Victor Wembanyama: NBA's Rising Star Shines Bright
Victor Wembanyama is the first to win NBA Defensive Player of the Year unanimously, averaging 25 points and 11 rebounds. Dan discusses his early greatness.
Video Transcript
You know, I heard all of this hype on Victor Wembanyama when he came into the NBA, and he was drafted by the San Antonio Spurs.
Spurs, one of the greatest organizations in all of professional sports, dating back when you had, re- when you had all those great players.
Like, you saw the greatness of that organization.
Tim Duncan, you had Manu Ginbili, Tony Parker, winning that five championships with Gregg Popovich.
You knew that that organization was one of the best organizations for 20-plus years.
And so when you started to see that thing melt down a little bit, and then when you saw the fact that Kawhi Leonard didn't wanna stay there any longer, you started to see the organization going the other way, and all of a sudden they get this guy, Wemby.
They bring in Wemby, and I was not sold at the beginning, but man, let me tell you something, he is without a doubt as advertised.
He is now the first player in NBA history to garner all of the votes for Defensive Player of the Year.
Not only that, but you're talking about Victor Wembanyama right now as a guy who gives you 25 and 11 and three assists and three blocks per game, and you're talking the best defender in the NBA, and he's seven-four.
This guy to me reminds me of a king.
This guy reminds me of Jabbar.
So let me put this in context here for you.
When you watch him play, you're watching old-school basketball and a guy that wants to play 48 minutes.
When you're the Defensive Player of the Year in the NBA, that means you give a crap about wanting to play on both sides of the court, not just shooting threes.
Shoot threes, shoot threes, that's what the league has turned into.
Victor We- Wembanyama, he plays 48 minutes of basketball, which means what?
Hey, what a novel idea.
This guy gives you effort.
You put a couple NBA championships around this guy, you're gonna be talking about one of the greatest players in the history of the sport.
I make this conversation about Kareem all the time.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, in my opinion, is the greatest NBA player of all time, and I have the numbers and the wins to prove it.
Everyone goes to Jordan, and now they're talking LeBron James.
Well, let me go to context here for you.
When he was at Power Memorial in high school, undefeated.
When he went to UCLA, three straight national championships, Player of the Year at UCLA.
By the way, he lost one game with John Wooden at UCLA.
He goes to the NBA.
What does he do?
He gets drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks.
That dude ends up winning an NBA championship with Oscar Robertson.
He goes to the Los Angeles Lakers.
He's gotta wait for Magic to show up.
The guy ends up winning five more NBA championships.
Kareem is the best player to ever play, and this guy, Victor Wembanyama, look at the numbers, 25, 11, three, 51% from the floor.
This is Jabbar stuff.
Ask yourself this question.
If you had to have either him, Victor Wembanyama, or Jordan shooting the last shot of a game, who would you choose?
A guy in the box in Kareem, Wemby, or a 20-footer by Jordan?
The odds would tell you, you have a better shot of winning ball games with the guy in the box with the higher percentage basketball shot than a guy shooting a 20-footer.
As great as Jordan was, no question one of the top three players of all time, Kareem's skyhook was undefensible.
You couldn't defend the shot.
This is what you have with this kid.
Remember something about Jabbar as well.
Kareem labored getting up and down the court.
This kid runs like Olajuwon.
When Olajuwon was at his height, and he was winning the Player of the Year on defense and putting up 35 a night with the Rockets, nobody could defend him.
He was shutting guys like Shaquille O'Neal out in the NBA Finals when he was with the Magic.
This guy's worth the price of admission.
Like I said, look, he's a little banged up right now.
He's got a concussion.
Whether or not he's gonna be available for game four in that series is yet to be determined.
But man, what an absolutely great start to his career.
You're looking at totally one of the greatest players in the history of the NBA.
And when you start putting championships around this guy, you may be talking at the end of the day, one of the greatest NBA players that's ever laced them up.
And I'm talking about Jabbar, Shaquille O'Neal, I'm talking LeBron, and I'm also talking about, again, obviously Michael Jordan.
This guy's seven-four, and he runs the floor for 48 minutes.
What a tremendous basketball player, and he is appointment-setting television.
One of the true things that you wanna tune in the NBA for, a guy that actually cares.
Congratulations.
Every vote for a guy that gave you effort and being the Defensive Player of the Year.
