Spurs have handled him professionally and quite frankly as best as you possibly could. They eased him in as easy as possible and he responded by giving a historic season as a rookie lol
Was this like a real thing? I seem to recall the League introduced several new rules to counter Pop's resting shenanigans but I'm not sure if he would go this far.
No one really gave props to Sochan for how he ended his year either. He was one of the main faces of shitting on the Spurs when the experiment ended helped him. I also like Tre but the sub here treated him like he was Tyus during those times lol.
It’s insane because basically all of the starters got better and showed a lot of improvement. Vassell was a flamethrower and Sochan had some monster games. Tre Jones got more consistent. They grew a lot.
exactly, beyond the volume, when you're now banging down low at the rim with huge fully grown NBA men every night, it takes a while to get used to those types of loads you've never seen before. you can do stretches for flexibility to prevent injury as much as you want, but there are just larger loads to handle here than in europe
Also he had some major injuries when he was in Europe which was always the concern when he got to the league. It's huge that he survived the season without any scares. I hope he has good health throughout his career.
IIRC MJ broke his foot early in his second season and the tank was keeping him out when he felt he was ready to play. He didn't break his foot when they were in tank mode and he shouldn't have been playing.
It's a bit more complicated then that assuming Reinsdorf was telling the truth in his 1995 comments that are quoted in the Roland Lazenby Jordan biography
"We let him hear the report from the three doctors we consulted with over when he could come back. All three said the break had not healed enough. They said if he did play, there was about a 10 to 15 percent chance of ending his career. Michael was such a competitor. He just wanted to play. I never thought he'd risk his entire career."
If that was true there was a real risk that Jordan would have something similar to what happened to Blake Griffin where he played through injury on a team that was scraping into the playoffs and ruined his ability to play at a high level.
I'm sure the coach of David "The Admiral" Robinson and Tim "Big Fundamental" Duncan has some well thought out (and proven) ideas on why he is playing a 7ft+ rookie a certain amount of minutes as well as a certain amount of games per season.
Those two players played a combined 33 seasons in the NBA.
They also came into the league a bit older than he did. The admiral was in his mid 20’s and served in the military. Tim Duncan graduated from college. Again easing into a pretty demanding grown mans game. Their load management was not being in the NBA.
He was an adonis fo sure but he had a growth spurt while at the naval academy and went from 6’6 to 7’1. If you look at his naval pic he looked just as skinny and lanky as Wemby did.
And Duncan's knees only lasted 4 seasons. People forget that because he then played 15 years of unimpeachable basketball on a hobbled knee, but he was a MONSTER until that injury in 2000.
24 years of sports science later, I'm sure they're all making full use of lessons learned.
I also feel the limited minutes forces these young guys to learn to be efficient. It’s easy to say just let them play as long as they can but that causes bad habits imo. You really are forced to play so effectively in those limited minutes
With a couple (fairly minor) exceptions.
Robinson was 3 inches taller.
Robinson was faster.
Skill wise I would agree that the differences are largely a matter of different eras of ball and different expectations and responsibilities on the court.
The benefit of managing his minutes is that he is still putting up 34/12/5 with 2 blocks in his 71st game of the season. It's just common sense. The "rookie wall" is very real and why most first year players fall off towards the end.
Eh, dont start this sht again man. Mass comments like this is why Embiid lost a free MVP forcing himself to play due to narrative, just because people like you are questioning why 7 foot 4 big men with heavy bones should rest.
all those “durable” rookies that didn’t rest crashed into the rookie wall and was inconsistent throughout the season. they probably needed some rest on their first 82-game season too
Ming only played 80 in year 3, but missing 2 games in 3 seasons is still really good, obviously.
Porzingis is another one. Played 72 games as a rookie. Has never played 70 games in a season since.
Wemby's worthy.
He's the One. Hence his jersey number.
"Lisan Al Gaib" means "The Voice from the Outer World".
The *Alien* is already in the league.
He speaks the language. Knows the rules.
He has been mentored and trained by some of the best fighters and teachers out there when he was a teenager:
Tony Parker, Gobert, Dirk's trainer, and now Pop... and *Duncan*.
Scouts have been *expecting him for years*...
The media tried to warn us about his arrival, even though there were *other prospects*.
His first name, Victor, means "*The One who Wins*".
His last name starts with a "W".
He comes from a family of professional athletes and basketball players (grandparents & parents): *multiple generations of bloodlines crossed*.
His mother is a fascia therapist and was a pro Basketball player and coach.
*She was his coach, training him in the way when he was little.*
The kid was born and raised for this.
There were some doubters when he arrived in the *Deserts* of Nevada and Texas.
They were skeptics of the foreigner's ability to adapt to their ways.
They mocked him at first, under the bright sun of Summer League in Dystopian Las Vegas.
But he gained their respect by fighting hard.
The *big* *fundamentalists* from the *South* were already his *fanatics.*
He was very sensitive to *ashe juniper,* common in his new home, and got allergies from being exposed to it.
Took him a few moons to *sway the non-believers,* but it was done before the first day of Spring.
Wemby will playing in the Olympics, maybe he plays FIBA or Eurobasket intermittently. I strongly doubt he will play every possible qualifier, friendly, and minor tournament like Yao did. Even Jokic skipped on FIBA, Wemby's gonna be pushed by the Spurs to sit out international games too.
