On the Italian night between Monday and Tuesday Victor Wembanyama, a 20-year-old Frenchman from the San Antonio Spurs NBA basketball team, he won the NBA Rookie of the Year Award, the prize given to the best seasonal rookie in the main North American basketball league. Wembanyama obtained the recognition unanimously, given that all ninety-nine voters put him in first place in their rankings (journalists and experts who vote for the award must indicate three players: the first receives 5 points, the second 3 and the third 1). Wembanyama had arrived in the NBA with very high expectations, similar in some ways to those that existed for LeBron James in 2003, because a player with those characteristics had never been seen before, more than two meters tall but potentially good at almost every aspect of the game.
His first season, although it was negative for San Antonio (the team finished second to last in its group, the Western Conference, with 22 wins and 60 defeats), did not disappoint those expected. Wembanyama scored 21.4 points, grabbed 10.6 rebounds, dished out 3.9 assists and averaged 3.6 blocks per game. The US sports site ESPN he defined it «one of the best seasons ever for a rookie“, While The Athletic spoke of “games never seen before”.
And indeed, in addition to the truly impressive statistics, Wembanyama has proven to be special (as he said LeBron James after playing against him) especially for the way he achieved his impressive season averages.
Ten plays are enough to understand that Wembanyama does things differently from all the other players
Despite his height, Wembanyama has shown that he knows how to dribble with great technique and agility, that he can consistently score three-point baskets, that he is also able to think about play outside the box. In addition to this, clearly, there are those things he can do because he is the tallest player in the NBA, such as dunking almost all the balls that his teammates throw near the basket and being one of the best defenders in the league, first in blocks ( i.e. blocked opponent shots) with 254.
Golden State Warriors point guard Stephen Curry, four-time NBA champion and player capable, in his own way, of changing basketball, even before Wembanyama arrived in the NBA he had defined it a player created by a video game with “cheating codes”.
In his first season in the NBA, Wembanyama reinforced this feeling. The sports site Fanatics published a video in which some of the NBA’s best players past and present, all honored as Rookie of the Year, compliment Wembanyama on the award. Kevin Durant, a player of whom Wembanyama is considered a kind of “updated version”, said he can’t wait to find out what he will do in the next fifteen years, while according to Shaquille O’Neal the Frenchman will become one of the best ever .
This season was used for Wembanyama to settle in and show that he can be decisive even in the most prestigious championship in the world (in the NBA in general it is difficult for a young player in his first year to make a significant difference). The San Antonio Spurs are a rebuilding team, they didn’t have the ambition to do well straight away, but they aim to grow and become a competitive team for the title again in the coming years. A lot will obviously pass through Wembanyama.
According to his coach Gregg Popovich, considered one of the best ever, Wembanyama has everything to become that player: «He’s competitive, he wants to win, he’s very talented», he said the San Antonio coach before the Frenchman was awarded best rookie of the year. Popovich also said that Wembanyama “is much more gifted than he imagines,” and that his priority this year has been to add as many dimensions to his game as possible.