The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Hoops Tonight - Why Victor Wembanyama is #7 on my NBA player rankings list | San Antonio Spurs

Episode Date: August 29, 2025

Jason breaks down why he has San Antonio Spurs budding star Victor Wembanyama at No. 7 on his NBA player rankings list heading into the 2025 season. He discusses the partnership with De'Aaron Fox, the places Wemby can take another leap, and what his outlook is. Then he discusses Patrick Beverley's comments about Paul George, Klay Thompson, Steph Curry, and the Golden State Warriors. #Volume See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Hey guys, it's us. The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas.

We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We're the first people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know, tired and sick. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you.

you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the ice. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Winning on Clay is an art. The rallies are relentless. And at the French Open, only the toughest survive. I'd know. I competed there for decades. Join me, Renee Stubbs, on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast for no-nonsense breakdowns of the biggest matches, the toughest players, and the moments that define Roland Garris. She can win.

She's an outsider to win the French fame. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lina Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any service. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games.

Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days I'd put on 10 pounds, I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The Volume. Good Hips tonight here at The Volume. Happy Wednesday, everybody.

Hope all you guys are having a great week. We are continuing our player rankings today with number seven, Victor Wenbinyama. We're going to be doing a deep dive on Victor. Also, a little bit of a deep dive into the Fox Victor Partnership, one that we didn't see too much of last year, but that didn't look overly smooth at first, but I'm a little bit more bullish on it. We're going to talk about what that partnership will look like going into next season. After that, Patrick Beverly had a comment saying that if Paul George had played with the Warriors instead of Clay Thompson, they would have won more championships, which is something that I disagree

with and a classic example of value in a vacuum versus value in your specific team. So something I want to dive into at the tail end of the show. You guys know the joke before we get started, subscribe to the Hoops Tonight YouTube channel. So you don't miss any more of our videos. Follow me on Twitter underscore Jason LT so you guys don't miss show announcements. Don't forget about our podcast fee, wherever you get your podcast under hoops tonight. It's also super helpful if you leave a rating and a review on that front. Jackson's doing great work on our social media fees on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. Make sure you guys follow us there.

And last but not least, if you guys want to get questions into our mailbags, drop them underneath these full episodes on YouTube. Just put mailbag with a colon, write anything you guys have a question about. We'll get to it on our Friday mailbags. you disagree with anything in the player rankings. You can tell me why, tell me where you'd put a player, make a little elevator pitch, and we'll get to it in our mailbags on Fridays throughout the remainder of the summer. All right, let's talk some basketball. So, you know, LeBron and Wemby being in this spot here to me kind of represents two very different types of conundrums in the sense that either one of these guys, you could rank very low because of their age

or very high because of their ceiling. It's different. Like many, you know, young players, Victor struggles to replicate his successes and he struggles to minimize mistakes. Like, last year, Victor Wenamah only scored 30 points in consecutive games twice all season long. But on any given random night, he was able to reach preposterous highs. Victor Wenam had his first 50-point playoff game this year, or excuse me, his first 50-point game this season. He had a 42.18 rebound. block game. He had a 35.18 rebound game, a 35.14 rebound game. A 3010 game where the 10 was blocks. He nearly had four triple doubles with blocks, a 24, 13 with nine blocks, a 30 and seven with

10 blocks, a 23 and 14 with eight blocks, a 13 and 12 with eight blocks. He had a 2020 game with 23 rebounds against Denver, not his first 20-20, believe it or not, he had a 40-20 game when he was a rookie. These are all statistical explosions that only a few players in the entire league are capable of. And when it comes to blocks especially, he's kind of treading new ground that we've never seen in the modern NBA. He's basically the only player in the league capable of those stat lines. the block stats with Victor will break your brain. He had 28 more blocks than any other player in the NBA last year despite playing in just 46 games.