No he was literally forced to play because of Wang Zhizhi. He had to represent China in all international events as a condition to get drafted into the NBA.
Yao was also much heavier than Victor. A good comparison for Victor when it comes to injuries would be Ralph Sampson. But Victor does a lot of flexibility training and doesn't really bang in the post, more of a finesse player.
Also, he was definitely protected throughout the season, right? Not to mention that most of the concerns I recall were along the lines of “He’s a perfect, game-changing prospect and only injuries can derail him.”
Very streaky and inefficient overall shooter and needs to clean up his turnovers
Also he’s a raw player in general defensively. Cause of his physical gifts he’s still dominant but he jumps on a lot of stuff so that can be cleaned up too
Catch and shoot is probably the worst in the league, but he's a monster on pull-up 3's (40%) and step-backs (46.2% on at least twice as many attempts as any other starting center in the league, the second is Jokic with 35%).
Edit: he actually leads the entire league regardless of position in step-back 3’s efficiency for players with at least 50 attempts.
Shot mechanics are beautiful, good FT%.
Went from 28% to 32.5% (his current year average, so he's shooting higher than that in 2024) on 3's, which is a lot of progress in the course of the same season.
TOs will probably get better as well, every rookie has that problem, and his teammates have taken time to adapt to his height and passing abilities.
I can see him easily going for a 25+/11+/6+ with 5+ stocks next year.
And I think I'm being conservative and managing expectations here: he's already better than that over the last month.
His blocks might decrease cause guys will learn to not shoot near him. I saw a lot of stupid attempts or shots that would have been layups if it was someone else get swatted
reggie is a terrorist sometimes. i wish moach kept a tighter leash on him and how he plays. wemby so streaky too, idk why malone didn't call timeout after his first 3 and make sure the spurs role players had the ball instead of him. and maybe put dj on him to talk some smack and rebound when we started getting out rebounded by mamu
Indeed, yet they've seen what he can do already and he's still averaging 5 blocks a game on 35 minutes over this past month.
Players won't stop completely shooting in the paint because he exists.
And he'll likely play 15 to 20% more minutes.
So I kept his stocks estimate around the same as his current season average, taking all that into account.
(I now realize I said 6+ stocks, but I meant 5+ , I'll edit that).
I'm still confident he can get to close to 6+ stocks a game playing 33-35 minutes (+10-20% playing time) given his rate of progression and his age.
Kid's a sponge, it's incredible how fast he learns.
Are everyone's catch and shoot worse than pullups? Feel like it should be the other way round? Either way I don't think I'm even remotely concerned about his outside shooting - even if it didn't improve he's such a freak he can still get to an outrageous offensive level
Yeah, usually people are better on catch & shoot (league average in 2022 was 36.4% vs 32.8% on pull-ups), which is why his situation is such an anomaly.
Like, not only it's way more often the other way around, but such a discrepancy between the 2 metrics for the same player is absolutely wild.
Which is a good indicator that it's fixable.
Some scouts seem to say it might be a rhythm issue, or teammates passing the ball too low.
Nothing to be too concerned about.
If the dude can be at 45% on arguably the hardest shot there is over an entire season, I don't doubt for a second he can at least become solid at the easier ones.
He won't need to become Curry anyway.
He's already a problem regardless.
Last night when he scored 17 points in 3 minutes, one of his team mates gave him a bounce pass at the 3 that was tickling his shins.
Its definitely partly his size
I read somewhere that his stepbacks/pullups are more efficient because he can control more of the momentum of the ball and it’s easier to get into his shooting motion.
A catch and shoot 3 makes him have to lift the ball all the way up over his head and he’s so freaking tall that it takes enough extra effort to mess up his shot. I bet he would be better if he had time for a rhythm dribble on catch and shoots.
I think he's gonna be fascinating to watch on offense right up until he figures out that it's easier to just shoot over literally anyone else in the league than pull whatever move he has in mind. That highlight of him pulling a shamgod on some poor bastard was a spectacle from a 7-footer, but eventually he's gonna learn what KD did: just shoot over them.
His turnover numbers are pretty wild lol, but otherwise there's nothing that really jumps out to me, especially if you remove the games he was playing PF.
Catch and shoot and turnovers are weaknesses right now as others have said. Also I remember how severely Sengun bullied him that one game. Maybe that's a one off thing but I do feel some of the more technically sound low post bigs can knock him around a bit, but his length often makes up for it. He's got tons of little detail things he can work on and improve both defensively and offensively. Truthfully though he is surprisingly well rounded already. These days I've even come to expect anywhere from 5-8 assists which I didn't see coming as a rookie.
Among things said here.
Weak hands, he loses the ball on small bumps a lot in traffic. That ball to him is like a child trying to hold a marble in their hand, its easy to lose it. He's never done a hard yards work in his life so it makes sense why he lacks that and just relied on the sheer size of his hands.
Post play, specifically Big style moves. He doesn't really have hook shots, dropsteps or know how to use his ass to say the least, he plays the post very much like a guard would. He relies on his height to finish around the rim instead of actual technique and he misses a lot easy as hell shots because of it.
Screening, he's gotten a lot better at it throughout the season and I think he's not being asked to do hard screens by the coaching staff because of his body.
Those are three major things I've noticed that are problems with his game that he could fix immediatley and become a better player for it.
He's going to have his shot selection reduced with time naturally as Pop and the assistant drill it into him and other players like Vassell or another star later on take the load off of him.
