The Winter of Wemby is coming.
The San Antonio Spurs have 15 wins and have been outscored by an average of 7.4 points per game. They are, by every definition, a terrible team.
And yet, since Jan 1, when Victor Wembanyama has been on the floor, the Spurs have outscored opponents by 1.3 points per 100 possessions, which would put them on pace for 44 wins if he played on the floor every minute. The Spurs are going to finish with fewer than 20 wins but played at a 44-win-pace once they played Wembanyama at center with a point guard.
Wembanyama is on pace for one of the best rookie seasons we've ever seen. If he goes on to win Rookie of the Year, which is he is a huge favorite in the market for, he will be:
- One of nine Rookies of the Year to average 20 and 10;
- One of just two ROY winners to average 20 and 10 with 3.5 assists or more;
- Second in blocks per game for a ROY, tied with Shaquille O'Neal;
- Seventh for any rookie with qualified minutes in Box Plus-Minus;
- Fifth for any rookie PER with enough minutes.
Wembanyama is three blocks behind Dikembe Mutombo for eighth-most blocks by a rookie in a season in NBA history, and you have to go back to 2015 and Nerlens Noel to find anyone in this era. (Noel finished with 65 fewer blocks than Wembanyama has with 14 games to go; Chet Holmgren also already has more). He will be just the fourth rookie to finish with a 20-10 average with 3+ blocks per game, alongside the David Robinson, Alonzo Mourning and Shaquille O'Neal.
He will win Rookie of the Year; that has been evident for months after Holmgren gave him a good run.
But the broader thing to consider is that Wembanyama will have value in multiple markets as soon as next year. Typically, second-year players are still learning the league, but Wembanyama projects to almost immediately be considered a top-20 player with a tail-end chance of being considered for major awards. And the Spurs might genuinely be good next season (which helps with those award markets).
Defensive Player of the Year
Wemby is going to get votes this season. I need to stress how wild that is. Not that voting for Wembanyama is crazy, but that a rookie on a sub-20-win team is going to get votes. And that they are legitimately well-considered votes tells you how much of an outlier Wembanyama is.
Historically, steals per game plus blocks per game is a good starting place for a DPOY candidate.
That's a 1.2-"stocks" gap between Wembanyama and second-place Anthony Davis.
That's insane.
But in modern times, you need an elite defense to win; that's why Rudy Gobert is the prohibitive favorite and will ultimately win the award. Voters I've spoken to have said the first thing they look at is who the top defenses are. It's a top-down construct: you need to have contributed to an elite defense to win in the modern era.
The Spurs are 22nd in schedule-adjusted defense this season. But since January 1st when they moved Wembanyama to center, they have ranked 15th. To be that high with the kind of talent they have on the roster is pretty impressive.
The Spurs will get better defensively with seasoning, but will also need some free agency or trade upgrades. Can the Spurs acquire those kinds of players next year? Maybe, maybe not. Can they acquire them over the next four years? Absolutely.
The point here is not that Wembanyama will win DPOY next season. But only three players have won the award in the league's history in their first three seasons and the last was David Robinson in 1992. That was the Admiral's third season when he was 26. Alvin Robertson is the youngest DPOY at age 23 in 1986.
Wembanyama turns 21 next season.
There are always so many ways fate intervenes in what we think are clear trajectories — injuries being chief among them. But if Wembanyama is "mostly" healthy over the next decade, his over/under for DPOY wins should probably be somewhere around 4.5 and that seems conservative while also being absolutely bonkers on the surface. That's how high his defensive floor and ceiling are.
Most Valuable Player
EPM (Estimated Plus-Minus) is a fairly new stat, but it's shown a high level of predictive power in determining who MVP voters select. (Joel Embiid is No.1 this season, followed by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Luka Doncic, Giannis Antetokounmpo and presumptive winner Nikola Jokic.)
Wembanyama has the highest EPM of any rookie since Jokic in 2016. Most of the rookie leaders in the stat are not current MVP candidates, mostly because it's really hard to impact the game at that kind of level as a rookie. But not only is Wembanyama impacting the game at a historically high level for rookies, but for any player. He's 24th overall in EPM despite playing for an 18-win team. That, also, is nuts.
Wembanyama's eye test is also unlike anything we've ever seen before. Having a statistical impact matters but you need to feel like the best player in the league to win MVP.
That won't be next season, but it wouldn't surprise me at all if Wembanyama legitimately got votes as early as next season.
There are still huge holes in Wembanyama's game. Turnovers and jump-shooting efficiency are two of the big ones. Should the Spurs acquire Trae Young — as has been rumored for the past few months –that will help set up Wembanyama better offensively, though he'll have to account for Young's negative defensive impact. But if anyone can, it's Wembanyama.
Derrick Rose was the last player to win an MVP in his first three seasons; before that you have to go back to 1975. Wembanyama is unlikely to win the award before the Spurs make the playoffs which may not be for another 2-3 seasons at least. So again, I don't think Wembanyama is a great bet to win it next season. But will he get votes?
If you put the over/under on Wembanyama's MVP finishing position next season at 5.5, essentially "will he make the ballot?" it would be an automatic under, or yes, bet for me. At 4.5 I'd still bet under. The line should be 3.5 for where he finishes next season in MVP balloting. The Spurs could certainly whiff in free agency and/or trades and be a sub-30 win team next season; it's difficult to go from sub-20 to 30-plus in one season.
But that's the level we're talking about here with Wembanyama, that all of this hills that are so difficult to climb seem, well, manageable. Not certain, but far from unlikely and closer to 50/50.
Now we pull that over the next 10 years of his development. The over/under for his MVP wins is also interesting.
Only 15 players, in total, in the history of the league, have multiple MVPs. Only eight have three or more. But if we place Wembanyama where his pre-draft hype and rookie season performance place him historically, we get much closer to a multiple-time winner than a single-winner. I'd put the over/under for his career MVP awards at 2.5.
I understand how crazy and presumptive that sounds. I didn't even bet Wembanyama for ROY preseason, particularly because of the hype on him. (Those Scoot Henderson tickets did not age well.) But that's what his trajectory implies. This isn't hype run away. It's that Wembanyama's performance has mirrored a track.
So, What Could Go Wrong?
The biggest question, honestly, is about the Spurs.
For such a legendary franchise, it's important to remember the history of how the prior Spurs teams were built. Robinson's rookie season was 1990; the Spurs had made the playoffs in 12 of the prior 15 seasons. When the Spurs added Tim Duncan, it was after one year of tanking following a season-long injury for Robinson.
The Spurs are not in that position. They are rebuilding from the lowest-talent position they've been in, maybe since their inception.
Team success is necessary for individual awards in the NBA. They need to make massive changes to the roster. Typically, I'm against trying to build around young players immediately. The New Orleans Pelicans made that mistake with Anthony Davis; the Mavericks made the same mistake with Luka Doncic.
The Spurs have been patient, but Wembanyama is forcing an acceleration of the curve. The good news is that San Antonio doesn't need a superstar next to Wembanyama (though Young would certainly help). They just need developed, polished role players and one more star. They're hoping Keldon Johnson or Devin Vassell can become those players (but that's not looking great). Maybe the answer is Young (or another star-level point guard addition), with Vassell/Johnson/Jeremy Sochan making leaps to become the third guy.
But the Spurs are not "a little bit away." Even with their surge since the New Year, they are still 10-27, a 22-win pace. The numbers with Wembanyama are wildly different, a 44-win pace as stated above. But this season has made several things clear about the Spurs and Wembanyama.
Victor Wembanyama is ready to take over the NBA. Now. And the Spurs have to catch up fast.
