There is no one in the NBA like Victor Wembanyama.
Wembanyama is 20 years old and already one of the most impactful players in the league. He blocked over 10% of all shots the opponent took with him on the floor — the most since Manute Bol. His defensive metrics are off the charts, just like his wingspan.
And because of how much of a phenom Wemby is, there are more markets for him than almost anyone else, with the exception of Bronny James (don't get me started).
To let you know how insane the hype is on Wembanyama, he is -105 to record ten blocks in a game this season, which has only happened nine times in the last decade. Of course, it happened last season when it was accomplished by none other than Wembanyama.
The Spurs' win total is 36.5, a complete 14.5 wins higher than they finished with last season. Wembanyama is the favorite for Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player.
All of that is wild and would be laughable if it weren't for how phenomenal he truly is.
The difficult part is trying to put any sort of reasonable trajectory on Wembanyama. He could make massive improvements and still fall well short of all his projected averages (24.9 PPG, 11.8 rebounds per DraftKings). He could exceed every expectation and lead the Spurs to the playoffs. He could be the most dominant defensive player in the league, but do it for a team that finishes outside the top 15 in defense and wins less than 30 games.
Everything is on the table — how do you bet that?
Brandon Anderson is all in on the Spurs, betting on:
- Spurs o35.5 wins (-140)
- Spurs 40+ wins (+220)
- Spurs to make playoffs (+450)
- Wembanyama 25 PPG (-115)
- Spurs division winner (+4500)
- Wembanyama First-Team All-NBA (+900).
From our Buckets episode on the Southwest Division:
"Let me get into that a little bit. Wembanyama, I think he had the first 15 games that were pretty inefficient. Then we got to, like, mid-November, and he made a leap to where I'm going to use box plus minus. These are the numbers I got. So he made a leap to like two to three. It's pretty good. Pretty good for a rookie. Certainly, I would have thought that was his peak as a rookie. Nope. He got to December and leapt to seven or eight box plus minus. That is beyond an all-star. That's like a borderline MVP possible type candidate. And he still went up from there.
In fact, over the last couple of months of the season, I can't figure out how to measure this. I am a basketball reference representative or whatever my title is. I should be able to figure this number out. I think he had a defensive box plus-minus of something like 5 to 7, which is an absurd number. The very best players in the NBA, like historically, get to like 2 or 3. He legitimately had like an off-the-charts BPM. That's what's driving it. The offense, I agree, is not that great yet.
Last season, or before the All-Star break, they were a minus 8.5 net rating. That's an 18-win team. If you go just from 2023, they were a 9-win pace team. They were a minus 11.7. So, to go from that to minus 1.6 is a huge leap. And he's going to keep getting better. He's still figuring stuff out, and we're adding CP, and we're adding Harrison Barnes."
Bryan Fonseca made the case for why Wembanyama is live to win Defensive Player of the Year on Buckets:
"I think it's out of control, but it's also like, he can win the award. Like, I think it's silly that he's not even plus money. Some places on the market right now, you think minus 165 or whatever it is, which is crazy.
But also, if you're a voter, some of whom are not going to look at this as deeply as others, is how I'll phrase it. You may just look at Hey, he averaged over four blocks and a steal and a half per 36 minutes last year. So if you play him about 36 minutes a game, which he might not, but he can get pretty close to that. Right.
If he has an absurd season because if you're just looking at his averages and he logged about 30 minutes per game last year, he still led the league in blocks with 3.6. He had almost five stocks a game. If he gets north of five stocks a game this year. I think people might just look at that and be like, Hey, that's not, again, this is not how I measure defense, but this is how I think the common voter may measure it."
As for Most Improved Player, Braxton Reynolds laid out the case for why the voters absolutely, positively should not vote for the Alien.
However, Most Improved Player should go beyond solely measuring improvement and also include an element of surprise. The out-of-nowhere leap and a fan's excitement that their team found a diamond in the rough who is drastically exceeding expectations. That's the rightful spirit of this award.
Last season’s race provided a great example of my position. Tyrese Maxey posted near All-Star numbers and then made a predictable All-Star leap once he took over James Harden’s usage. Was anyone shocked that Maxey handled the role? He had just averaged 20-3-3 in the previous season. Maxey was on the path to stardom and simply followed it.
On the other hand, Coby White went from being a decent guard on Chicago’s bench to a borderline All-Star and a legitimate franchise building block. If you told someone before the season that White would average 19-5-4, how many people would have believed you?
Don’t take this as betting advice, but rather a critique on the voters (although +650 is a terrible line and shouldn't be touched).
Typically, we're trying to give you an idea of reasonable expectations or how the market doesn't reflect the tail-end outcomes. But if you believe in Wembanyama, it's just almost impossible to make a reasonable case against any bet backing him. That's how definitively he is one of one.
Here are the Wembanyama specials at DraftKings:
Sixty points in a game? Twenty-five-plus rebounds? FIFTEEN blocks in a game? For reference, only four players ever have had that many and that's more than I thought there were. Thirty rebounds in a game?
If you want something more realistic and/or conservative (but where's the fun in that), the Spurs to finish as better than the 13th seed in the West is -160. They need to get past three teams in the West including the Trail Blazers, Jazz, and either the Clippers or Hornets. Similarly, if you want to fade the hype on him, the over 12.5 seeding is +130.
It's usually smart to fade situations where the public is irrationally high on a team or player. It's usually smart to bet on there being limits to what an individual player will accomplish, especially with a rebuilding team. It's usually smart to take the bad outcomes for incomplete teams in the brutal Western Conference.
But there is quite something nothing usual about Wembanyama.