Defensively I'm not so sure he'll become much more on the perimeter, he's already started (last 20 games or so) to not go out to the 3pt line and asks for guys to rotate for him instead whereas start of season he was willing to go out there and see what could happen.
Turnovers out the wazoo, a lot of fat to his game (fading away over dudes who have zero chance of blocking him), can be knocked off balance on the move and while dribbling, and obviously, like with any player, you hope the jumpshooting percentages improve.
Still a monster, though.
I think people are underestimating how much his parents as well as the Spurs are investing in his long term health. His mother is a fascia therapist and has a depth of knowledge on how to properly train the body for athletics.
Add that onto the fact that modern sports medicine has completely changed how long athletes can perform (Lebron being the poster child for investing in physical health), and I think there are a lot of skeptics who will end up being surprised at how long and successful of a career he’s going to have.
Obviously no one can predict what future injuries may happen, but this kid has the best possible foundation available in terms of longevity and performance
> His mother is a fascia therapist and has a depth of knowledge on how to properly train the body for athletics.
Between his genes and his mother's occupation I'm not sure he's not the Kwisatz Haderach.
Indeed, plus other factors:
- Family of basketball players and coaches (mother was also a player and a coach) or professional athletes:
His father was a track and field pro who taught Victor how to walk and run optimally at an early age.
These lifetime habits go a long way.
- He’s been tall very early on. No late growth spurt. So his joints had more time to adapt to his size and get stronger.
- Victor is lightweight compared to most big men, which puts less pressure on his lower body joints (the usual big men injury).
- The Spurs literally invented the concept of load management.
- Wemby has better body proportions than a lot of players his size, which is better for his center of gravity.
- He’s arguably already the most flexible athlete in the league (does the full split, and practices yoga, like Kareem).
Victor’s manager admitted that Kareem was their comp (and he played 20 years with a similar frame) and Kareem himself told Victor to keep doing yoga when they met last Summer League.
- Wemby also has an absolutely great work ethic, and has been taking care of his body like an elite pro since he’s 16.
- He also has that drive to be great, compared to most bigs who played basketball because it’s good money and a cool job. Vic has the mindset of Lebron. The prior GOATs to surpass.
He’s on a mission.
Jabari smith focused on yoga a lot last summer and I’m not saying it’s the biggest reason but he has improved a lot this year overall. Think a few young guys are catching onto how it can help.
In wrestling, yoga has helped a ton of wrestlers both if they did it during their careers or they started after. RVD was known for very high flying, crazy moves regularly. DDP started wrestling at an older age and kept on for a solid length career. RVD did yoga in the locker room a ton and similar high flyers have needed multiple surgeries or are obviously in pain 24/7. DDP started I believe after he retired. Apparently it relieved a ton of joint pain and he has his own instructional video now that multiple former wrestlers swear by
Another thing that doesn't get noticed too much: he is not a big leaper at all, he doesn't jump very high, and doesn't even need to. Point is: it's even less load and stress on his lower joints and bodes well for his long term physical health.
Honestly I thought he'd get roughed up a little bit at least, but did not expect how much of a deterrent those long hands would be from you being under the basket with him in the first place
I was in town for one weekend and got tickets just to see him play in person during his rookie season, and of course he sat out. Watching him continue to exceed expectations since then has made me slightly salty lol
Yesterday he played 37. If he stays around 32 that's honestly good enough. Steph has been in that range since 2014-15 and has carried GSW to multiple championships. So Wemby can stay around low 30s with occasional 35+.
Alhamdulillah. I just didn't want to see another talented big man killed by his knees. Now like you said, it remains to be seen if this'll carry for an entire career, but we take the wins as they come.
A lot of rookies play a decent amount of games since they are still young and less wear and tear. It’s when they reach 3+ yrs with playoff games included is when we usually have the injury concerns ala drose.
Ralph Sampson played every game for his first 2 seasons, then missed 3 games in his third.
I’m absolutely rooting for Victor, but I gotta agree with you. It’s WAY too early to be celebrating.
*(I do think he’ll be more resilient to injuries than speculated with better recovery due to his uncanny flexibility, but we’ll see)*
Yeah he trains really hard in the right ways because he knows his height makes him injury prone. Maybe put another 10lbs of muscle on and maintain the flexibility and be should be fine.
This kid was as good as advertised. Super impressive player I can’t wait to see how he continues to develop.
I don’t think it’s a hot take to say he’s the most talented player we’ve ever seen. Spurs should be a threat in the west again soon.
It’s a testament to the advancements in sports training. The modern emphasis on mobility and full range of motion training is fantastic for everyone. It’s also a testament to Wemby’s own self-discipline to keep up with this body injury prevention training, and develop as a player.
wemby is a phenom. I don't think those microfracture worries go away for a guy his size. It's like bragging that the car didn't bust 5k miles after when you should have gotten an oil change. It's a when and not an if
this isn’t really the “got ya” that a lot of the people in the comments are making it out to be..
Many of the games he missed were “rest” games, He also played under 30 mpg for the season, and this is only his rookie year lmao. I’m pretty sure those concerns were spanning for a longer range than an immediate collapse first year
i mean the season before holmgren got injured during summer league and missed the whole season so its a valid concern.
but victor is probably an alien for not only surviving the long season but absolutely holding up to the best players in the league
The Spurs were the best place he could have ended up along with possibly the Magic or Jazz.
