Wemby specifically, there was a question playing around on Twitter, when or if?
When? Can when? Will Wenby be the best player in the NBA?
Or Ken Victor Wembenyam would be the best player in the NBA, And
like the when stuff, it was kind of memed where it's like, what
do you mean when? As in like future tense, but there are there
was a level of pushback that surprising, where a lot of people seem to
truly believe that, aside from just you know, the frame concerns or whatever,
that's just like, you know, I can't he's skinny, but he's
put so much more into his body. They just don't think he's ever gonna
be the level of offensive player necessary to be the best player in the league.
And I'm curious as to what you think about Ken. I think the
question is Ken Victor Wembenyama be the best player in the NBA? Point how
quickly do you think it would happen? What could prevent him from doing it?
Just what do you make of that entire sector of debate. I love
this because I was unaware of this discussion, so I hopefully am coming to
it without being influenced. Can he be the best player in the league,
Like, of course, of course he can't. Like that's like, that's
ridiculous that to say that he can he cannot. That that's like you're just
wrong if you say he cannot the the like, So, I don't know,
what are the odds that he has like an embid level of like injury
frequency. I don't know what percentage you put that at. It's it's non
zero, it's real embiid has at times probably been regarded as the best player
in the league. Anyway, So I don't know, I don't know how
how long How long does Wenby need to hold that title? Does it need
to be for a year? Like I think, like the So all that
aside, what you're really asking is, like, so when the current like
crop of the guys you consider that we talked about in MVP as the best
player in the league are like aged out, is he going to be at
the top of the group that is ascending now or that is you know,
you know, on the younger side, Like so that means he's got to
be better in a couple of years than Luca Sga like Jannis probably or you
know, I'm trying to I'm sure, I'm forgetting guys, but just you
know, going through going through the list of guys that are not gonna you
know, Lebron will be gone, Curry will be gone. Uh why,
like all these guys are gonna diminish to where you don't talk about them that
way. You got to think about Tatum and Booker and like, how much
better might they get over the next couple of years. I think I don't
know what the percentage chance is absolutely when Minama can be the best player in
the league. And I think if you just if I had to guess,
he could do it as soon as like his third year, maybe I don't
know if it would happen next year. That seems like wildly ambitious, but
I wouldn't rule it out right, Like if he's if he is far and
away the best defensive player in the world, which could like I would be.
If that weren't the case next year and he gets a little better offensively,
then you're already talking about, well, he's like top three or four
MVP so and that's in his second year. I mean that that's an optimistic
outlook, but it's hard for me not to be optimistic about him. I
just like it's just we don't really talk about this stuff that often, but
like the makeup and his approach and like his maturity and all that stuff,
like you're not gonna have I have no concerns about him not having like the
right uh you know, off the floor stuff. You know that. I
don't have any of those worries. So yeah, I don't. I don't
know what exactly like the debate really drills down to, but like, yeah,
he could be the best player. I would I would be surprised if
he weren't in the conversation as soon as his third year, that is when
did Lebron enter that discussion? Do you think so was he there by year?
Because I mean he was kind of Kobe was still there at that time,
or at least people had him in that year of player. Lebron was
certainly the best player in the league by his fifth season, that's for sure.
Yeah. I think that's when was his first like season as the best
player in the NBA, because his first MVP came when was that two thousand
and he won MVP first and he finished in the top ten of MVP voting
during his rookie season. By the way, he didn't win his first MVP
Award until two thousand and nine, so that was his sixth season he was
top five, he was top he finished second in two thousand and six,
so at age twenty one, I think he had a case to be the
best player in the NBA. Feels fair because he certainly wasn't there as a
sophomore. No, And I think I think next year is when we're gonna
have to start, like really really having the I can't get there in the
second year, but if in this I think the third year feels like the
magic number to me, if like, if it's gonna happen, we'll have
a really good idea by then, I think so. But what I also
wanted to say here is people are undervaluing his offense because I think of what,
look at the numbers now and they're still a little unimpressive, but like,
he is above league average true shooting. He might even be there now,
but he's above league average true shooting since the Spurs moved him to center.
This is staggering to me. Since they made him their starting five,
he is shooting forty five percent on pull up three pointers, and he has
made more pull up three pointers during this stretch than di'angelo Russell just as a
name. He's made more pull up three pointers during this stretch than Kawi Leonard.
Like that is, that's legit, and he's taking some tough shots.
The freedom to explore absolutely matters. But by the way, and this shift
has been I feel like it's been starker of late, but like the Spurs
are running stuff through him as a facilitator. And so among biggs who averaged
at least twenty five minutes per game during the month of February, you want
to guess, you want to guess how many had a higher assist rate than
Victor Weber Yama. I mean you'd have like Jokic, it would be I
feel how many? Yeah, how many? Can you guess? So there's
Jokic, there's Sam No so okay, So I'm already blown away that he's
not a higher assistrate than Bam. I don't know who, like just what
is He's he top five? Uh, he's top five. So Bam probably
doesn't make the cut here because I filtered it for six ten and over.
