PJ Carlesimo can’t remember the exact play, but he can’t forget how helpless it made him feel. It took place last season on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, in the second half of an Atlanta Hawks home game against the San Antonio Spurs.
Spurs rookie Victor Wembanyama reached back and used his seven-foot frame and huge wingspan to collect a pass as he hung in the air in slow motion, completing a remarkable catch with an unlikely finish.
Carlesimo, a former NBA head coach and current ESPN radio analyst, turned to broadcast partner Marc Kestecher and said, “Kesty, I feel terrible. I can’t describe this. What he just did was absurd, and he made it look so easy.”
The No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, Wembanyama was heralded last season as a generational player who could one day join Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Dončić and Nikola Jokić as faces of the league. After a strong first season in which he won NBA Rookie of the Year and was first-team All-Defense, that day might come sooner than expected.
At the recent 12th annual Jerry Colangelo Basketball Hall of Fame Golf Classic in Phoenix, The Athletics asked former players and head coaches where expectations should begin for Wembanyama entering Year 2. No one preached patience. After just one season, they see a player positioned for a significant jump.
Former Los Angeles Lakers guard and NBA head coach Byron Scott said he expects Wembanyama, who turns 21 in January, to be an All-Star this season, perhaps a first- or second-team All-NBA, and for the Spurs , who are turning 22. -60 last season, to sniff if not make the play-offs for the first time since 2019.
“If he’s everything I hear about in terms of his work ethic — and I’ve heard the kid is extremely humble and works extremely hard — he’s going to be the best player in the NBA in three years,” Scott said. the French product.
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As a rookie, Wembanyama averaged 21.4 points, 10.6 rebounds and 3.9 assists. Although he shot 32.5 percent on 394 three-point attempts, his shooting ability suggested he was capable of greater accuracy. Wembanyama hit five threes three times, including twice in the final three games of the season. He also blocked a league-best 3.6 blocked shots, the most since Miami’s Hassan Whiteside turned down 3.7 per game in the 2015-16 season.
The MLK game Carlesimo referenced was a strong reflection of the big man’s first season. The rebuilding Spurs fell behind early and sleepwalked at both ends. At halftime, Atlanta led 69-34. To start the second half, San Antonio coach Gregg Popovich benched Wembanyama, who was scoreless with four rebounds, as well as two other starters. He wanted better efforts.
Wembanyama watched as the Spurs tried to take Atlanta’s lead. TNT broadcasters wondered if he would sit out the rest of the match. Finally, Popovich inserted Wembanyama with 6:03 left in the third quarter. During the final 18 minutes of the match, Wembanyama put on a show.
He grabbed an offensive rebound and dunked. He grabbed a defensive rebound and set up a break that led to a transition 3. He blocked a shot. Swung a 3. Caught the ball on the wing, dribbled behind his back and made a strong one-handed dunk. In a 109-99 loss, Wembanyama finished with 26 points (on nine dunks), including the play that Carlesimo found difficult to describe.
“And he does something like that – I don’t want to say every game, he doesn’t do it 82 times – but if you watch three games you’ll see something that you won’t see in any game. other game in the league,” Carlesimo said.
Wemby shows the handle and stands up for the monstrous finish 😱
📺 Hawks-Spurs is LIVE on TNT pic.twitter.com/I5zKTNIT5V
— NBA (@NBA) January 15, 2024
Hall of Famer Spencer Haywood had a warning about this. His brother Floyd, who played and coached in France, told him a good one was coming. Haywood kept a close eye on Wembanyama during the Olympics this summer, and what he saw was a player who was ‘growing by leaps and bounds’. Not just from the end of his rookie season to the Olympics, but from his first match in Paris to his last, the championship match in which France lost to a loaded Team USA.
Wembanyama reminds Haywood of Ralph Sampson, a logical comparison because of the size. Sampson was also 7 feet tall. And like Wembanyama, he was the No. 1 pick in the NBA Draft, almost 40 years to the day San Antonio selected Wembanyama.