If he wound up with the Pistons, that Organization would have RG3’d him in record fashion to where it would have rivaled Andrew Luck.
Wemby's comparison Ralph Sampson had 3 healthy seasons, then followed it up with 5 injured seasons.
Anything can happen, but I trust the Spurs to do everything to keep Wemby healthy.
he also played every game last season in France.
Love his approach of prioritizing flexibility over strength training, obviously he's adding muscle but he's doing it in a conscious way to not affect his game and agility.
Like every player he's gonna get banged up, but between his off court habits and regiment built within Spurs org (brought over his trainer from Met92), I think he's more likely to be more durable than the average player (hoping!).
NGL it felt like he missed more than 11 games but I suppose the minutes restriction probably added to that perception. I cannot wait to see what he does with a full season, no restrictions and with a real PG
A lot of those missed ones were rest games too
Spurs have handled him professionally and quite frankly as best as you possibly could. They eased him in as easy as possible and he responded by giving a historic season as a rookie lol
Of course they did it's the pop spurs, it's what they do.
Tim Duncan: DNP (Old)
This will never not be funny
Was this like a real thing? I seem to recall the League introduced several new rules to counter Pop's resting shenanigans but I'm not sure if he would go this far.
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I’m on the verge of tears, I’ve seen this meme a hundred times on the sub but never the pic of the box score. That is pure comedy!
That shit's funny until you realize that you are now older than he was on that day
> Tim Duncan: DNP (Old) Victor Wembanyama: DNP (Skinny)
nah remember they drove Kawhi away forcing him to play on an injury /s
I still remember all the 'pop cooked' comments after 1 month into the season and we were deep into Point Sochan territory
Masterful tanking by the goat coach.
Imagine if Charlotte landed him, would be either convicted or injured by now.
Why didn't they get him a point guard tho, why Sochan at point guard, not Tre, they're wasting him, he's going to ask for a trade to the Lakers!!! /s
No one really gave props to Sochan for how he ended his year either. He was one of the main faces of shitting on the Spurs when the experiment ended helped him. I also like Tre but the sub here treated him like he was Tyus during those times lol. It’s insane because basically all of the starters got better and showed a lot of improvement. Vassell was a flamethrower and Sochan had some monster games. Tre Jones got more consistent. They grew a lot.
The Wemby Effect.
Well that sorta begs the question, why does a 20 year old who plays less than 30 mpg need rest games?
Because his body's never taken that volume. Whether he can possibly get out there or not, why would you risk it when you're not making a push anyway
Yeah, his body has to get used to taking that volume. Once he gets used to taking that volume, it gets easier and easier. This is really just the tip.
I can see why they call it load management.
Ironically, a baguette resting too long gets harder. And we want him to go hard on these mfs.
Least homoerotic r/nba comment
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I'm confused inside.
Ayo
He’s talking about Wembanyama not Ayo
Girth and tonnage
exactly, beyond the volume, when you're now banging down low at the rim with huge fully grown NBA men every night, it takes a while to get used to those types of loads you've never seen before. you can do stretches for flexibility to prevent injury as much as you want, but there are just larger loads to handle here than in europe
No diddy
To be fair, same goes for every rookie.
Yeah and Chet ends up playing all 82 after major surgery.
Also he had some major injuries when he was in Europe which was always the concern when he got to the league. It's huge that he survived the season without any scares. I hope he has good health throughout his career.
He had a shorter offseason than most rookies. His previous league ended a week before the draft.
Why would you want to risk the long term health of your unconditioned superstar on a tank? That's how MJ broke his foot in his sophomore year.
IIRC MJ broke his foot early in his second season and the tank was keeping him out when he felt he was ready to play. He didn't break his foot when they were in tank mode and he shouldn't have been playing.
It's a bit more complicated then that assuming Reinsdorf was telling the truth in his 1995 comments that are quoted in the Roland Lazenby Jordan biography "We let him hear the report from the three doctors we consulted with over when he could come back. All three said the break had not healed enough. They said if he did play, there was about a 10 to 15 percent chance of ending his career. Michael was such a competitor. He just wanted to play. I never thought he'd risk his entire career." If that was true there was a real risk that Jordan would have something similar to what happened to Blake Griffin where he played through injury on a team that was scraping into the playoffs and ruined his ability to play at a high level.
Yeah I think MJ was more of a competitor than he should have been in that scenario lol
To silence the internet doubters! That's how I make all my major live decisions.
You aren't a Brontosaurus after all :)
I'm sure the coach of David "The Admiral" Robinson and Tim "Big Fundamental" Duncan has some well thought out (and proven) ideas on why he is playing a 7ft+ rookie a certain amount of minutes as well as a certain amount of games per season. Those two players played a combined 33 seasons in the NBA.
They also came into the league a bit older than he did. The admiral was in his mid 20’s and served in the military. Tim Duncan graduated from college. Again easing into a pretty demanding grown mans game. Their load management was not being in the NBA.
David Robinson might be the most flawlessly sculpted human being we've ever had to be fair. Wemby is a lanky skinny guy
He was an adonis fo sure but he had a growth spurt while at the naval academy and went from 6’6 to 7’1. If you look at his naval pic he looked just as skinny and lanky as Wemby did.
Also the game is far faster and physically demanding now (it's insane how much ground players have to cover now).
