Wembanyana’s rookie expectations as No. 1 pick
After years of hype Victor Wenbanyama was taken 1st overall by the San Antonio Spurs in the 2023 NBA Draft. Now it’s time to see if the hype was worth it.
To say that Victor Wembanyama has a lot to live up to would be a drastic understatement. He was the stone cold lock to be first pick in the 2023 NBA Draft for the last few years, and last Thursday those predictions came to life when the San Antonio Spurs selected him with their top pick in the draft.
Plenty of pressure on Wemby
Getting selected first overall comes with plenty of pressure and comes with plenty expectations. In most cases, the top pick in the draft goes to a bad team. I mean a really bad team. The rookie is expected to come in and change the culture from the very start. The hope in San Antonio is that 7′5″ swingman will be able to meet those sky high expectations from the very start.
Tall task for the big man
So what would meeting those expectations look like? For one, he’s got to turn the team around. The last time the Spurs had the top pick in the draft, they took Tim Duncan. Duncan helped turned the team around from one of the worst team in league to the playoffs the next year.
Individually speaking, it’s hard to lay down an exact number of rebounds and points Wemby has to score, but he and Spurs fans will certainly be hoping that he brings the franchise it’s first Rookie of the Year award since Tim Duncan did so in 1998. Duncan led San Antonio to the playoffs that year, and that would also be a welcomed sight for Spurs fans.
There have been 70 Rookies of the Year since the NBA started to started to give the award out in 1953. Of those 70 winners, 22 of them were No. 1 overall draft picks. The first top pick to win the award was Ray Felix, the Baltimore Bullets first choice I the 1953 Draft.
Long list of legends to pick picked 1st and win ROY
It gets a little murky, because back in the day there was a thing called a territorial pick which allowed teams to forfeit their first round pick to select any player within a 50 mile radius of it’s home arena. Players like Wilt Chamberlain and Oscar Robertson were selected as territorial picks, but we won’t count them in our list of Rookies of the Year, because technically they weren’t No. 1 picks.
The territorial picks were abolished in 1966, and before that there were three top picks that went on to be ROYs. Elgin Baylor was the second to do so, after Ray Felix, and Walt Belamy would also be named ROY in 1961. Since then there have been 19 other first overall picks that went on to win Rookie of the Year, including five in a row (the longest streak ever) from 1990-1994. Guys like Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James and Kevin Durant have all gone on to live up to the hype and win the award after getting picked first overall.
This year, Paolo Banchero won Rookie of the Year after getting selected with the Orlando Magic top pick. The team didn’t have a terrific year, going 34-48 and finishing 13th in the East, but Banchero averaged 20 points, 6.9 rebounds and 3.7 assists in his rookie season.
Woody Saludsberry was the lowest drafted rookie to win the ROY back in 1958. He was taken by the Philadelphia Warriors with the 60th pick and went on to average 12.8 points and 10.3 rebounds in his first professional year. Since then only one player outside of the Top 20 to win the ROY was Malcolm Brogdon in 2017 after being drafted 36th by the Milwaukee Bucks.