Victor Wembanyama is growing tired of leading simultaneous counter-revolutions. One is The Golden Generation of France to strengthen itself just in time for the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. But within the confines of Gregg Popovich’s San Antonio Spurs, Wembanyama is on his way to becoming the league’s preeminent defensive anchor during the most prosperous offensive era in league history.
Take last night for example. During the first quarter of San Antonio’s 115-114 win over Phoenix, Wembanyama’s flyswatter returned a Grayson Allen triple back to him. Then, in the final frame, his fourth block was a mid-flight deflection from Jordan Goodwin’s 27-footer from above the break. Wembanyama diverted air traffic four times during the night. On the Suns’ final possession, Kevin Durant unleashed his shot for the win, but a contest ensued The outstretched arms of Wemby and Keldon Johnson rattled him just enough to force the miss. Durant taught Wembanyama a lesson earlier in the match, but the Spurs rookie had the last laugh.
As a stretchy, raw, 6-foot-1 teenager, Wembanyama is a defensive guillotine, demonstrating an ability to decapitate Gilded Age offenses that have taken advantage of rule changes and modern floor spacing to generate lush numbers beyond the arc. San Antonio currently sits 24th in defensive rankings, but his impact is already being felt. Spurs lineups without Wemby allow 128.4 points per 100 possessions, surpassing the Utah Jazz’s worst defensive rating of 119.8. With Wembanyama on the floor, San Antonio’s defensive rating improves to 104.8 Basketball referencewhich would be higher than Golden State’s seventh-best defense if extrapolated to 48 minutes.
While part of the genesis of most phenoms like LeBron James and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was their offensive skills, Wembanyama’s was his defense during the 2021 FIBA Under-19 World Cup. In that tournament, 19-year-old Chet Holmgren was already expected to be the next great shot blocker and he lived up to his reputation by returning 20 shots in seven appearances. However, while the US won gold, Holmgren was picked up by the then 17-year-old French teenager who crystallized his status as a defensive unicorn by hitting a tournament record 40 shots in seven games.
Both are the forerunners of a generation of great players ideally suited to defending the perimeter and the post, but Wembanyama has cemented himself as the defensive phenomenon of the century. Wembanyama has the potential to be the ideal defender for the modern era.
Ten years ago, Anthony Davis would have been that guy after pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete on an NCAA freshman-record 186 shots in his lone season at Kentucky. We’ve been wrong before. The consensus after Karl Anthony-Towns’ freshman year was that he was a next-level defensive scarecrow after leading the nation in defensive ratings and crushing four shots per 40 minutes. The bar is even higher for Wembanyama. He’s still a work in progress, but he already has future Defensive Players of the Year honors earmarked for him.
Wembanyama is basketball’s evolutionary answer to aristocratic offenses dealing with malnourished defenses. Nature presented in Popovich a side general who openly discussed his disdain for the three-point shot with the ultimate weapon to give the rest of the league its due reward.
“I still hate it. I will never embrace it,” Popovich told the press in December 2015. “I don’t think it’s basketball. I think it’s a bit like a circus.”
His 2014 Spurs were the last NBA champions to make fewer than 10 triples a night. Even amid the increase in long-range shooting, the Spurs frustrated the KD-Steph Warriors in 2017 when they tried to fifth-fewest three-pointers in the competition.
The decline of San Antonio during the Gilded Age due to transgressions
The rise of most revolutionary leaders depends on two factors. Do they possess distinctive qualities that enable their emergence and is there a need for their qualities?
After the Golden State Warriors 2015′title jump‘ and their 73-9 campaign, the Frankenstein Rockets of Daryl Morey and Mark D’Antoni lit the fuse to take over the game by boosting the perimeter attack by hitting 40 triples a night. Until that moment, no team averaged more than 33 attempts.
