From the moment his team defeated the previous undefeatable Oklahoma City Thunder in December, you could start to hear the whispers: Yes, Victor Wembanyama is the future but is he, could he be, I know it's so soon but maybe is he already, you know, the best player in, well, the NBA?
The whispers grew to a din by the end of the season, with Wembanyama playing such a dominant final four months of the season that he credibly mounted an MVP campaign. The nebulous title of Best Player is, if not Wemby's, then up for grabs in these playoffs for whoever makes it out of the Western Conference. San Antonio is not only a trendy pick to win the title among wised-up NBA observers, oddsmakers have them as the second-most likely winner behind a team they beat four times. That optimism is tempered by a long history of teams like this needing to bleed a little before they hoist a trophy. That's how it works. Breaking the constraints of basketball and physics is cool in February against the Utah Jazz, but the playoffs are different. Other teams face more unforgiving sets of expectations, feel more pressure, and have more at stake this year having incinerated more of their future than the Spurs. But no other team or player presents as large and compelling a mystery than Victor Wembanyama.
Now that the games matter, what will happen? We saw the start of the answer on Sunday night in Wembanyama's playoff debut.
San Antonio beat Portland, 111-98, to win Game 1 of their first-round series. Wembanyama was the best player on the court, mostly by scoring a jarringly efficient 35 points in 33 minutes, in which he was plus-four. The rest of Wembanyama's counting stats were relatively meager—two blocks, five rebounds, and four turnovers—though as is always the case with Wembanyama, the breadth of his impact on a basketball game is difficult to translate into a box score. For example, Portland shot 21-for-41 in the paint, and when Wembanyama was in the game they barely looked at the rim. Portland has spent some time this season playing a small lineup with Toumani Camara at center in order to free up a pretty clunky offense. Having struggled to score against Wembanyama, they tried to wrong-foot him with the tiny lineup and he instantly got a lob dunk.
It took Wemby six minutes to move in such a way as to trigger arachnophobia. The Blazers started off shooting well, and Tiago Splitter came up with several interesting ways to make space for Deni Avdija to attack the rim without running into the problem of the best shot-blocker in the NBA destroying him. On one such play, Avdija drove right after several off-ball screens involving every single other member of the Blazers. The final screen was a last-second Jerami Grant screen on Wembanyama, designed to keep him from recovering to the rim and blocking Avdija's shot. He got around it and forced Avdija into a bad miss. Wembanyama then grabbed the rebound, dribbled the length of the court despite heavy pressure, went behind the back, then finally spun around Avdija to get right to the rim, where he did that thing where he dunks while on the descent.
When the Spurs really needed to score, they ran pick-and-rolls through De'Aaron Fox and Wembanyama, which were effective though not gamebreaking. Wemby was most effective on the perimeter, hitting five of his six three-point attempts. Portland started the game with Camara on Wembanyana, though whenever one of their centers got on Wembanyama, they were fine giving him space to pop it. He dutifully obliged, confidently pulling it off the dribble. His best shot of the night came when he sprinted to the corner right at Keldon Johnson, who was not so much setting a screen as standing around, and nailed a running three. This three capped off a 21-point first half, which is the most for any player making their playoff debut in the play-by-play era. His 35 set a new Spurs playoff debut record.
Portland made it a game early in the second half, though Wembanyama briefly took over in the fourth quarter, and San Antonio won running away. Given the lengths Portland has to go through to get Avdija space and their general issues with offense, I don't think this will be a very long series. As talented as Portland is on defense, San Antonio has too many shooters and ball-handlers, plus Wembanyama is always around, applying pressure. If a preliminary question facing Wembanyama was how he would play against an opponent deploying playoff-level intensity, focus, and organization, he's answered it emphatically. This was by no means his most psychedelic performance, and he still put up a ridiculously efficient 35 points while doing seven distinct things that made me yelp.
This series will not pose bigger questions to Wembanyama, such as: What happens against an opponent with the talent to punish his deficiencies and his team's weaknesses? Portland's on-ball defense made San Antonio work, and treating Stephon Castle as a complete non-shooter often gummed up the offense when he was out there, though the Blazers aren't good enough to really make San Antonio feel the pain. Maybe Portland will help San Antonio in the rounds to come by giving them an otherwise forgiving environment where they can work on counters. The real test is still coming.
Portland threw everything they had at Wembanyama, and he diagnosed it and destroyed it. This guy is going to do so much amazing stuff in these playoffs and the playoffs to come. What we saw was the dawn of something, and it was spectacular.
