fit next to Wemby, which is weird because I thought they'd be, it'll come with time but I thought it'd come faster because they're both smart and likes sharing the ball. Collins like to stay in his spots and receives the ball there, and these are the same spots Wemby likes to move towards so he seems a bit lost at times and retreat to the perimeter to create space for Collins.

Sochan will be fine, it's weird to see Spurs fans turn against him when he was like a fan favorite a few months ago. He even said himself he is not enjoying the experience but these are growing pains, it'll make him a better player in the long run.

The thing is most Spurs fans arent like you and arent looking at the bigger picture. They see the team getting blown out and get angry and try to find someone to blame, so far it has been on Sochan and Pop but you already see people turning on Wemby. I prefer to see Wemby struggling early on because he's learning the hard way rather than playing with CP3 and dominating on easy mode and be lost once his PG is gone. But I still think it's time for Pop to start pushing them a little more.

I'm now adding line breaks to my posts to make them easier to read, took me 11 years to do that, let's hope those Spurs kids are faster learners than I am.

[G R E Y]

Read on Twitter

[FluLikeSymptoms]

I heard a yana early but Breen just dropped 2 clean yamas.

[Yoshun]

Wembanyama lost his sticky rights.

[Phreak50]

8th straight loss.

Team is dead last in opponents fg%, opponents pts per game and second last in opponents 3p%.

The sad thing is, the team has finally started playing as a team and Wemby hasn’t joined in.

Most of his jump shots are bad shots, out of the rhythm of the offense or before the set even starts. It’s getting a bit ridiculous.

This stealth tanking is **** embarrassing and it’s making a fool of Sochan.

It’s also making Wembanyama look selfish just jacking up a jumper every time he catches the ball.

68 of his 202 shots so far are three pointers. That is ridiculous. This is looking like those Ball brothers games where they were given a green light to go for a 100 point game no matter the efficiency.

Popovich is making a mockery of everything that he is known for.

The thing is they were going to lose enough games to get a decent pick again anyway but they’ve just gone overboard and it’s hurting the development of quite a few players.

All to let the spoiled teenager take whatever shot he wants. Most of the jumpers he is taking would have got Parker and Duncan yelled at, if not benched.

It’s getting beyond a joke.

Wemby has attempted more threes than Lebron, KAT, teammate Keldon Johnson, Kawhi, Brooke Lopez, Herro, Jokic, Dort, KD, Porzingis and so on.

The whole ‘we are letting him learn and make mistakes’ alongside ‘Sochan is a point guard experienent’ is the most selfish ‘we want another top pick’ tanking I’ve seen.

[G R E Y]

Get it out of your system. But don't dare fanboy when we turn this around.

[G R E Y]

Read on Twitter

Read on Twitter

[AdagioPace]

Get it out of your system. But don't dare fanboy when we turn this around.

some people here pretend to be interested in Wembanyama but are only here to be divisive.
The majority, luckily, understands that this is a long process that involves the entire franchise getting back on track after years. Complaining about Wemby's shot selection or whatever like it's going to make a difference right now is naive and ridiculous. The guy is 19 and has played a dozen NBA games in his life

[The-Power]

I just checked and found an insane statistic. Not sure if it has been pointed out elsewhere already but:

Victor has as many assists to Sochan as Sochan has to Victor – 9 in total (not sure if that already includes last night's game).

The following Spurs players have assisted on more of Victor's FGs than Sochan:

Johnson (17)
Jones (16)
Vassell (14)
Collins (14)

Of these four players, only Johnson and Collins have shared the court as much with Victor as Sochan. And this is with Sochan being the Spurs leader in total assists.

This is not to pile on to Sochan (he's being experimented with playing PG and tries his best) but it's so painfully obvious that he doesn't know how to play with Wembanyama yet. Of the current team, it feels like only Jones and Collins really understand how to use him effectively right now but it's particularly painful when it comes to Sochan.

[BrooklynDynasty]

man said rookie wall after 7 games LMAO

Still laughing a month later?

Victor Wembanyama is a French professional basketball player for the San Antonio Spurs of the National Basketball Association.

He is shooting 43/26/81 from the field and has a defensive rating of 111. His team has lost fifteen straight games.


It's OK to be a center, and center only, playing six feet from the basket. When Wemby abandons his dreams of Porzingis, let alone Durant, there is a productive career to be had catching lobs and finishing shots in the paint

[holdenwait]

yeah, especially since you rushed here to post after he had a 12 point game on 4-13 shooting lol

he's still averaging 18.9/9.7/2.5 with 1.3 steals and 2.6 blocks per game which you didn't mention any of. mention of rookie wall that early is still hilarious and he's still producing at a steady level anyways.

everyone knows Spurs are on a weird Sochan-as-PG led tank job, team being terrible has nothing to do with the concept of rookie wall.

[NoDopeOnSundays]

He looked and sound defeated yesterday, the losing is definitely getting to him.

[scrabbarista]

He looked and sound defeated yesterday, the losing is definitely getting to him.

He should've played at the one Spurs game I've ever attended in New Orleans last week.

[scrabbarista]

Boooooooo Wembanyama.

[JJ_PR]

I can totally understand why San antonio is tanking. They don't want to make the same mistake Cleveland did when they drafted LeBron James. They thought they were good enough, didn't tank & ended up the next draft with... Luke Jackson! Wemby will develop regardless if his team is winning or not.

[Special_Puppy]

I'm not sure they are actually trying to tank. The roster is just **** even if Wemby has amazing upside

[BrooklynDynasty]

why would i mention that? there's two hundred players in the league who can put up those numbers on that bad shooting if they were given the volume, lol

[WestGOAT]

Imagine if Spurs actually drafted Haliburton instead and paired him with Wemby... Oofph, they probably don't land the number 1 pick tho