Victor Wembanyama does not want to be pigeonholed: “I don’t fit in”
The 7-foot-3 Wembanyama doesn’t want to be limited by conventional wisdom, so he’s letting his deep shot fly this season.
IN ITS FIRST rookie training camp day in 2023, Victor Wembanyama explained how the San Antonio Spurs they could better position him and the franchise for success.
It was about 90 days after the French phenom was selected No. 1 overall in the 2023 NBA Draft.
Conventional basketball wisdom said that the 7-foot-3 Wembanyama should live in the paint and shoot near the rim; block, rebound and defend; get the ball to point guards to facilitate the offense. That’s what most big men do.
But Wembanyama is no ordinary big man. He knew it. So the 19-year-old sat down with the Spurs staff and discussed how conventionalism would stifle his creativity and therefore limit the ceiling of the team with him as the centerpiece.
“The best way to help is not to pigeonhole myself,” Wembanyama told the Spurs before his first NBA season. “(Spurs coach Gregg Popovich) knows it. He learned to know me and I’m learning to know him. We know we’re going to do something original, something special.”
It didn’t take long.
Wembanyama led all rookies in points (21.4), rebounds (10.6) and blocks per game (3.6), ranking fourth in assists (3.9) and second in steals per game (1.2). He was the first player to average at least 20 points, 10 rebounds and 3 blocks in less than 30 minutes per game.and finished his rookie campaign as the first player in a season to accumulate at least 1,500 points, 700 rebounds, 250 assists, 250 blocks and 100 three-pointers en route to being unanimously voted Rookie of the Year.
He averaged the most points per possession of any rookie since Michael Jordan (minimum 1,000 minutes). He also recorded two triple-doubles, one with assists and one with blocks. Wembanyama recorded a 5v5 match against Los Angeles Lakers which included 27 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 blocks and 5 steals, earning him recognition as the youngest player in NBA history to do so.
This season has been no different: a versatile player who demonstrated the power of his unparalleled versatility.
When Wembanyama recorded its first triple-double of this season on December 1 in a 127-125 victory over the Sacramento Kings 15 of his 34 points were from three-pointers. He made seven three-pointers among his first 10 attempts and only two from 1.50 meters or less.
But with San Antonio trailing 97-92 entering the fourth quarter, Wembanyama reverted to convention.
Instead of continuing his barrage of three-pointers, Wembanyama moved inside, lighting up Sacramento for 13 points on 4-of-5 shooting with 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 blocks. None of those five shots were from beyond the arc. Three landed from 7 feet or less.
The performance provided one of the first glimpses this season of Wembanyama learning how – and most importantly – when to deploy his vast skill set. And how ruthlessly effective it can be. After the game, Wembanyama once again warned against putting him in a box.
“Don’t do it,” he said.
“I don’t fit in.”
EVEN THOUGH WEMBANYAMA TONED 4 of 6 three-pointers in the first half of the win over the Kings, Spurs interim head coach Mitch Johnson noted that his second-year center “had some really bad moments in the first three quarters in terms of of fundamentals and solid basketball.
Johnson said Wembanyama committed four turnovers during that span and finished with a game-high five, due in part to missed catches and missed passes.
“He can do everything,” Johnson said after the game. “So, when you have so many options on the menu, thinking that you are going to choose the right one every time is difficult. He is a young player who is learning to use all the weapons he has. Obviously, there is great confidence and great support for him while he learns when and where to use all those weapons.
Wembanyama’s diverse skill set can sometimes make it difficult for him to decide how to best deploy his talents in each match.
Of players who took 350 or more shots this season, Wembanyama ranks 13th in jump shot percentage made (63.4%), putting him on a list loaded with point guards and wings. Wembanyama exhibits a higher jump shot percentage than Tyler Herro (62.9%), Jalen Green (61.7%), Darius Garland (59.2%), Kyrie Irving (57.7%), Shai Gilgeous-Alexander (56.4%) and even Trae Young (55.2%).
Wembanyama has an average shooting distance of 17.7 feet, almost the same as Donovan Mitchell and Luka Doncic.
Internally, the Spurs are often amused to hear so much talk and consternation about their young star’s shooting diet – one team source believes Wembanyama is closer to Kevin Durant that, let’s say, Hakeem Olajuwon, which helps explain why nearly half of his shot attempts originate from beyond the arc.