So like he has a higher assist rate than Alprin Shangun, than Kevin Rant,
than Nurkic. Uh So, it's Jokic, Giannis Domas, and Palo
Bankaro the only bigs who averaged at least twenty five minutes a game in the
month of February with a higher assist rate. And so, yeah, Wemby's
turnover eight can be a little bit higher, but like, you know what,
fourteen percent during that stretch, given what they're trying to run through him,
there's an offensive ceiling here that I really just don't think people are accounting
for. And even so, let's they run a lot more stuff through him
at the elbows. And so just among players, and this is, by
the way, I'm not even breaking down a segment. This is for the
entire season, among everyone who is averaging as many elbow touches per game as
Wemby, there's only four total players, including Wemby, that have an assist
rate from the elbow of at least twenty with a turnover rate below five.
It's shanng Gun, It's Jokic, and it's Perle and then there's Wemby.
And so this is all just yes, some of it's cherry picked, but
like an assist rate of twenty plus with a turnover rate below five, like
that fucking matters, especially when you're getting some actual volume at the elbows.
Now, I will say he's getting fewer elbow touches per game on the season
than Shangun perl Jokic. But like I'm talking about on the season now,
Grant, this isn't a Justine when he was moved to the five, or
this isn't just since February, like this is the entire season. So there's
another And when you're even talking about him in the context of versus Chet Holmgren,
that might actually be what separates him from Chet Holmgren is more than anything
is the fact that he can And again I don't know how much of this
is the freedom to explore, the license to explore, but he can create
his own shots. And he's also setting teammates up in more complicated ways or
as the hub, whereas Chet does not. Now is that a function of
Chet's role or lack of ability. I think it's probably a combination of both.
They're never gonna need him to do that in Oklahoma City when you look
at how they're built. But it's also why you know, I'm sure you
saw the rumors that the Spurs are ready to make a run at Trey Young
over the summer, and pardon me, is like, if you have wem
beyond defense and Trey's just there and he's gonna give the level of effort that
he has in the past year and a half or whatever, that'll work.
And I'm also kind of like that will dilute what Wemby's doing on offense,
and I don't need to see that, because I really do think and it's
even you could throw this out the window and just say, like, there's
a chance that he becomes a more Giannis was the best player in the NBA
at some point without having the deepest offensive armory. I'm not getting into the
he has no bag, but he was never He's been the primary initiator,
but it's never in ways like he needs to get going downhill where it's Wemby
can do that in other ways. I'm not saying he's better than Yannis right
now. I'm just saying if someone like Giannis can get to be the best
player in the world for multiple seasons at a time while being more of just
like this force of nature on offense and then the best defensive player in the
league. Victor Webenyama can absolutely do the same thing, especially if he's going
to be tasked with doing I don't want to say more complicated stuff, but
just more like have a more comprehensive offensive package. And I think the people
who believe, even if they think Wemby can be the best player, and
they don't think it can happen on the same timeline that it did for Lebron,
just because Giannis's role, it took him a while to get there.
Same with Jokic, because one I think with both those guys, the national
public just took too long to catch up to them. But the other thing
was they were brought along more gradually. Where it's been There's been layers to
Victor Wemenyama's role in usage this year, but it's been very much overall baptism
by fire when you look at the entire pace, if you want to like,
this is someone who could be the best player in the NBA by I'm
not going to predict it next year, but kind of like when Lebron entered
the discussion year three and year four, he could be better than Luca,
he could be better than Shake Gilgris Alexander at that point and I think that
it's not just people just look at him as like, well, it's because
of what he's doing on defense. It's no there's an there's a super star
offensive player here, and this isn't Anthony Davis level play finishing either, Like
Davis has never really expanded his game beyond the confines of being a play finisher,
and when he does, with the exception of the Bubble, it doesn't
always go well. Like we're already seeing Wenby do a lot of stuff when
you look at as a facilitator that Anthony Davis has never really been tasked with
doing. At least that's anecdotal. I didn't dig into the numbers and look
at ad in New Orleans. Think about though, the what we've just discussed,
right, like what you said, the names, the names we've thrown
out, like well it's shingoon Yannis Davis, like you could throw whatever else.
But the thing is you're saying, yeah, he'd be like those guys
who are super different, except could do more. Like this is why comparisons
fail with him, because there isn't there's no such thing as a guy who
can be the best elbow facilitator in the league, the best rim protector in
the league, the best off ball defender in the league, the best pull
up shooting big in the league, Like they're that guy does not exist.
So it's like, I think the fact that we have to invoke so many
different players that are great at certain things but have real weaknesses and still come
up saying like, yeah, he's kind of like them, except like doesn't
have the flaw, Like that might be the best possible argument for like,
of course, this guy's going to be the best player in the league if
he doesn't get hurt, like we need maybe we should just forget the injury
thing, like who care? Of course, yeah, everyone could be great
if they didn't get hurt, but like he is, you can't find a
guy that you're like, he's he's just like this guy. And that's been
true like from day one really in terms of his potential, he's like,
yeah, he might he might be as good as Anthony Davis. Everything Anthony
Davis is good at, except also he's a better pull up shooter and he's
better off the bat. Like there's just it's there's no there's no guy out
there you can point to that is like a good approximation for him, and
I think that's probably the best endorsement you can do.