He averaged 3.8 blocks per game, which led the league, with second place just being 2.4. So to make that very clear, he averaged more than a time and a half as many blocks as the second best shot blocker in the NBA. So yeah, Victor is one of those guys where, just like LeBron, it's kind of like differentiating between Victor's youthful inconsistency versus LeBron's age-related inconsistency, but just the ridiculous, preposterous highs that those guys

were able to hit, right? Now, with Victor Wemnon Yama, is he the type of guy that would be super high on my list for guys I'd want in a big playoff game? No, he has too many offensive warts right now, and he's a young player who makes too many mistakes. But his overwhelming overall basketball impact will easily make him a top five regular season player this year when he's helping it on the floor at least. And his highs will literally be as high as the highest highs that any player could ever reach on a basketball court. And as far as the playoffs go, like yeah, do I have some certain concerns about his ability to manage the possession to possession stuff on the offensive end there? Sure, but his defensive capabilities, give him a high enough

floor in the postseason to keep him very high on this list for me. So he came in at number seven this year. But like I said, similar to what I was talking about with LeBron on Monday, these two guys in particular, a future all-time great who's young and a current all-time great who happens to be very old, these are two of the hardest guys to rank on a list like this. So I would understand if either with either of those guys, if you guys have them substantially lower or substantially higher. Now, let's get into last season in review for Victor. He played in just 46 games after coming down with a blood clot issue. He was pretty regularly available before that.

He had played in 46 of 52 games before that point, which means in the first season and a half of his career, he had played in 117 out of 134 possible NBA games. So he was on pace to play 70 plus games, two seasons in a row, in two tries. So this particular injury, this blood clot thing, it's not a foot or a knee or a back, like that kind of stuff that typically plagues super tall guys. So I'm expecting Wemby to be generally available coming this year.

I didn't punish him for that on this particular list. In those 46 games that he played, 24.3 points per game, 11 rebounds per game, and four assists per game. To go with a staggering 4.9 stocks per game, which led the NBA by Country Mile, as we discussed earlier. His percentage is he was 48% from the field, 35% from 3 and 84% from the line, 56% in effective field goal percentage. That's just field goal percentage weighted for threes, and 59% in true shooting, which again is your efficiency weighted for both threes and your trips to the foul line. These were all improvements year over year for Victor from his rookie season.

Like any superstar prospect in their first few seasons, he experienced a new peak within the season. Often it's not like a explosion each year. A lot of time, like Victor actually got off to a pretty rough start to start the season. He had that early game where Chet badly outplayed him, if you guys remember. But from December 19th to February 5th, the span of 21 games, he averaged 26 points and 12 rebounds with 4.2 blocks per game while shooting 38% from 3 on 9 a 10. times per game. He's just become such an aggressive, high volume three-point shoot or something we're going to talk a lot about when we get further into this video. All right, let's dig into some of

the play type data. And I want to start with Wembe as an off ball score. And the reason why is I think this will inevitably be a major swing factor for the spurs moving forward because they have Deere and Fox and Dylan Harper and such strong play at the guard position, Stefan Castle and, you know, Devin Vassel, players like that, right? Let's quick go over Victor Webb and Yama's role man numbers. then we'll bring Fox into the equation and talk about that partnership. So Victor Wim and Yama logged 163 role man possessions last year and converted them at 1.17 points for possession, which is very good. He shot just below 33% on pick and pop threes.

That's obviously not good. Strange because he was really good when he was on the move in off screen situations. But it's important to notice there that there's kind of a difference in the movement. So Victor, we're going to go over the numbers later, but he shot really, well coming off of dribble handoffs or coming off of off ball screens from three. So like imagine just running up to the ball, catching, turning, and firing. In those situations, you're running towards the ball and you have lots of steps to kind of load up. You can run nice and low. You get your footwork down, plant that right left left, if you're running to your left or your left, if you're running

to your right. And you have a chance to get all that power up into the shot and rise and fire. Out of off, out of ball screens, when you're popping out of ball screens, you're typically backpedaling or shuffling sideways into the back, right? And as you're doing that, your momentum is going away from the ball and away from the basket. And so it's a little bit tougher to get your feet set underneath you to get the lift you need to knock down the shots. I think that is my best attempt at an explanation

for why Victor didn't shoot so well on pick and pops, even though he shot really well, generally as a catch-and-shoot player, and especially coming off of off ball screens, right? We'll get into that idea a little bit further when we get into the off ball stuff, the off ball shooting stuff. He was 71% on twos out of pick and roll as the role man.

