Wembanyama and the Spurs are moving on to the NBA Finals in just his third season
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5 min read
As Victor Wembanyama waited to learn the identity of his eventual NBA team ahead of the 2023 Draft, Adrian Wojnarowski shared a somewhat startling sentiment bubbling among teams hoping to secure the greatest prospect in basketball history during ESPN’s broadcast of the lottery.
“A number of executives who are in the room tonight, who are waiting on those bouncing balls in the lottery, they tell me that they believe Wembanyama could be the best player in the NBA on both the offensive and defensive ends by his third season in the league,” Wojnarowski said.
That simply does not happen, at least not under modern circumstances. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was the MVP and a champion by his second NBA season, but he played a full collegiate career. Magic Johnson won Finals MVP as a rookie, but Abdul-Jabbar was by his side for all but the clinching game of the Finals and would remain the superior player for several years. LeBron James reached the NBA Finals in his fourth season, but got swatted away by a more experienced San Antonio Spurs team and wouldn’t return until his eighth season.
These words were spoken about Wembanyama mere months after his 19th birthday. He had no NBA experience. He didn’t come up through the traditional American collegiate system. He was more accomplished in Europe, winning the French MVP award in 2023, but he barely played in the EuroLeague. Luka Dončić won the EuroLeague MVP award at 19. Wembanyama averaged 6.5 points in 17.5 minutes against Europe’s best competition. It didn’t matter. His future was obvious to anyone who’d ever bounced a ball. He was going to be the best basketball player in the world. Health permitting, he might genuinely be the best basketball player who’s ever lived.
We usually don’t start with those conversations. Michael Jordan didn’t truly throw his name into the “GOAT” ring until his first three-peat. James was compared to him from the moment he arrived in the NBA, but he’s said himself that his 2016 championship over the 73-win Golden State Warriors was the moment, in his mind, when it really happened. That came in his 13th season.
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But Wojnarowski’s prophecy came true. It’s Wembanyama’s third season, and he’s already claimed “best in the league” status. He and the Spurs just knocked off two-time reigning MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals on the road in Game 7 on Saturday night. Gilgeous-Alexander was burdened with injuries to his secondary shot-creators, Ajay Mitchell and Jalen Williams, but Wembanyama was playing with two of his best teammates, De’Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper, also hobbled.
In the regular season, Gilgeous-Alexander averaged 5.4 shot attempts in the restricted area per game. In the first six games of the Western Conference Finals, that number was nearly cut in half, down to three. Without the rim, the MVP was mortal. He shot 32.1% in the non-restricted portion of the paint, 38.3% in mid-range and 26.1% on 3s. When he didn’t draw fouls, he just didn’t have an efficient means of attacking San Antonio’s Wembanyama-led defense. This is Wembanyama’s competition, and he erased him.
It usually takes a few tries to reach this point. Jordan lost to the Bad Boy Pistons three times. James lost to the Boston Celtics twice and got pushed to the brink against them in 2012. There’s a certain rhythm to these things. A young star ascends, loses a few times to the incumbent heavyweights and then finally gets over the top. There wasn’t even really a climb here. The Spurs faced the Thunder in five regular-season games and won four. They beat them in their first postseason matchup. Maybe Wembanyama is just so big that he could pull himself up the mountaintop from a standing start.
The Thunder aren’t going anywhere. They’ll presumably be among Wembanyama’s biggest threats moving forward. They’ll probably be healthier if there’s a rematch next season, and both sides are loaded with enough assets to improve on the trade market if they decide it’s necessary. The rivalry isn’t over.
But this is probably the worst Wembanyama’s ever going to be. He’s not close to his peak yet. One of the stories of the season was how effectively Oklahoma City’s defense kept Wembanyama away from the rim. He had 23 paint touches in Game 1, according to NBA.com tracking data. Then he had 33 in Games 2-6 combined. He still can’t quite assert his position near the rim as well as he’ll be able to in a few years, and his young guards will get better at entering the ball into him. He’s not going to completely bulk up, but he’ll probably add some muscle to better handle Oklahoma City’s physicality. His post-game is still developing. He worked with Hakeem Olajuwon last offseason. Odds are, he’ll check in with other legends in the summers to come. He’s still getting better.
He has a ways to go before he reaches those loftier ambitions. He’s not even a champion yet, and the New York Knicks pose a very real threat to his coronation. They beat the Spurs twice during the regular season, including the NBA Cup final, and that was before New York’s magical run through the Eastern Conference. He might still lose. He might face the same stumbles that Jordan and James did during their respective rises to power.
But the basketball world looked at Wembanyama before he’d even arrived in the NBA and reasoned that he would probably be the best player in the league by his third season. That theory, outlandish as it probably seemed to some in the moment, came to pass. And with that being the case, we probably can’t dismiss any other outlandish beliefs surrounding his future.
Who cares that he’s only played three years? We’re all watching him and thinking the same thing. There’s never been anyone like him before. Nobody has ever had his combination of size, skill and demeanor. He’s capable of things on a basketball court that no other human being ever has been.
It will take years for his resume to compare to Jordan’s or James’, but he’s ahead of where they were at this stage of their careers. If this goes the way we think it’s going to go, he’s going to be the greatest player in NBA history.
