Dude is like the Indominus Rex of the NBA. To quote Chris Pratt, he doesn’t even know what he is right now. It’ll be a scary proposition for the NBA when he figures that out. In the end, I would turn him into a jump shooter. If he fits 50% of his shots and 40% of 3’s, you tip your cap.
Certainly teams will give up the 3 point shot. He's at 32% early this year after shooting 28% each of the last two years. His stroke looks good but he's just not an effective 3 point shooter yet, so that's what teams will happily give up (and there are only a handful of guys that can contest his jump shot anyway).
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I think you are overrating how much one player can do in basketball. Even peak LeBron, with stars around him, was never enough to be an automatic title, or even close to it.People are saying this is fun...I'm going to be selfish and say this sucks. Barring a generational guy coming in and totally changing the landscape, the Celtics looked to be in prime position to set up a dynastic run over the next 5-10 years. This freak of nature is going to totally change the landscape of the league within 2-3 years, especially given the coaching talent and assets already around him.
lolboohoo me, but I don't like it one bit
Phoenix tried that with Nurkic then Eubanks and it failed miserably as he can simply rise over them with his length. I'd say the longer guys will have a better chance to matchup as Wemby isn't going to out-physical them.
I agree, but the problem is the Spurs aren't the Cavs. They have a lot in their arsenal and one of the best coaches ever to do it, and I think the way they are set up now is going to give them a large advantage when the cap restrictions come into play.
I get that (and I said half in jest a couple weeks ago that the Celtics better hurry up and win a title in the next 2 years because of Wemby), but Lebron didn't win until year 9 and Jordan didn't win until year 7. The Spurs are a really good place for him, but I don't see anyone on that roster that looks like Scottie Pippen or Dwyane Wade, so I think we've got a few years before we seriously start worrying (and it's nice that he's in the other conference).People are saying this is fun...I'm going to be selfish and say this sucks. Barring a generational guy coming in and totally changing the landscape, the Celtics looked to be in prime position to set up a dynastic run over the next 5-10 years. This freak of nature is going to totally change the landscape of the league within 2-3 years, especially given the coaching talent and assets already around him.
lolboohoo me, but I don't like it one bit
I think they'll get some talent around Wemby pretty quickly, probably within 2-3 years. Not saying he's Pippen or Wade, but a Jaylen trade looks like it could be something that potentially makes a lot of sense for both teams, depending on how much Wyc wants to spend and how much Brad thinks he can do with some of San Antonio's assets. Just one example, but they'll get something done there, I'm confident of it.
I'm not talking about the pre-2010 Cavs though. This was also true for the Heatles, for the Kyrie+LeBron Cavs, and for the Lakers.
Yeah this.
You can make a case that this will be Wemby's most difficult matchup as Kristaps can (almost) match his length.
It's wild that they're about the same height, but Wemby has like 6 inches of standing reach on KP.
Right there's like 5 guys in the league, if that, who you'd expect should be able to guard Wemby, push him around a bit, can contest his shots, deny him position, and on the other end also show him some stuff he hasn't seen before. And along with having crazy talent up and down this roster, we just happen to have one of those handful of guys, for this year and the next 2.
Let's hit one. With or without the kiddos. Hell on Jan 20th-21st you can see the Spurs and Denver on back to back nights in DC, Sat-Sun.
Remember, we have resources. All we have to do is leave a magnum of 1970 Fonseca, open and decanted, in his hotel room before the game. He might not be heard from for days.
That should be interesting. Maybe the strategy will be to have Porzingis front Wembayana and make it harder to get the ball into him.
Spurs ran a low cross-screen 6 times in a row against PHO in the 4Q. Here's a breakdown of the plays.
Thank you for posting that piece.
Word. That picture of him next to Durant was shocking. KD is on the tall side for an NBA player and looked like Wemby's little brother.
Gobert was too slow to fully react to the shammgod.
One of the five best defenders in the league, ahead of where I was expecting offensively, and just improving by the week.
In addition to be very very good hes also just incredible to watch. He does things weve never seen anyone else do on a basketball court on a regular basis. Look at this
That’s nuts. I’ve seen some similarly mind blowing clips and it’s kinda surprising he’s not scoring 50 a night.
They're bringing him along very gently (averaging just 28.4 minutes, 103rd most in the league), and he's not scoring efficiently at all, yet (.464 from the field and just .316 from 3). Even if he never figures out 3 point shooting, he'll be a top 5 player for all of his prime, and if he does figure it out...Durant on offense (but half a foot taller) and really without a comp defensively. Moves like a really young Garnett, but with almost an extra foot of wingspan. He's probably gonna lead the league in blocks as a 20 year old rookie (Walker Kessler is 2nd at age 22 and Chet Holmgren is 4th at age 21...wow). I watch probably 15-20 hours of basketball a week during the regular season, and he does things all the time that not only have I never seen, I have trouble really comprehending. In addition to him being super young and having about 50 NBA games under his belt, his teammates are execrable. I know some of them have reasonable numbers, but every time I watch a Spurs game I can't shake the feeling that none of his teammates will be in the NBA in 3 years. Give him a real point guard (Trae Young would be a perfect, reasonable acquisition) and watch his game absolutely soar.
The Spurs often don’t have a pure distributor on the floor and are 5 guys running around like a pickup game. It also doesn’t help that a couple of their bigger scorers….are only looking to score. Pop said earlier in the year that he was going to allow Wemby to freelance more to “see what he can do.” On one hand that’s a great liberty to give a player but on the other it can create bad habits….especially for his teammates who aren’t as deserving of this freedom.
No argument on his ceiling. What's more surprising to me is how good he is already. He's a top-20 player now, and he has 50ish games under his belt and just turned 20 a month ago.
