A week after the debate on Nice, credible candidate for the title of French champion in L1? – the yes rallying the vote – comes the one on the very first months of Victor Wembanyama in the NBA. Your vote!
Already remarkable for a rookie
Some say it’s been a while since the rookies have been this impactful. You know, these players who are playing their first season in the NBA, the best league in the world, and who arrive with the desire to show that they are at the level. On this point alone, Victor Wenbanyama fulfilled his mission. To accomplish what he accomplished at just 19 years old is remarkable. And it is not the bad series currently experienced by the San Antonio Spurs, who drafted the tricolor prodigy in first position in the Draft in June, which must change the situation.
“Wemby” did not take long to show his advantage. In his fifth game, he scored 38 points and grabbed 10 rebounds, and the Spurs won against the Phoenix Suns of one of the Frenchman’s idols, Kevin Durant (132-121). There are worse things to open a new page, especially given the immense expectations generated by “Wembamania”, also born from the talent and profile of a unique player, and not just by his size (2.24 m). This stature gives him a definite advantage in the paint and it is also not a problem when it comes to moving to the four corners of the floor. His trajectory is crazy, crazier in any case than that of his franchise. If he is there to be an Basketball remains a team sport, even in the NBA where statistics play an even more important role in the analyses.
Let’s talk numbers. Against the Memphis Grizzlies, the Spurs lost on the night from Saturday to Sunday (108-120). But Victor did well again, piling up 19 points, 13 rebounds and 8 blocks (his career best). If the team around him is slipping, he makes his way. Certainly, he still sprayed a lot (6 out of 17 on shots). This register is an obvious point of improvement. He doesn’t hide it either: “I’m a rookie, I’m trying to learn.” And learning to lose is also part of progression. He said he had prepared for it, a sign of his maturity. In any case, showing what he shows in a suffering collective is already a performance. And we allow ourselves to insist again: really, let’s not forget that he is only 19 years old.
Illusive figures
Having basic stats is good. Winning would be better… The San Antonio Spurs are in a spiral of defeats and Victor Wembanyama is not doing much to fix that. Besides, let’s remember how this bad series for the Texans started. Against the Toronto Raptors on November 5, they let a 22-point lead melt away. Two seconds from the end, the Frenchman lost a ball in front of his own basket and let the Canadians equalize to go into overtime and then clinch the victory… A mistake in the wrong place and at the wrong time, which was costly.
“Wemby” also had the opportunity to put an end to this bad period for Gregg Popovich’s team. Let’s take the example of last Friday night, where Tony Parker’s former team lost by nine points against the Sacramento Kings (120-129). Certainly, Wembanyama scored 27 pawns and took nine rebounds in 30 minutes. We can say that it is impressive… but it did not weigh in the game and another figure shows it. It can be found in the “+/-” column of the stats sheet. It indicates whether the team scored more or fewer points than the opponent when a player was on the floor. That evening, the Frenchman posted -31 and it is the lowest figure for the Texan franchise. In other words, the Kings scored 31 points more than the Spurs when the former nugget of Boulogne-Levallois was on the field. In a defeat of nine units, this weighs heavily and the other statistics then appear as an illusion.
The Blue international may well be his team’s top scorer and best rebounder after thirteen days (19.3 points and 9.5 rebounds per game on average), he is also a great picker. He thus has the second lowest efficiency of the Spurs on the three-point shot (27.9%) while he is also the one who attempts the most in this exercise. The one who was number 1 in the last draft, in particular because of his versatility, is he not reaching a limit and is he not, at 19 years old, faced with a first choice to make to define which will his playing profile be in the years to come?
Still, the one that was awaited with great impatience in San Antonio is not yet decisive. But we did say “not yet”…
2023-11-19 20:55:12
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