In our big NBA preview, I asked what it might look like if Victor Wembanyama adjusted his shot diet in order to replace a good chunk of his three-point attempts with shots taken closer to the rim. The Spurs' first game of the season, a 125-92 win over the Mavericks, gave us an answer to that question, and the answer is: a whole lot of trouble for anyone standing in his way.
It would seem that the preseason highlights were not a ruse. Wemby really is bigger, stronger, and ready to make a point of playing a more bruising style in his third year in the league. The guy who somewhat ludicrously shot 8.8 threes per game last season took only two Wednesday night, choosing instead to spend the bulk of his time setting himself up for post touches and facing up defenders at the elbow. It all added up to 40 points and 15 rebounds on 15-of-21 shooting in 30 minutes. And because this is Victor Wembanyama, the three blocks hardly need mentioning.
All of this was punctuated by another collection of jump-scare highlights, the kind that arrive so suddenly and from such odd angles that they put a fright in the chest. There was a sprinting reverse alley-oop:
A double-clutch reverse dunk through contact:
And this absolutely crazy step-back three, with the foul:
We'll come back to that last highlight, but there was something else going in last night's game that might end up being much more meaningful going forward. One consequence of Wembanyama making a more concerted effort to get to the rim is that it puts his defenders under a new kind of pressure, and that pressure produces fouls. Wembanyama averaged just four trips to the free-throw line a game last season, but he got to the line 11 times last night. More than that, he singlehandedly neutralized the Mavericks' frontcourt. Dallas is a team that, at least in theory, matches up pretty well with Wembanyama. Dereck Lively is 7-foot-1 and might be the most athletic young big man in the league; Anthony Davis is one of the best defensive bigs of his generation. Wembanyama kept going right at both of them, and the results were not good for Dallas: Davis had four fouls before halftime, and Lively only played 10 minutes after picking up his fifth foul before the third quarter was half over. A more bullish mentality, combined with his unprecedented geometric advantages, all but guarantees that any well-considered Wembanyama attempt to get to the rim is going to end with an easy basket or a foul. A version of Victor Wembanyama who is capable of getting to the line as often as Joel Embiid did during his MVP season is going to be a problem that I don't think any NBA defense is prepared to deal with.
Back to that step-back three over Lively. There was another element to Wembanyama's game on display last night, and that was the unmistakable desire to embarrass people. He was toying with Lively on that shot, and later in the game he made a point of demonstrating just how easy it is for him to brush aside someone like Davis, who I must once again remind you is one of the maybe three or four players in the league who might be considered a decent matchup for Wemby. Much was made in the offseason (and during last night's broadcast) about Wembanyama's summer training sessions with Hakeem Olajuwon, but another offseason meeting with an NBA legend may end up having just as big of an influence this season. Wembanyama spent more than two hours on a football field with Kevin Garnett this summer in order to work on his "mentality," and according to Garnett, he "never blinked."
So here's what we might have brewing: A stronger, brawnier Victor Wembanyama who can still do all that silky guard stuff whenever he wants, but is also scoring at the rim much more often and getting to the line at the same rate as prime Shaquille O'Neal, and is learning to talk shit from the best to ever to do it. Oh, boy. Ohhhhhhhhh, boy.