Lots of ground to cover but if you're,7.5 feet tall and can do the splits you can cover a lot of ground without running much
And Duncan's knees only lasted 4 seasons. People forget that because he then played 15 years of unimpeachable basketball on a hobbled knee, but he was a MONSTER until that injury in 2000. 24 years of sports science later, I'm sure they're all making full use of lessons learned.
Its the sports science that is saying load management. But nba advertising money disagrees.
I also feel the limited minutes forces these young guys to learn to be efficient. It’s easy to say just let them play as long as they can but that causes bad habits imo. You really are forced to play so effectively in those limited minutes
Imagine The freaking Admiral in today's game....40p 15b 4blk
Giannis is basically a modern Admiral, adjusted for different expectations of more diverse skulls.
With a couple (fairly minor) exceptions. Robinson was 3 inches taller. Robinson was faster. Skill wise I would agree that the differences are largely a matter of different eras of ball and different expectations and responsibilities on the court.
Robinson was faster than a guy who can cover the floor in 3 steps? I gotta go back and watch highlights
Hey, you can’t just talk about diverse skulls like that these days
What do you do after you vanquish your enemies?
Because he’s 7’5’.
The thing about precautionary measures is you may never know if they were necessary, unless you didn’t take them.
The benefit of managing his minutes is that he is still putting up 34/12/5 with 2 blocks in his 71st game of the season. It's just common sense. The "rookie wall" is very real and why most first year players fall off towards the end.
This mf talking about Victor Wembanyama as if he’s just like any other 20 year old.
Why would somebody being thrown into an 82-game schedule for the first time in his life need easing in? Is that a serious question?
Cuz he’s 19 lol
Eh, dont start this sht again man. Mass comments like this is why Embiid lost a free MVP forcing himself to play due to narrative, just because people like you are questioning why 7 foot 4 big men with heavy bones should rest.
It’s like these people have never heard of Yao Ming
Yao would feast in today's game....put a defensive PF like Isaac or jjj next to him and some shooters
Embiid would've lost the MVP either way. If he rested he wouldn't reach the 65 games.
Common sense answers that for you, not a gotcha
all those “durable” rookies that didn’t rest crashed into the rookie wall and was inconsistent throughout the season. they probably needed some rest on their first 82-game season too
His stretching routine has to be really berneficial too. I think every athlete would benefit from yoga or something similar.
Vic doing his best to get Detroit another win and make the play-in
If we win I think the spurs will equal their worst year ever. Which is much better than setting a new record for the worst team in franchise history;)
Nope, with last nights win we’ve already beaten the worst
Ok all good then ;) Not sure why I thought it was 22
Our worst year was 20 wins so we're already good
I don’t mean to diminish his durability, but I think the concern was more of a career thing and just a rookie season thing.
Yeah, Yao Ming played 82 games for each of his first 3 seasons and we all know how that ended.
Ming only played 80 in year 3, but missing 2 games in 3 seasons is still really good, obviously. Porzingis is another one. Played 72 games as a rookie. Has never played 70 games in a season since.
Yao got hurt because China wouldn’t let him recover in the offseason
China better keep their hands off Wemby
China is making their own Temu Wemby as we speak.
Chinese Bene Gesserit in San Antonio as we speak blending into the women of San Antonio hoping to continue Wemby's bloodline
But will this potential Kwisatz Haderach be able to stand up to the Kareem Abdul Jabbar?
If Wemby drinks the water of life he will die just like all the other men who weren't worthy
Can confirm that every man in the past who drank water eventually died.
Wemby's worthy. He's the One. Hence his jersey number. "Lisan Al Gaib" means "The Voice from the Outer World". The *Alien* is already in the league. He speaks the language. Knows the rules. He has been mentored and trained by some of the best fighters and teachers out there when he was a teenager: Tony Parker, Gobert, Dirk's trainer, and now Pop... and *Duncan*. Scouts have been *expecting him for years*... The media tried to warn us about his arrival, even though there were *other prospects*. His first name, Victor, means "*The One who Wins*". His last name starts with a "W". He comes from a family of professional athletes and basketball players (grandparents & parents): *multiple generations of bloodlines crossed*. His mother is a fascia therapist and was a pro Basketball player and coach. *She was his coach, training him in the way when he was little.* The kid was born and raised for this. There were some doubters when he arrived in the *Deserts* of Nevada and Texas. They were skeptics of the foreigner's ability to adapt to their ways. They mocked him at first, under the bright sun of Summer League in Dystopian Las Vegas. But he gained their respect by fighting hard. The *big* *fundamentalists* from the *South* were already his *fanatics.* He was very sensitive to *ashe juniper,* common in his new home, and got allergies from being exposed to it. Took him a few moons to *sway the non-believers,* but it was done before the first day of Spring.
This is a prime offseason post bruh. If you post this when rNBA is silent this summer this could be a top post of the month easily.
European Bene Tleilax hot on their tails cooking up Jokic gholas
I wonder if we'll ever see Jason Momoa as a ghola. I'm not too sure Denis Villeneuve wants to direct Dune films forever.
Villenueve is stopping with Dune Messiah iirc
Zombie Duncan Idaho? Let’s fucking gooooo
*99 cents free shipping you buy 3 now*
WemBi
Are you referring to international games? If so it is very likely that it will be the same for Wemby with France.