Obviously, he has great hands. He catches everything. He's generally a great rim finisher too. Like he shoots over 60% on layups, which, as we've talked about, can be a problem for some bigs in this league when they can't just dunk the ball. We talked about this issue a lot with Bay Metabio, for instance.

he's also really good at driving closeouts. It's weird because he's so upright. And if there's a downside, he'll occasionally turn the ball over in these situations as he tries to kind of slalom through everybody. But he's usually pretty good at using the threat of his shot to get an angle on the closing defender. Like even if they're a quick guard, he'll get that shoulder by him. And then he just weirdly finds these angles to slalom and euro through people

and shoot layups. And he was even 50% on twos driving closeouts and spot. up situations, for example. So pretty good putting the ball on the floor when someone's sprinting at him. Now let's talk about the Deere and Fox partnership. It's important to note that because of Victor's blood clot issue, these two just didn't get much of a chance to gel. That said, it didn't look too good in the small sample. I actually went back this morning and rewatched every single pick and roll that Deeron Fox ran with Victor Wimbunyama. And they just didn't connect very often, especially in the pocket. There were only about a half dozen possessions out of the entire set of

clips where Dearen Fox actually managed to successfully get the ball to Victor Wemanniama in the pocket. I think I counted just one lob dunk in a pick and roll situation. It just takes time to figure out the timing in those pick and roll partnerships. And it's especially hard with a guy like Fox. The guys that we talked about this with Janus and in the difference between like the dame fit versus the Kevin Porter Jr. fit where like Kevin Porter Jr. was a little bit slower and more methodical, which helped Janus get open on the rolls, whereas Dame kind of had one speed downhill, and that was something that caused some limitations in their pick and roll partnership over that stretch. Dame is obviously a better player than Kevin Porter Jr. by a mile.

I'm more just talking about specifically getting the ball to Janus in the pocket, which was something that Kevin Porter kind of like naturally figured out how to do with Janus. Similarly, DeR and Fox is very downhill, very fast, not a ton of change of pace. And so, with that being the case, the timing is going to be critical. And so I think it's going to take a lot of a lot of reps. So I want to give like a nice half of the season to give those two guys the reps they need to kind of figure out the timing in when to slip out of screens, when to push downhill versus when for Fox to slow down and wait for Wemby to open up things along those lines. Dylan Harper, for example, already has a little bit more of a change of pace shiftiness to his game than

Deer and Fox. He's a rookie. So I'm not expecting him to. just be this magnificent partner for Wemby right away. But don't be surprised if just like the natural flow of a Dylan Harper, Victor Wemanniamma, pick and roll looks a little more naturally fluid than the Fox one just because he changes pace a little bit more and is a little bit slower as he comes off of those screens. The partnership was also kind of exacerbated negatively by two other things. One, the spurs are generally a poor jump shooting team.

And Deerard Fox hit a lot of. a really, really nice skip passes and ball screens that just weren't paid off. We're going to talk about that in a minute because Dearen Fox is actually kind of sneaky good at that. And then secondly, Deer & Fox just had a brutal perimeter scoring stretch to end the season with San Antonio, something I expect him to rectify this year. He shot horribly from three and about 5% worse on his floaters than he did in his previous full season in Sacramento. So all of those things added up to a lackluster debut for the Deer and Fox Victor Wem and Yama partnership. But I am overall optimistic about the types of shots this action should generate.

