Wembanyama can only be the best if LeBron James already is
The Alien just doesn't score enough to be on pace otherwise – but titles could change the calculation.
Victor Wembanyama is 22 and – according to our timeline as he was entering into the league – this is the start of his Ascendency Phase. And is it ever.
Wemby might be the best player in the league through five games. He’s averaging 30 points, 15 rebounds, 5 blocks, and is the undisputed leader of an undefeated team.
And while the season and Wemby’s career are both in their early stages, we already know a lot about the young French star. Namely: he’s never going to be the scoring threat that Michael Jordan was. If he’s going to be the best ever – and that’s the goal for Wembanyama at this point – he’s going to need to make the case like LeBron.
How prolific a scorer was Michael Jordan?
28 points per game prolific. From the year Jordan entered the league at 21, he averaged more than 28 points per game in every full season he played until he was 38 years old.
Durant fell short of that mark, though playing with Golden State and splitting shots with Steph Curry probably had something to do with that. And LeBron averages around 27 a year.
Jordan averaged 30. And won the scoring title in every full season he played during between 1987 and 1998.
That’s one of the reasons it’s so easy to call Michael the best ever. He dominated a decade the way no one else did. While other greats had to share their decade – Jordan didn’t. Bird and Johnson both defined and foiled one another. LeBron shared his come up with Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan, and had his prime interrupted by Kevin Durant, Dirk Nowitzki, and Steph Curry.
When you’re just really good at a lot of things – you’re not the best scorer and you’re not winning the title every year – the case for the greatest becomes a lot muddier.
And right now, that seems like it will be the path Wembanyama has to tread.
Wembanyama’s free-throw percentage, a good proxy for true shooting ability and potential, lags behind both Jordan and Durant. Unless he starts to lead the league in field goal attempts, Wembanyama won’t be winning scoring titles.
And that means the case has to be made based on a holistic assessment of his play.
And that means he needs to win titles.
Is the Best Ever really fair for Wemby?
What’s all this Best Ever talk anyways? Is it fair to put these expectations on the kid at 22?
Actually, it’s more than fair. If Wembanyama turns out to be as good as Shaq, well, that’s kind of what we would expect an average Wembanyama career to be.
Four titles and three finals MVPs? He’d be great. One of the best centers of all time.
Maybe he could even leverage his size late into his career. Win a few titles early, and then a few on the back end of his career teaming up with an emerging star a la Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Either of those careers would place him as among the best to do it.
But that’s average.
What should we expect?
To get an approximate Wemby performance, we can take an average of other great players – with an emphasis on Wemby comps.
I chose these players:
Michael Jordan – The best ever
LeBron James – The other best ever
Kevin Durant – The second-best scorer ever
Shaq – The best scoring big
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar – The second best scoring big
Tim Duncan – the best “humble” big
If we average together their seasons during their ascendency phase, we get these approximate numbers of Wemby:
25 to 35 points per game
10 to 15 rebounds per game
2 to 4 blocks per game
And the expectations are about flat during this period. That is, Wemby should be as good at 22 as he is at 26. And he should be about MVP caliber for every year during that stretch.
That’s what we should expect from a GOAT-caliber player.
Right now, Wemby is on pace for 30, 14, and 5. So a bit on the upper end of where we would expect him to be for the next four years – but not outside anything we’ve ever seen.
If we check back in mid-season and Wemby is below these ranges – if he’s not averaging 25, 12, and 3 – we probably want to shift our expectations down. That is, we’ve got decent reason to think he’s not going to be the best ever, and that we should start to include some worse players in his pool of comps.
Note that those worse players would be hall-of-famers like Nicola Jokic, Dikembe Mutombo, Dirk Nowitzki and Dwight Howard. That’s the level that Wemby is playing at already. He needs to be worse for us to compare him to Hall of Famers, including the best player in the league for the last five years.
Wemby might have a half-decade worse than we expect and still be the most dominant player in the league.
How do you bet this?
Right now, the Spurs are 35:1 to win the finals. If the comps are any suggestion, Wemby will win 2 titles in the next 5 years.
I’d include them in a mix with Oklahoma City (+200), Denver (+700) and LA (+1700).
This gives you the top 4 players in the league – SGA, Jokic, Luka, and Wemby – at plus odds.
Why not take anyone from the East? – The top talent isn’t very good. Donavon Mitchell is not consistent enough to water down the odds.
With a 30:10:5:5 wager on OKC, Denever, LA, and San Antonio – you only need one of those teams to win once every four years to make money. And we expect the trophy to go to an MS10+ player at least 19-in-20 years or more.