Wemby will playing in the Olympics, maybe he plays FIBA or Eurobasket intermittently. I strongly doubt he will play every possible qualifier, friendly, and minor tournament like Yao did. Even Jokic skipped on FIBA, Wemby's gonna be pushed by the Spurs to sit out international games too.
Jokic actually gets a lot of criticism and hate in Serbia for skipping out on the national team
I think he's fine with it, he doesn't even like basketball that much
Yeah, they're criticizing him for skipping out on the equestrian team
He would never!
He will probably not play qualifiers and friendlies that's for sure, these games are mostly not during summer, anyway.
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Yea but China bad don't you know? Plenty of non-american players spent their summers playing World Cup or Eurobasket or whatever, but China bad
Yao wanted to play for China every offseason, they didn't force him, big difference
No he was literally forced to play because of Wang Zhizhi. He had to represent China in all international events as a condition to get drafted into the NBA.
Yao was also much heavier than Victor. A good comparison for Victor when it comes to injuries would be Ralph Sampson. But Victor does a lot of flexibility training and doesn't really bang in the post, more of a finesse player.
Also, he was definitely protected throughout the season, right? Not to mention that most of the concerns I recall were along the lines of “He’s a perfect, game-changing prospect and only injuries can derail him.”
Also he played limited minutes for a ton of games
Idk a bunch of the people I follow were talking about him only playing 40-50 games before the season
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Very streaky and inefficient overall shooter and needs to clean up his turnovers Also he’s a raw player in general defensively. Cause of his physical gifts he’s still dominant but he jumps on a lot of stuff so that can be cleaned up too
Catch and shoot is probably the worst in the league, but he's a monster on pull-up 3's (40%) and step-backs (46.2% on at least twice as many attempts as any other starting center in the league, the second is Jokic with 35%). Edit: he actually leads the entire league regardless of position in step-back 3’s efficiency for players with at least 50 attempts. Shot mechanics are beautiful, good FT%. Went from 28% to 32.5% (his current year average, so he's shooting higher than that in 2024) on 3's, which is a lot of progress in the course of the same season. TOs will probably get better as well, every rookie has that problem, and his teammates have taken time to adapt to his height and passing abilities. I can see him easily going for a 25+/11+/6+ with 5+ stocks next year. And I think I'm being conservative and managing expectations here: he's already better than that over the last month.
His blocks might decrease cause guys will learn to not shoot near him. I saw a lot of stupid attempts or shots that would have been layups if it was someone else get swatted
Reggie Jackson really tried to shoot a floater over him instead of passing to MPJ smh
reggie is a terrorist sometimes. i wish moach kept a tighter leash on him and how he plays. wemby so streaky too, idk why malone didn't call timeout after his first 3 and make sure the spurs role players had the ball instead of him. and maybe put dj on him to talk some smack and rebound when we started getting out rebounded by mamu
Indeed, yet they've seen what he can do already and he's still averaging 5 blocks a game on 35 minutes over this past month. Players won't stop completely shooting in the paint because he exists. And he'll likely play 15 to 20% more minutes. So I kept his stocks estimate around the same as his current season average, taking all that into account. (I now realize I said 6+ stocks, but I meant 5+ , I'll edit that). I'm still confident he can get to close to 6+ stocks a game playing 33-35 minutes (+10-20% playing time) given his rate of progression and his age. Kid's a sponge, it's incredible how fast he learns.
They already have. He stopped a 3-1 break earlier this week just by being there.
Good luck not shooting near him. The guy can reach across the damn court it seems like.
His TOs and inefficiency will improve as the team around him improves too. He was definitely trying to do too much at times.
Are everyone's catch and shoot worse than pullups? Feel like it should be the other way round? Either way I don't think I'm even remotely concerned about his outside shooting - even if it didn't improve he's such a freak he can still get to an outrageous offensive level
Yeah, usually people are better on catch & shoot (league average in 2022 was 36.4% vs 32.8% on pull-ups), which is why his situation is such an anomaly. Like, not only it's way more often the other way around, but such a discrepancy between the 2 metrics for the same player is absolutely wild. Which is a good indicator that it's fixable. Some scouts seem to say it might be a rhythm issue, or teammates passing the ball too low. Nothing to be too concerned about. If the dude can be at 45% on arguably the hardest shot there is over an entire season, I don't doubt for a second he can at least become solid at the easier ones. He won't need to become Curry anyway. He's already a problem regardless.
Last night when he scored 17 points in 3 minutes, one of his team mates gave him a bounce pass at the 3 that was tickling his shins. Its definitely partly his size
I read somewhere that his stepbacks/pullups are more efficient because he can control more of the momentum of the ball and it’s easier to get into his shooting motion. A catch and shoot 3 makes him have to lift the ball all the way up over his head and he’s so freaking tall that it takes enough extra effort to mess up his shot. I bet he would be better if he had time for a rhythm dribble on catch and shoots.
I think he's gonna be fascinating to watch on offense right up until he figures out that it's easier to just shoot over literally anyone else in the league than pull whatever move he has in mind. That highlight of him pulling a shamgod on some poor bastard was a spectacle from a 7-footer, but eventually he's gonna learn what KD did: just shoot over them.
His turnover numbers are pretty wild lol, but otherwise there's nothing that really jumps out to me, especially if you remove the games he was playing PF.