Modern offensive basketball is now based on efficient outside shooting and taking advantage of defensive spacing to cut through driving lanes with the intent to either finish in the paint, kick to shooters, or draw a foul. Wembanyama’s lateral agility and absurd length mean he can swallow anyone around him who tries. He can change the trajectory of a triple from drop coverage, switch to the roll man and shut down shooters, and erase their sun if Mr. Burns’ giant mechanical shadow.
Meanwhile, Popovich was starting to look like the game had passed him by. From 1999 to 2018, Popovich’s Spurs defenses ranked in the top 5 in points allowed per 100 possessions, and six times were the league’s stingiest defense. Last season the Spurs were the The worst defensive team in the NBA and their league-wide offensive rating of 114.8 points per 100 possessions eclipsed the previous NBA record set in 2021 by almost three points. Combined with the fact that the eight most explosive offensive seasons in league history have all occurred since the 2016-17 season, you couldn’t have asked for better circumstances for a counter-revolutionary player and an iconoclastic coach.
Entering Wembanyama
Planning for effective defense of the three-point arc has become of growing importance to a coaching staff. The San Antonio Guillotine is not only a future HoF GTFOH edge defender, but also a bloodhound on the edge. In an era where teams hunt for mismatches through switches, that flexibility is critical. If anyone ever wonders why Draymond Green is a future Hall of Famer, just remember that he was a precursor to the switchable jumbo bigs that are suddenly on the rise. Over the past decade, Green has burnished his reputation as the premier defensive free safety by patrolling the paint as a small ball and playing physical perimeter defense well enough to has redirected a league-record 105 three-pointers since 2013.
If the last decade was about space created by alien shooters, the Wembanyama beam is a space killer. Due to its length, Wembanyama can bisect large areas of the floor. In their preparation for the preseason against the Warriors, Wemby guarded like a Jeanne defending the Arc, destroying Andrew Wiggins and Klay Thompson’s shots from the center at their top. And good luck driving past him once he’s outside, as Wiggins found out firsthand.
Popovich has a penchant for bringing in the league’s eminent powers. Tim Duncan was a three-time national defensive player of the year at Wake Forest before making an NBA-record 15 All-Defense Teams en route to five titles. David Robinson’s single-season record of 207 blocks during his senior season in Navy still stands as the official benchmark. These two stand out as the two most prominent defensive two-way big men in college basketball. He then extended the life of those Spurs by identifying and trading for the rights of future Defensive Player of the Year Kawhi Leonard on draft day.
Will Wembanyama ever reach LeBron’s scoring record or surpass Kareem? Even with his eight-foot wingspan, Wembanyama is unlikely to reach those scoring heights. Becoming the first player with 4,000 career blocks and joining Olajuwon as the only 7-footer to pick enough steals to finish in the top 10 of all time for that statistic is Wembanyama’s most likely head-in-the-cloud projection. Wembanyama would be better off pursuing Olajuwon like a modern two-way leviathan and assisting Pop to bring the Spurs defense back to the fore.
Olajuwon’s legacy is not just the Dream Shake, but erasing more shots than anyone in the history of the league. In the post-merger NBA, Olajuwon is still considered the perfect model of a 7-foot gatekeeper. He was also a defensive phenomenon. During his sophomore and junior seasons with Houston, “The Dream” registered 207 unofficial blocksbefore the statistic was officially recorded by the NCAA, which would tie Robinson’s record.
Offenses that push most of their offensive production further out have depressed blocking numbers in the modern NBA, but Wembanyama could be the exception. The block that Olajuwon is most synonymous with is his rejection of John Stark‘s desperate attempt to end the ’94 NBA Finals. Wembanyama may have more such plays than anyone in the history of the competition.
The French guillotine may not fall this season or next. Wembanyama is still figuring out how to use the levers for all aspects of his game. But for proponents of tough defense, this could be the genesis of a Spurs revival. At the height of the Gilded Offensive Age, San Antonio’s defensive counter-revolution begins.
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