The rivalries, the marching bands, the upsets, Saturdays just got way more fun. College football is back. Think you know the game? Put your college football knowledge to the test with Draft King's Sportsbook and turn your picks into big payouts. From live betting during the game to rivalry week odds boosts and so much more, Draft King's Sportsbook has everything you need to stay in the action from kickoff to the final whistle. Whether you're betting on your go-to team or making moves mid-game,

as the momentum shifts, Saturdays are yours to own with Draft King's Sportsbook. Number three, Ohio State is hosting Texas on Saturday the 30th. They are now a 2.5 point favorite at home. Here's something special for first-timers. New customers bet $5 and get $200 in bonus bets instantly. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app and use code hoops. That's code hoops. That's H-O-O-P-S for new customers to get $200 in bonus bets instantly when you bet just

five bucks. In partnership with Draft King's sports book, The Crown is yours. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler. In New York, call 8778 Hope N.Y or text Hope N.Y to 467-369. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-7-8-7-7-7

or visit cpg.org. Please play responsibly on behalf of Boot Hill Casino and Resort in Kansas. 21 plus, age and eligibility varies by jurisdiction, void in Ontario, bonus bets expire, seven days after issuance. For additional terms and responsible gaming resources, see dkng.c.c.com

slash audio. Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what? We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas, we invented a podcast?

Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to a first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts. We're starting a trend. But this one's extra special. So how do we actually come up the name Hey Jonas, guys. I honestly don't remember.

I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band. Before Jonas Brothers was... This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes. I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas.

And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite.

Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel. Help an a cappella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending, opinions are flying, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines.

We go straight to the source. the athlete themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real.

From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context, and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them.

Listen to Sports Slice on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis, and I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris,

every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on clay. Jenchian win. I mean, she went down in three to Roebuckina, but I'm delighted. She's an outsider to win the French for me. She likes Clay. Listen, Lernerabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any surface. Because if she's serving, well, good luck.

Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. I'm concerned about the rest of the roster and whether or not they'll be able to capitalize on those shots, which we'll get to in a bit. But I do think that they're going to be able to get good shots.

First of all, like I mentioned earlier, I expect the timing to improve with reps, and I expect Deer & Fox to have a better season as a shotmaker. But I also think there's real potential here for this to be an action that generates a lot of high-quality threes for San Antonio. It wasn't just the timing that led to Deer and Fox failing to get the ball to Wembe in pick and roll when he was rolling to the basket. It also has a lot to do with the gravity that Wembe has on the role.

The whole defense reacts to Victor Wemann. when he's rolling down the lane. And Deer & Fox, especially if you can get him going towards his left hand, he's sneaky one of the better guys in the league at skipping the ball across the court against loaded pick and roll coverages. So imagine if they're icing a ball screen along the left wing and he's dribbling towards the left corner, he'll whip it across the court if Victor rolls into the lane and the guy comes off of the right corner to tag.

Or if he's in the right wing and he's coming towards the middle, if he manages to get middle or if he's in the middle of the floor, like where they can't ice, like if he's attacking from the top of the key in a ball screen, if he can get to that left hand, he's going to whip it to the right corner pretty consistently. And generally, Deer and Fox is one of the better guard ball handlers in the league

at reading the low man and finding those open threes that come out of it. And so with that being the case, if Wembe is going to draw that type of attention, they're going to get a lot of really good three. And this is where it's going to come down to the geometry of the floor and setting things up in a way so that the right guys get the ball. Because the spurs were a really poor catch and shoot team last year. They were bottom 10 in converting catch and shoot jump shots into points, such as 1.09 points per shot. They have since added Kelly Olinic, who will help a little bit there, but this still looks like a bad jump shooting team to me.

So teams are going to guard the action by conceding skip threes. Like if I'm game planning for San Antonio, I'm defending the Victor Fox pick and roll three on two. And I'm daring you to beat me from the three point line. So this is where floor geometry will be big. You have to set it up so that the low man that's coming over to help in these actions is coming off of Harrison Barnes or Devin Vassell or Kelly O'Linnick. And fewer possessions where it ends up in guys like Steph Castle's hands

or Kelton Johnson situations along those lines. that's the kind of floor geometry stuff that I think will be important to make sure that the action is as fruitful as it needs to be. And again, Dylan Harper, don't be surprised if he's more of a natural fit right away with Wemby, even though he's not going to be

as NBA ready, obviously, he's guy like Deer and Foxes as a veteran, but I think there will be some natural change of pace up there that'll mesh nicely with Wemby. But with the Fox Wembe partnership, if Fox shoots the ball well, and if he can skip the ball effectively enough and the spurs can make them pay enough,

that's where it could open up those opportunities for Wemby on the roll. And then another thing, too, is breaking out the pop. Again, Wemby didn't shoot very well on picking pops last year. If you can fix that, then you can start popping out of those screens and it gets a lot harder to tag him in those situations.