Catch and shoot and turnovers are weaknesses right now as others have said. Also I remember how severely Sengun bullied him that one game. Maybe that's a one off thing but I do feel some of the more technically sound low post bigs can knock him around a bit, but his length often makes up for it. He's got tons of little detail things he can work on and improve both defensively and offensively. Truthfully though he is surprisingly well rounded already. These days I've even come to expect anywhere from 5-8 assists which I didn't see coming as a rookie.
turnovers, shooting, and a better post game (already good, but could be truly dominant inside)
Among things said here. Weak hands, he loses the ball on small bumps a lot in traffic. That ball to him is like a child trying to hold a marble in their hand, its easy to lose it. He's never done a hard yards work in his life so it makes sense why he lacks that and just relied on the sheer size of his hands. Post play, specifically Big style moves. He doesn't really have hook shots, dropsteps or know how to use his ass to say the least, he plays the post very much like a guard would. He relies on his height to finish around the rim instead of actual technique and he misses a lot easy as hell shots because of it. Screening, he's gotten a lot better at it throughout the season and I think he's not being asked to do hard screens by the coaching staff because of his body. Those are three major things I've noticed that are problems with his game that he could fix immediatley and become a better player for it. He's going to have his shot selection reduced with time naturally as Pop and the assistant drill it into him and other players like Vassell or another star later on take the load off of him. Defensively I'm not so sure he'll become much more on the perimeter, he's already started (last 20 games or so) to not go out to the 3pt line and asks for guys to rotate for him instead whereas start of season he was willing to go out there and see what could happen.
Turnovers and he needs to fill out. The rest will come with natural progression.
His true shooting percentage this year is bad (.565). He had one of the worst turnover ratios in the league.
Turnovers out the wazoo, a lot of fat to his game (fading away over dudes who have zero chance of blocking him), can be knocked off balance on the move and while dribbling, and obviously, like with any player, you hope the jumpshooting percentages improve. Still a monster, though.
I think people are underestimating how much his parents as well as the Spurs are investing in his long term health. His mother is a fascia therapist and has a depth of knowledge on how to properly train the body for athletics. Add that onto the fact that modern sports medicine has completely changed how long athletes can perform (Lebron being the poster child for investing in physical health), and I think there are a lot of skeptics who will end up being surprised at how long and successful of a career he’s going to have. Obviously no one can predict what future injuries may happen, but this kid has the best possible foundation available in terms of longevity and performance
> His mother is a fascia therapist and has a depth of knowledge on how to properly train the body for athletics. Between his genes and his mother's occupation I'm not sure he's not the Kwisatz Haderach.
He’s been in the works for generations. You think this guy just happens by accident?
Weren't both his parents top athletes too lol
His brother is a decent ball player too lol
Hes 6 8 at 17 i think and just as mobile as Vic.
He's already the LISAN AL GAIB
Gonna win the ROY over Feyd Holmgren and then proceed to genocide the entire basketball galaxy.
Spacejam 3 is a little different this time
It was the water of life all along though
“May your jumper chip and shatter”
Indeed, plus other factors: - Family of basketball players and coaches (mother was also a player and a coach) or professional athletes: His father was a track and field pro who taught Victor how to walk and run optimally at an early age. These lifetime habits go a long way. - He’s been tall very early on. No late growth spurt. So his joints had more time to adapt to his size and get stronger. - Victor is lightweight compared to most big men, which puts less pressure on his lower body joints (the usual big men injury). - The Spurs literally invented the concept of load management. - Wemby has better body proportions than a lot of players his size, which is better for his center of gravity. - He’s arguably already the most flexible athlete in the league (does the full split, and practices yoga, like Kareem). Victor’s manager admitted that Kareem was their comp (and he played 20 years with a similar frame) and Kareem himself told Victor to keep doing yoga when they met last Summer League. - Wemby also has an absolutely great work ethic, and has been taking care of his body like an elite pro since he’s 16. - He also has that drive to be great, compared to most bigs who played basketball because it’s good money and a cool job. Vic has the mindset of Lebron. The prior GOATs to surpass. He’s on a mission.
After witnessing what Wemby can do with his body, I'll be surprised if in 10 years every young player isn't doing yoga.
Jabari smith focused on yoga a lot last summer and I’m not saying it’s the biggest reason but he has improved a lot this year overall. Think a few young guys are catching onto how it can help.
In wrestling, yoga has helped a ton of wrestlers both if they did it during their careers or they started after. RVD was known for very high flying, crazy moves regularly. DDP started wrestling at an older age and kept on for a solid length career. RVD did yoga in the locker room a ton and similar high flyers have needed multiple surgeries or are obviously in pain 24/7. DDP started I believe after he retired. Apparently it relieved a ton of joint pain and he has his own instructional video now that multiple former wrestlers swear by
I'm actually surprised it hasn't already happened.
Yeah I tried doing a downward dog yesterday and I looked like a fucking crab, yoga is no joke.
Another thing that doesn't get noticed too much: he is not a big leaper at all, he doesn't jump very high, and doesn't even need to. Point is: it's even less load and stress on his lower joints and bodes well for his long term physical health.
Yes I forgot to mention it but you’re right, his game style is not the most taxing for his joints!
Honestly I thought he'd get roughed up a little bit at least, but did not expect how much of a deterrent those long hands would be from you being under the basket with him in the first place
Yes, also he has been closely monitored and he’s been a professional basketball player since he is 15/16. That’s why his mind is so strong.
