Wembanyama wows the NBA: “What the hell just happened?”
Second preparation match for the Spurs and disbelief at the Frenchman’s game which continues to grow: 23 points in 23 minutes with plays impossible to imagine until now.
Victor Wembanyama has played just two pre-season friendlies, but the wildest ideas about where his limits lie are beginning to unfold. The Frenchman, beyond the numbers (23 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocks in 23 minutes), has shown once again that he is perfectly prepared to turn the best league in the world upside down with a series of resources never seen before . He put many of them into practice in Friday’s victory against the Miami Heat (120-104).
In the first preseason game against the Thunder, Gregg Popovich basically used him as a power forward, his most natural position; against the Heat, he experimented - deploying the Frenchman as a center for periods of the game. He also played Jeremy Sochan in the point guard role. And he didn’t do it badly at all (10+6+3). But returning to Wemby, his performance was just as good as against the Thunder and he did not seem uncomfortable occupying the 5 position. It’s true that the Heat’s starters didn’t play a single minute, but that quickly fades from your mind when you consider what the Frenchman did.
Wemby’s characteristics
His handling the ball, his dribbling... incredible for a player of his height. His mid-range shooting and pivot shooting is more than notable (10/15 from the field and far from all of them were dunks). His ability to intimidate - logical considering his statuesque 7 foot 4″ frame, is enhanced by his defensive activity. At times he is a small forward with the body of a center, at other times he is a shooting guard, hitting the rim almost without lifting his feet off the ground. It’s something that has never been seen before that will leave some incredible highlights reels this season.
Two of the favorites against the Heat were chosen by two of his team mates. Tre Jones is left with an alley-oop in which he provides the assist, although that was not his initial intention. “I just wanted to put the ball high enough so that only he could reach it, I wasn’t thinking about an alley-oop.” But Wembanyama caught that ball at the free throw line, as he was running towards the basket, and hung directly from the rim. “It’s been crazy,” Jones said.
The other notable action came from Devin Vassell, who finished with a 6/7 from the field, two of them assisted by Wemby. A dunk preceded by a Euro-step started almost from the three-point line. “He hardly even needed to dribble. He’s going to make plays every game where we’re going to be left thinking ‘what the hell just happened here?’”.