And it just becomes a situation where the paint's going to be more open for Deer & Fox to get downhill. Let's take into the rest of the play type data. First, the rest of the off-ball scoring. So Victor was excellent as a catch-and-shoot player overall last year. He was 39% overall on catch and shoot jump shots, 40.3% on 124 unguarded catch and shoot jump shots. It was really his like ISO face up off the dribble stuff where his jump shot fell apart.

Most of his off the catch stuff was really efficient. He also shot exceptionally well as the trailing big in transition. He shot 42% on 83 attempts trailing the play in transition from three. This goes back to that footwork element we were talking about earlier running towards the ball momentum going towards the basket as we mentioned earlier he shot the ball absurdly well when he was running off of any of those off ball actions as well right coming off of a dh o coming off of a wide pin down he shot over 40% he was 25 for 62 from three running off of off ball screens and dhos which is funny because like when i look back if you guys remember when they uh when he his, when his European team played against the G-League Ignite team, the Scoot Henderson Showcase,

where they played twice. We did a video right after that. And if you guys remember, like, my first big takeaway is that this guy's, like, natural basketball inclination is to be, like, a seven-foot, three-inch tall Clay Thompson, like a guy who's really comfortable running into shots. And that requires a great deal of effort in footwork. And it requires a great deal effort in the weight room to build the leg strength in order to get the lift you need to knock those shots down. To be clear, this is not to say that Wemby won't show off the dribble pop in his career. Of course he will. I expect him to get better over the years. But many super tall guys, including Kevin Durant, have had this problem over the years where like dribbling against active

defenders or dribbling through traffic with the ball is just harder to do because the ball has to travel so much further from the ground up to your hand every time. And because they're thin, they're more susceptible to physicality. And so that's a big part of why KD is such a quick, decisive attacker and why KD attacks off of so many off ball screens and why he likes to attack out a triple threat often. Those are situations that make it easier for KD to protect the ball. I, again, I know that Wembe will get better as an off-the-dribble player, but to me, his ability to like just sprint into jump shots, both in transition and in the half court coming off of screening action, that to me is just an insane foundational offensive gift. That should make him a very

efficient score in this league for a long time. Now let's take a look at the on ball stuff. Kind of continues to fall into the realm of what I was just talking about between the difference of like protecting the basketball with a live dribble or facing the defender versus protecting the basketball when your back is to the basket. So in ball screen situations, he ran 136, ball screens, including passes, and generated 133 points. That 0.98 points per possession, which is slightly above average. But interestingly enough, it came almost entirely down to his passing ability. Victor is a very natural read-and-react player.

His turnover issues mostly come down to dribbling through traffic and physicality. He sees the floor very well. It's not like he doesn't see help defenders and is just throwing the ball away. It's a dribbling through traffic issue for him. in terms of the turnovers. But he sees the floor really well. And in pick and roll, like when he is running those inverted screens

where guards are screening for him, he's very good at hitting the guards slipping out of the screen, which generated a lot of advantage sequences for the spurs last year that paid off. And it extends to everywhere on his rolls, on his drives. He's very good at hitting cutters along the baseline as helpers react to him. Out of the post, very good at hitting three-point shooters

as well as cutters along the baseline. It has really good chemistry with Jeremy Sohan as a baseline cutter when he's on, cuts, rolls, and post-up situations. But his one-on-one stuff is a mixed-bag. Because, again, even shooting out of pick and roll, like when he was on the ball in pick-and-roll and tried to do something himself

rather than pass the ball, he got to 0.73 points per possession with a 20% turnover rate. Again, that falls in line with dribbling the basketball in traffic, the ball being in front of him, right? In ISO, he got to 0.69 points per possession when shooting out of ISO, just hard to dribble at his height in traffic. And he just, the other piece of that is he just isn't a very good

off the dribble jump shooter yet. But that, I think, will come in time. I think the turnover issues to a certain extent will be something that he has to deal with throughout his career. And he'll just have to become very diligent about the way that he looks to attack. But when he was able to put his back to the basket, he was really good, even with turnovers against physicality.