“It doesn’t surprise me because it’s conventional wisdom,” Johnson said of criticism of Wembanyama’s penchant for shooting 3-pointers. “For someone who is in tune with who they want to be and who has the potential to be like Victor, it’s our job to respect that and support him to grow who he is. I think there’s just an occasional element of understanding the when and how, as As he gains more experience, he has improved a lot in that.
And while such diversity in Wembanyama’s game offers options for Spurs, it creates unpredictability for the opposition.
“You can tell he knows his players very well,” Portland coach Chauncey Billups said before Wembanyama had seven assists on Dec. 13 in the Spurs’ comeback victory over the Trail Blazers. “You can just go ahead and pass knowing the guy is going to cut.”
Still, Wembanyama said he’s still developing a sense of comfort creating plays.
“Facing a fair amount of double defense, it’s my responsibility to give my teammates the opportunity to take advantage,” Wembanyama said. “Before I came to the league, I never had 10 assists or more and I rarely had more than seven. So, it’s in my development and it’s a step I’m willing to take because I’m trying to force teams to defend me with more than a player.”
His veteran teammate Harrison barnes He said that despite all the headaches, like Logo’s 3-point attempts early in the possession, they were all made for the right reason.
“A lot of people have so many criticisms they want to talk about. ‘He should be this. He should be that. He should play this way,'” Barnes said. “To me, he’s going to play his style and he’s going to do it his way. It may not be exactly the mold that people want him to be in or expect him to be in. But he’s going to do it his way, and most importantly “He wants to win. That’s his goal.”
After the triple-double against the Kings, Wembanyama leaned back in a chair inside a narrow, dark room and thought about some of the changes he had already made to his game.
Wembanyama admits that his wide range of assets sometimes causes confusion, but he credits the Spurs’ video team for helping him slow down the game. Before each game, the video team loads an iPad full of clips of the various defensive looks the opponent used against him in the last matchup.
“The real difficulty is adapting to the defense in real time, the type of coverage,” Wembanyama said. “Because the answers are always there when we watch the film later. It’s easy to spot them. But reacting in real time is very difficult.”
But thanks to his film study, Wembanyama is beginning to recognize all the patterns used against him. Billups explained before Saturday’s game that the only way to defend Wembanyama is with a defensive scheme as varied as his skills.
Looking ahead to Monday’s matchup against the Philadelphia 76ers (7 p.m. ET, NBA TV), Wembanyama is coming off two historic performances. On Thursday, Wembanyama’s 42-point performance against the Atlanta Hawks It made him the first NBA player to score seven triples and total 6 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks in the same game. And his 30-point, 10-block performance Saturday against the Blazers put him back in strange air.
San Antonio trailed by three points during its 133-126 overtime victory against Atlanta when Wembanyama re-entered the game. He started the sequence with an 8-foot jumper, followed by a step-back 3-pointer and a floater off the glass.
On San Antonio’s next possession, Wembanyama scored near the free throw line with the Hawks center, Clint Capeladefending. As the shot clock ticked down, Wembanyama took a step out, then back in, before ducking under Capela’s outstretched arms to float the ball off the glass, just as the Spurs forward, Julian Champagniecut towards the basket. Wembanyama snagged his own alley-oop off the backboard with 1 second left on the shot clock for a two-handed dunk that tied the score at 101 as the 17,852 fans at Frost Bank Center erupted.
He then closed the sequence by launching a seemingly impossible lob from beyond the 3-point line to Jeremy Sochanwho completed the play with Bogdan Bogdanovic and Dyson Daniels defending at hand.
The 11-point run gave the Spurs a 103-101 lead, with Wembanyama contributing nine of those points and providing the assist for Sochan. In overtime, Wembanyama scored eight of the Spurs’ 13 points, going 3 of 4 from the floor and 2 of 2 from 3-point range.
“Vic, I know I have to be careful not to take it for granted,” the point guard said. Chris Paul. “I missed a layup tonight and I was like, ‘Vic, where are you?’ “He just covers up so many mistakes that I don’t know how many blocks he had tonight. It’s just… it’s different.”
That’s fine for a Spurs organization that shares Wembanyama’s vision of what it could become. Coaches and teams have told Wembanyama for as long as he can remember what to do, what not to do, what he is and what he isn’t.
“That everyday fight you talk about is something I’ve gone through, of course, growing up a lot,” Wembanyama said. “But now I’m experiencing levels of freedom that I’ve never had the opportunity to have. And for me, it’s also the clearest path to how to improve and how to get to the highest level.
“So it makes sense that we see creativity on the court because I think that’s the best way to help my team. They’re not pigeonholing me, and I’m not going to be pigeonholed either.”
