How is Wemby doing?
It’s Christmastime, which means the basketball season is about to officially start. Never mind that we have been playing games for three months; everyone knows that the NBA’s opening day consists of the games played on Christmas day. Try as they might with the in-season tournament…
The state of basketball’s regular season aside, the most important non-title story this year is the rise of Victor Wembanyama. If he is as good as expected, he has a chance at being the best player in the history of the sport. And if he becomes the best player in the history of the sport, there is no amount of hype or attention now which we can lavish on him that will be too much. We are still talking about Jordan 20 years after he put on his shorts for the last time.
And if it hasn’t been said recently: Jordan was the best.
We are now sufficiently deep into the first NBA season of potentially the best NBA player ever, that it makes sense to assess how he is playing. The “best ever” ceiling is a high bar—so even modest departure from that should be enough for us to rule that case out. Because it is so hard to be the best ever, even evidence pointing to Wembanyama being very, very good—a two-time MVP and multi-time NBA champion—might be sufficient to rule him out.
But what do the numbers say?
The last time we looked at Wembanyama, we composed a group of comps that was a group of young stars with similar body types (Garnett, Duncan, Durant) and a group of European Bigs (Jokic, Dirk, and the Gasol brothers). Altogether together, they averaged about 15 points, 7 rebounds, and 2 blocks per game. If this was Wembanyama’s stat line—as a 19 year old—that would be pretty good. That’s about what 21-year old Chet Holmgren is averaging: 17 points, 8 rebounds, 2 blocks.
What should we expect from Wemby?
Wembanyama is doing even better than that. To see how good, let’s pull together seasons from a list of recent greats: Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Anthony Davis, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, and Michael Jordan. This Hall of Famer only crew is a sturdy benchmark against which we can evaluate Wembanyama.
Averaged together, those who started their careers at 19 years old averaged 27 points, 7 rebounds, and 4.5 assists per 100 possessions—with 1 block to boot. Wembanyama is averaging 3.5 more points, 2.5 more blocks, and 7.5 more rebounds.
Wemby' is averaging only 0.6 points per 100 possessions fewer than 19-year old Kobe Bryant, and 1.2 more rebounds and 1.3 more blocks, when compared to 19-year old Anthony Davis.
Versus the whole group—which includes 21-year old Michale Jordan and Tim Duncan—Wembanyama is still doing better, albeit not by as much. He’s only 1.5 points and 6 rebounds better than this group per 100.
Fraken-Player: Durant and Davis
My personal favorite way to think about Wemby is a combination of Kevin Durant and Anthony Davis.
If we think about what Wembanyama promises offensively, he is an exceptionally tall, lanky player who can shoot. The best ever version of that—maybe the best ever offensive player—is Kevin Durant. Durant is a two-time scoring champ and 10-time all-NBA level player.
If we think about what Wembanyama promises defensively, he is again—an extremely tall, athletic big who can defend. The best comp for that is Anthony Davis. Davis has led the league in blocks three times and is a four-time all defensive team player.
We can take the best of both of these players and come up with a good benchmark for Wembanyama. Again, a player who promises the offensive upside of Durant and the defensive upside of Davis.
The composite player—a blend of the best of Davis and Durant—averaged 29.2 points per 100, with 15.3 rebounds, 3.3 blocks, and 3.5 assists. Wembanyama this season is averaging 29.8 points, 16.5 rebounds, 4.6 blocks, and 3.9 assists per 100—better than the franken-player in each major counting stat.
Where Wembanyama falls short is the shooting percentages. He is shooting meaningfully worse from the floor than Anthony Davis—whose diet of shots features predominantly high-percentage, inside looks—and is a bit worse than Kevin Durant from three and at the line. In each case, this is likely a testament to the excellence of Kevin Durant’s shooting, more than it is of Wembanyama’s shortcomings.
Twenty-seven percent from three is not as high as you would like from an earnest 3-point threat. But Durant improved his three-point shooting from 28% to a career average of 38%. And Dirk came into the league shooting 20%, also ending with a career average of 38%. We’ll want to watch for Wembanyama to improve his shooting.
Wembanyama Projections
We can still be optimistic about the trajectory of Wembanyama. That is to say, there is no evidence right now to believe that he can’t be one of the best of all time. Of course, best of all time is a career conversation—so there are still 20 years of basketball ahead of him before we get to that.
That last point is key. In our first look at Wemby, we broke his career up to into three phases:
Acclimation phase: 2023-2025
Ascendency phase: 2026-2030
Achievement phase: 2031 to 2041+
That is, an optimistic take at Wembanyama’s career—where he does become one of the greatest ever—looks like him getting used to the league for two years, quietly acquiring stats and working on his game in relative obscurity. Then he ascends over a period of four years to a league dominant player. It is during this phase that we’ll expect him to win his first MVP award. And finally, beginning in 2031, we’ll expect him to start leading team’s to the NBA finals.
From then, he’ll have about a ten year window where we can be the best player on a championship team.
This assumes he’ll have about 12 years as the best—or one of the few best—players in the league.
Critically: we’re not expecting a Wembanyama takeover until 2026 at the earliest.
Wembanyama Bet Tracker
We recommended a bet that had Wemby at +250 (~29%) to average 20 and 10 this season — he is well on his way, currently averaging 19 and 11.
Surprisingly, his rebounds total is better than his points total. And ultimately, his points are being held back by the number of minutes he is playing.
In games where Wembanyama plays at least 31 minutes, he is averaging 22 points, and on a per 36 minute basis he is also averaging 22 points.
If Wembanyama’s playing time picks up and he ends up averaging 32 minutes instead of 30 minutes, we will take home that +250 bet. Otherwise, we’re likely to fall just shy.