What to Make of Victor Wenbanyama’s Bounce-Back Performance
Credit: AFP-Scanpix
After a shaky Summer League debut, the 19-year-old French Phenom was labeled by some on social media outlets as a bust. Wembanyama’s stand-out performance in his second game displayed that his skills can transfer to the NBA, but it is impossible to evaluate the arc of his career based on two Summer League games. A report that came out recently stated Wenbanyama will be shut down for the remainder of the Summer League, so here’s what to make of “Wemby” in the brief glimpse we saw of him this summer.
The great news for Spurs fans is that Wembanyama’s offensive versatility makes him position-less, enabling him to play in the post and on the perimeter. The bad news is that despite an impressive Summer League performance, his basketball IQ and feel for the NBA pace of play is not quite there yet. On Sunday night’s breakout performance, Wembanyama put up an impressive 27 points, 12 rebounds, and three blocks, going 9-14 from the field and two to four from three. But you cannot make a whole assessment on a 19-year-old on one Summer League game, especially when he’s only had three weeks to prepare for the NBA game. It is great for the league that the Summer League is garnering this much attention from the media, but the negative aspect of that is fans tend to react too fast to the highlights posted on social media and jump to early conclusions in assessing the players. Wembanyama has received the worst of the media’s attention, as his size and skillset have put him under the microscope of the media for the past four years since his breakout performance at the 2019 U19 FIBA European Championship tournament.
As he was recently shut down for the remainder of the Summer League, Wenbanyama recently stated that he will be taking a break from social media just to focus on his development with the Spurs and get away from the backlash of the Brittney Spears incident. The decision is an excellent move for the Spurs, as they face a quandary in how they plan on making Wembanyama the most successful player his skill allows him to be. The quandary at hand has to do with where they position him on the floor. Whether it’s in the post or on the perimeter is up to head coach Gregg Popovich to decide. Popovich is one of the best coaches in NBA history but has to be scratching his head at this dilemma because he cannot be familiar with installing sets catered towards a player like Wembanyama, only because a player like Wembanyama has yet to exist in the NBA. In the two Summer League games that we saw, Popovich gave him opportunities to create plays both in the post and on the perimeter and showed his versatility by scoring from all three levels offensively, shown in the clip below.
What Popovich should do to maximize Wenbanyama’s offensive efficiency is utilize him as a ball screener that isn’t confined to a specific area on the court. This would set him up for the most success because the ball screen creates a mismatch in most cases. The best perimeter players in the NBA take advantage of mismatches created by the ball screen, as the screen matches the ball-handler up with a slower big man that is not able to stay in front of a guard. This leaves the screener matched up against the opposing guard, with a considerable height advantage for the screening big on offense. So if Wenbanyama is primarily used as a ball screener, he can attack mismatches caused by switching from both the post and the perimeter. He can exploit opposing bigs from the perimeter off the dribble in the pick-and-pop if the defense does not switch the pick-and-roll, and he can create highlight-reel dunks in rim-run scenarios on smaller perimeter defenders if they switch the ball screen. Here’s a glimpse at the versatility Wembanyama brings to the table as a ball screener in his time playing for Metropolitans 92 this past season.
Wembanyama’s abilities as a three-level scoring threat allow him to be an offensive creator as the screener in ball screen actions, because he can deploy his bag of tricks subjectively to the mismatch the screen has given him. If opposing defenses double Wembanyama after he sets a screen, the ball-handler in the pick-and-roll should have enough open space to make productive offensive plays. Another reason the Spurs should emphasize Wembanyama as a screener in the pick-and-roll is to unleash his playmaking skills. He’s displayed impressive court vision and a great feel for finding open cutters going to the rim at the top of the key passing off of the pick and pop. Getting Wembanyama the ball on the pick-and-pop action will also open up the opportunities to attack mismatches in dribble handoff situations. Draymond Green does an excellent job as a playmaker from the top of the key off of the pick-and-pop and often gets a lot of assists finding off-ball cutters or creating open perimeter shots from the dribble handoff. Wembanyama can be used in a similar fashion to create plays for his teammates. Surely, Popovich will deploy a myriad of set plays to produce easy offensive looks for Wembanyama, but using him as a screener will open up a multitude of different offensive looks based on mismatches created from pick-and-roll situations.
