Wembanyama is not only an effective spot-up shooter, it can take 29 footers out of the dribble, casually run a slimmer out of the dribble out of the right corner or he’ll drive and finish over the rim.ĭisplace his space and Wembanyama can blow you past after a few set-up dribbling combos. Over the past decade, major players have started stretching the floor to take advantage of the increased emphasis on 3-point shooting. Numerous unicorn athletes with unconventional skills have shot into the NBA’s ecosphere over the past 20 years. What sets Wembanyama apart from LeBron are his insane size and agility for such a great athlete. He is a phenomenon and a basketball kaiju. And of course, knowing what we know gives LeBron a significant advantage, but Wembanyama goes beyond unicorn. LeBron’s otherworldly athletics wrapped in a six-foot chiseled frame replete with the clairvoyant view of the ground from a point forward was paradigm-shifting and fitted in where the game went next. If he was pushed into the 2003 Draft, there’s a 50 percent chance he would have been the top prospect instead of King James, depending on who was drafting. Wembanyama is the generational phenomenon NBA circles have been waiting for to descend into the NBA Draft. If he continues to fill in, he may be the most dominant defensive chess piece in league history. At a time when teams value space, his defensive instincts combined with an 8-foot wingspan are a space killer. The team that Wembanyama signs will not only be hard to score in the paint, but may have built a dome around the side of the floor where Wembanyama is located. Wembanyama is so agile and tall that unlike his compatriot Rudy Gobert, he won’t feel comfortable defending on the edge. Those 4.5 blocks can’t be overlooked either. In both games against G League Ignite, Wembanyama silenced all skeptics by logging 36.5 points, 7.5 boards, 4.5 blocks and making 50 percent of his 18 attempts from the center. The roll-out of Wembanyama went smoothly. 1 Oak Hill on one of ESPN’s earliest high school basketball shows, was long overdue. Wembanyama flies in like a critically acclaimed Boulogne-Levallois Metropolitans 92 draft prospect and take off as a megastar 20 years after LeBron’s jaw-dropping grown-man game against No. The first generation phenomenon in two decades is a French teenager.Īs an individual talent, Wilt Chamberlain ruled the ’60s, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar dominated the ’70s and Jordan’s rise, and 19 years passed between Michael Jordan and LeBron’s NBA debut. Nikola Jokic, Luka Dončić, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Joel Embiid are phenomenal, but none of them were considered the best players in their respective drafts. Once LeBron James and Steph Curry retire, the game is in good hands, but no American hands. The bow of the sports universe has to bow at a joke because Wembanyama is an American reward for what Vinsanity has done to Frédéric Weis. Weis’s name became synonymous with posterization, and French hoopers have been saddled with the soft label ever since. Vince Carter’s leapfrog dunk at the Sydney Olympics over the Knicks’ 7-foot-2 1999 first-round pick (15th overall) reverberated around the world, but especially in his native France.
Weis was the first French center whose name was engraved in the memory of American basketball fans. Of course Wembanyama’s genes play an important role, but decades earlier he could have been Frederick Weiss. Victor Wembanyama is the evolution of basketball personified.
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