What else is there to say about Victor Wembanyama?
A week ago, Wembanyama joined an exclusive club by recording his first career 5×5 game. He hasn’t slowed down in the four games since, averaging 24.5 points, 12.0 rebounds, 5.0 assists, 5.0 blocks and 1.5 steals. If he wasn’t such a slouch in the steals department — kidding, of course — he’d be on nightly 5×5 watch.
We’ve gotten to the point where Wembanyama is doing multiple things on a nightly basis that deserve a closer look, but there’s one particular sequence he had in San Antonio’s most recent win that stood out.
You know what that means — to the film room!
MORE: Nikola Jokic could lead NBA in scoring — if he wanted to
Victor Wembanyama’s DPOY case in one play
🎥 The play
✏️ Breakdown
T.J. McConnell brings the ball up for the Pacers. He wastes little time trying to attack the basket, but he realizes he has no chance of getting all the way to the basket because Wembanyama is lurking around the paint.
McConnell kicks the ball out to Myles Turner, who is parked in the corner. Wembanyama quickly responds by closing out on Turner before he can get a shot off.
Turner gives the ball back to McConnell and approaches him to run a pick-and-roll. Turner slips the screen and rolls to the free throw line.
McConnell has a much clearer driving lane to the basket this time because Wembanyama is pretty much daring him to shoot. Wembanyama is positioned between McConnell and Turner, so there isn’t even a clear pass for McConnell to make to Turner.
Wembanyama has McConnell and Turner right where he wants them.
McConnell dribbles the ball back out to the perimeter and passes it to Turner near the elbow. Turner then hands the ball off to Tyrese Haliburton to run another pick-and-roll.
Wembanyama steps up to prevent Haliburton from turning the corner on Tre Jones.
He then ventures back out to the 3-point line to prevent Turner from getting a pick-and-pop 3.
There aren’t many defenders who could recover from this (especially centers who are 7-4):
But Wembanyama is an alien, so he recovers in time to contest Turner’s shot and forces a traveling violation.
MORE: This simple Victor Wembanyama play is impossible to guard
🤔 Why it matters
Wembanyama only recently turned 20 years old, but he’s already in the conversation for best-shot blocker in the NBA.
After swatting six shots in San Antonio’s win over Indiana, Wembanyama is averaging a league-best 3.4 blocks per game on the season. He’s coming off his best month yet with a total of 47 blocks in the 12 games he played in February. Not only was that the highest mark in the league during that span — Anthony Davis ranked a distant second with 31 blocks — but Wembanyama had more blocks than not one, not two, not three, not four, but five teams.
There’s much more to being a good rim protector than blocks, of course. In addition to being a shot-blocking machine, Wembanyama is holding opponents to 54.6 percent shooting around the basket, which is 9.8 percentage points worse than expected. You might not be surprised to hear that that mark also puts him near the top of the league.
MORE: These Victor Wembanyama plays prove he’s unlike anything the NBA has ever seen
Those numbers tell you a lot about how dominant of a defender Wembanyama already is, but even they aren’t enough to paint the whole picture. In addition to his highlight-reel block and picture-perfect contests, there are possessions like the one above where he doesn’t get credited with doing a single thing in the box score despite putting out a number of fires.
There’s a lot going on in the above possession, too. Over the course of 18 seconds, Wembanyama prevents two 3-pointers from Turner, who drained a game-high four triples on the night, guards two pick-and-rolls featuring two different threats and forces a turnover on a drive in crunch time of a two-possession game.
And in the off chance you think Turner got a rough whistle, just know that Wembanyama has such a quick second jump that he still managed to block Turner.
Ridiculous.
As our Steph Noh detailed, Wembanyama probably won’t win Defensive Player of the Year this season, but his case is legit. It was clear coming into the NBA that had the potential to be an all-time great on that end of the court, and yet I’m sure not even the biggest Wemby believers thought he’d be this much of a game-changer already.