Even when you factored those in, he just shot so efficiently that he was still just a hyper-efficient post-up player. He personally shot 59% out of the post. One of the things that really helped over the tail end of the season is he just got really quick and decisive on the catch out of the post, and he used fewer dribbles. If he had space, he would just catch and turn right over his right shoulder. Sometimes a simple right shoulder fade, sometimes a little one-like fade away over his right shoulder.

But he would just catch turn fire, catch turn fire. no waiting for the defense to react, no trying to make things overly complicated. If you got a small guy on his, on his hip, he would just like kind of Porzingus-esque, just turned directly into him and go straight up and down rather than fading.

If he took a dribble, he would just take one dribble bump and then go rather than dribbling too much. He got much better at that towards the tail end of the season. That is what allowed him to be 59% shooting out of the post, including passes. He got 1.11 points per possession, even with a high turnover rate out of the post.

That's 69th percentile. So very, very efficient as a post player. His post passing is just super impressive. There's no way around it. He is very good at finding cutters. I mentioned that he has great chemistry with Steph Castle and Jeremy Sohan on cuts. He's very good at spraying out to three-point shooters against double teams. Just awesome out of the post. the main area is that wemby needs to improve on offense in order to become a bona fide top-tier superstar couple of fundamental things handling physicality without turning the ball over guys just get up in his business and attack the basketball because they know he's thin and they know he's upright i think this will always be somewhat of an issue for him like it's still an issue for kd even at

his age even as he has put on a little bit of strength and as he has become more comfortable playing in the wmb a in the wmba sorry we have a wmba segment for a mailbag i got so that has been in my head. But Katie's been in the NBA a long time, and he's become comfortable, but he still deals with occasional turnover issues from his physicality, right? But you can mitigate that

by being very quick and decisive and using more protected sequences. So coming off of off ball action, for example, you're not going to turn the ball over there. In the post, he can limit his turnovers there if he just continues to do what he did at the end of the season, which is just being really quick and decisive off the catch, trying not to dribble too much through traffic,

which is where things are going to go south. Secondly, you just need to improve as an off-the-dribble shotmaker. He's a very good movement shooter already, so the ability to shoot on the move is not an issue. He just needs to connect that dribbling to the shooting element. So it's like a fluidity piece.

That'll just come in time with lots of repetition. I expect Victor to get better at that. Then we mentioned earlier, just the footwork piece of shooting out of pick and pop where he's like kind of shuffling and backpedaling more than sprinting into shots, improving his shooting in that specific situation will help him a lot.

The only real big picture thing I have my eye on with Wembe over the years is his ability to find a reliable go-to move. He is relying pretty heavily right now on long-distance jump shooting. So, for example, 57% of Victor's shot attempts last year were at least 16 feet away from the basket. And he's actually trending further in that direction

as a rookie. That was only 41%. So he went, he went from the majority of his shots being inside of 16 feet to now the majority of his shots being outside of 16 feet. It's important to mention that he was efficient here because he shot 40% on long twos and because he shot well enough from three, he got 1.03 points per shot on all those long jump shots.

That's fine. That's a reasonably efficient shot for him. But like we always talk about, there's a certain element of variance that comes in that type of long-distance jump shooting. On single possessions towards the end of games, you want to have something reliable that you can go to that is a short-range scoring move

that is less susceptible to that variance. So, for instance, last year, Victor took just 49 jump shots inside a 17 feet, and he shot just 32.7% on them. He made just 10 hooks and floaters all year on just over 40%. it's basically not a part of his game right now. You want to know how Yokic made 50 clutch shots last year on 56% from the field. It wasn't all just bullying dudes to the rim.