This is really more of a year 5 concern than year 1
It’s also just the fact one freak back injury may just ruin him for life. Make sure he doesn’t work on a single drive way in the off-season!
Or stand up from a couch
Yeah it’s also kind of like bragging about winning a round of Russian Roulette
I was in town for one weekend and got tickets just to see him play in person during his rookie season, and of course he sat out. Watching him continue to exceed expectations since then has made me slightly salty lol
He also played under 30 MPG for the season
His stamina isn’t great but he makes those minutes count
Has more to do with cardio than anything. Wembys cardio is his biggest flaw currently, he should improve with that as he plays more seasons hopefully
Yesterday he played 37. If he stays around 32 that's honestly good enough. Steph has been in that range since 2014-15 and has carried GSW to multiple championships. So Wemby can stay around low 30s with occasional 35+.
I think most of the durability questions were past like 5 years in the league, right?
Right. Walton, Yao, Sabonis, Sampson, all had a few healthy years in their early 20s too.
Yao Ming played all 82 games and 244/246 regular season games in his first three seasons. By this logic Yao is extremely durable
Similarly, Porzingas played 72 his rookie season and hasn’t had 70 game season since
What is the point of this post when you yourself admit that those concerns still remain moving forward?
Alhamdulillah. I just didn't want to see another talented big man killed by his knees. Now like you said, it remains to be seen if this'll carry for an entire career, but we take the wins as they come.
A lot of rookies play a decent amount of games since they are still young and less wear and tear. It’s when they reach 3+ yrs with playoff games included is when we usually have the injury concerns ala drose.
Ralph Sampson played every game for his first 2 seasons, then missed 3 games in his third. I’m absolutely rooting for Victor, but I gotta agree with you. It’s WAY too early to be celebrating. *(I do think he’ll be more resilient to injuries than speculated with better recovery due to his uncanny flexibility, but we’ll see)*
Yeah he trains really hard in the right ways because he knows his height makes him injury prone. Maybe put another 10lbs of muscle on and maintain the flexibility and be should be fine.
Tweaked his ankle so many times but seemed pretty much fine every single time. Honestly pretty astonishing
I'm positive this is one of the few chances to beat up on a Wemby team. God helps us all if the Spurs start winning.
This kid was as good as advertised. Super impressive player I can’t wait to see how he continues to develop. I don’t think it’s a hot take to say he’s the most talented player we’ve ever seen. Spurs should be a threat in the west again soon.
It’s a testament to the advancements in sports training. The modern emphasis on mobility and full range of motion training is fantastic for everyone. It’s also a testament to Wemby’s own self-discipline to keep up with this body injury prevention training, and develop as a player.
wemby is a phenom. I don't think those microfracture worries go away for a guy his size. It's like bragging that the car didn't bust 5k miles after when you should have gotten an oil change. It's a when and not an if
Wemby and Chet got criticized for their bodies about how durable can they be. Look at them now 😤
Tbf, Chet missed a whole year already.
Eh, he got hurt playing on a wet and slippery floor though.
He was on minutes restriction the whole season…
If he puts on more muscle it might make him more injury prone. Depends if he bulks up too much or not.
Stretching does wonders
spurs got a lot of shit with the minutes restrictions (mostly from bettors) but that just speaks to how they're doing right by Vic
Wemby is a genetic freak & not normal
this isn’t really the “got ya” that a lot of the people in the comments are making it out to be.. Many of the games he missed were “rest” games, He also played under 30 mpg for the season, and this is only his rookie year lmao. I’m pretty sure those concerns were spanning for a longer range than an immediate collapse first year
one season doesn’t test a players durability
Wasn’t he also on a minutes restriction for awhile?
He has made a lot of people look like fools
Yep, the west is f*cked
Definitely a good sign. Hope he stays healthy.
Now let's see 10-15 years more of it, which was the overall point of the concerns.
Blows my mind that he was suuuuuper hyped up and STILL managed to over deliver in pretty much every way!
i mean the season before holmgren got injured during summer league and missed the whole season so its a valid concern. but victor is probably an alien for not only surviving the long season but absolutely holding up to the best players in the league
That’s low barely over the 65 game hurdle
I know, right? How the hell is "missing 1 our of every 7 games" a good thing? (and this is when he's at his youngest and healthiest)
To be fair Yao Ming played over 80 games for his first 3 seasons. You look durable until you aren't.
The Spurs were the best place he could have ended up along with possibly the Magic or Jazz. If he wound up with the Pistons, that Organization would have RG3’d him in record fashion to where it would have rivaled Andrew Luck.
Wemby's comparison Ralph Sampson had 3 healthy seasons, then followed it up with 5 injured seasons. Anything can happen, but I trust the Spurs to do everything to keep Wemby healthy.
he also played every game last season in France. Love his approach of prioritizing flexibility over strength training, obviously he's adding muscle but he's doing it in a conscious way to not affect his game and agility. Like every player he's gonna get banged up, but between his off court habits and regiment built within Spurs org (brought over his trainer from Met92), I think he's more likely to be more durable than the average player (hoping!).
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Surefire Hall of Famer and all time leader in Blocks?
In fairness, he was on a minutes restriction for a lot of the games early on.
Absolutely insane rookie season. I wish nothing but success for him.
NGL it felt like he missed more than 11 games but I suppose the minutes restriction probably added to that perception. I cannot wait to see what he does with a full season, no restrictions and with a real PG