“Ralph had that stuff,” Haywood said of the big man’s skills. “He could handle the ball that way, but we had a cap on our handle so we couldn’t shoot. We couldn’t do certain things.”
In a side room at the Arizona Biltmore, where former players and coaches were registering for the Colangelo event, Haywood watched Sampson walk out into the lobby. He pulled him in and included him in the conversation.
“Tell him,” Haywood instructed, pointing to a reporter.
Sampson wasn’t having it. He didn’t want to talk about himself like that.
“I let others say it,” he said.
In 1983, Sampson, a three-time national player of the year at Virginia, was considered the best big man entering the draft since Bill Walton in 1974. Leading up to his first season with the Houston Rockets, an NBA writer called him the “ most graceful 7-4 man in the world.” The great Pete Newell said Sampson would be a different kind of center, one who didn’t need to be anchored in the post.
After a rough start, Sampson blossomed, earning NBA Rookie of the Year honors in 1984 and making the All-Star team his first four years in the league. He teamed up with Hakeem Olajuwon to form the famous “Twin Towers,” with Sampson memorably hitting a catch-and-shoot jumper at the buzzer to eliminate the Showtime Lakers in the 1986 Western Conference Finals. From then on However, Sampson struggled to stay on the field due to knee and back problems. He lasted nine seasons and was out of the league before his 32nd birthday.
During the Colangelo event, Sampson joked about Wembanyama ending up at Spurs. “He couldn’t be in Detroit,” he said sarcastically. But Sampson said it’s fun to see the evolution of the 7-footer, as well as all the things Wembanyama can do — things he tried 40 years ago, things big men weren’t allowed to do.
“He’s going to be spectacular if he can stay healthy,” said Sampson, who was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2012. ‘And he can’t do it alone. They need to have people around him who he can play with.”
According to NBA.com, San Antonio had the NBA’s youngest team last season with one average age of 23.52 years. The Spurs selected versatile guard Stephon Castle with the No. 4 pick in the 2024 draft. Perhaps more importantly, they also signed veteran point guard Chris Paul to a one-year deal. Paul is one of the best point guards in NBA history and has worked with all types of players. He’s run pick-and-rolls with Tyson Chandler, thrown lobs to Blake Griffin and found Devin Booker for open jumpers. He should work well with Wembanyama.
‘Chris Paul is going to make it a lot of better,” said Hall of Fame point guard Gary Payton. “He’s going to get him in the right places and get him the ball at the right time, and once Wembanyama gets stronger and gets a bit more flavored it will be hard to stop him.”
Not so long ago, The Athletics Colangelo asked about Wilt Chamberlain and whether the four-time MVP is being overlooked in the Greatest of All-Time debate. Colangelo understood the question. He realizes he is one of the few who has been in the game long enough to talk intelligently about Chamberlain and Jerry West, as well as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. Plus, as a former director of USA Basketball, he has seen the best that basketball has to offer.
But Colangelo has learned that this is an impossible task. There’s always the next wave, he said. Chamberlain, West and Oscar Robertson. Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson. Bryant and James. And now here comes Wembanyama.
“I mean, how good is he going to be?” said Colangelo. “That’s a bit creepy. The skill level. What he has already achieved. If he stays healthy, he can obviously become one of the most dominant players of all time.”
Praising a young player in this way makes Carlesimo a little uncomfortable. He knows how the NBA hype machine works. The pursuit of greatness never stops. If Wembanyama wins a first championship, everyone will be wondering when he will win a second championship. But Carlesimo also knows that this is a unique situation. The unusual expectations are not hype; they are earned. And Wembanyama seems able to handle the pressure.
“You’re happy for him, but…” Carlesimo said, stopping when he started laughing. “The expectations are, I mean, my God. Because there has never been anyone like him.”
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(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The Athletics; photo: Tim Warner / Getty Images)