He also has a super reliable set of short range scoring moves, hooks, floaters, and short jump shots. We talked about similar things with guards, guys like Kevin Durant, Jaylen Brunson, Shea Gildes, Alexander. That's what drives their reliability at the end of games. They can get to inside of 17 feet, and they can knock those shots down more than half the time. I've been critical of Luca over the last year

for seemingly moving away from that part of his game after it carried him to a finals run in 2024. Wembe this season was 17 for 46 in the clutch, just 37%, just 5 for 21 on threes. Now there's variance with long distance shooting under any circumstance, but those shots, especially at the end of games, they just get incredibly hard to make consistently. You're exhausted.

There's a ton of physicality. You're playing a truly locked in defense, playing their hardest defense of the game. The refs are allowing more contact. They're swallowing their whistles. It's hard to shoot from the perimeter in those situations. Okay, so what does that look like for Wemby? What does the reliable bit of short range shot making look like for Wembe?

To me, I think it's pretty clearly just that short fade away over his right shoulder. fighting for a position in that 10 to 12 feet away zone, or if he's attacking with a live dribble, just getting into some contact in that 8 to 9 foot range and then pounding into a spin, but being able to shoot over that right shoulder with that little short like 13, 14 foot fade away, that's the kind of shot that I think he could easily get up over 50, 55% on.

He's already pretty naturally good at that shot. He just needs to really increase the number of reps so that it becomes more reliable. for him in that situation. From there, he just needs a counter. If guys are going to overplay the right shoulder, he needs something he can do over his left shoulder. An easy one there is just a left shoulder hook or a left shoulder fade if he prefers to shoot jump shots in that situation. But getting something, a basic move counter move sequence that he can use at the end of games, out of the post, just turning and out of ISO, a hard drive to the right, wait for the guy to cut

him off, just pound into that spin over his right shoulder. Those are the the types of moves that I think will become really dependable for him over the years. What I don't want to see is Wembego the Tatum route of over-indexing towards large sample efficiency. The analytics guys love that stuff. You put up some sick-ass basketball reference numbers when you do that sort of thing. But those guys have a tendency to go insanely cold in big spots, kind of like Tatum did in game one and two of the Knicks series. Tatum went cold, team blew the series as a result.

Like that, you can't have your best player going that, frosty cold in such a big moment. But when you rely so heavily on tough off the dribble three point shooting, it just becomes really difficult to have game to game consistency. You're susceptible to that sort of thing. There is a place for that sort of thinking, meaning the high volume three point shooting. I believe in the value of the three point shot. I'm not an idiot. I also think taking them a lot to help boost efficiency is smart. It just can't come at the expense of a well-rounded approach to skill development. And you definitely need to sacrifice a certain number of possessions

each year game to game so that you can maintain some short range scoring rhythm, especially right now when Victor's not particularly good at it. He's got to get good at it. And that's going to come through repetition. And so I would be willing to sacrifice a certain number of possessions, you know, three, four times a game where Victor's going to that little right shoulder fade away, maybe even a little bit more so that he can get really reliable with it so that he can lean on it more at the tail end of games.

We talked about Wemby's shot blocking earlier, but I just want to go a touch deeper on how incredibly gifted Victor Wemann Yama is as a defender. As I mentioned in the Anthony Davis video last week, I think Wembe is far and away the best defender in the world at this point. Victor made a bad defensive roster look like a good defense when he was on the floor last year. The Spurs played 4,750 possessions with Victor Wemanniama off the floor, according to cleaning the glass last year.

And they posted a 122 defensive rating in those possessions. For perspective, the Utah Jazz posted the worst defensive rating in the league last year at 119.4. Take that same group of defensive talent. Add Victor Wimanjama, 3,141 possessions, a 112.4 defensive rating. For perspective, the Pistons ranked 10th in defense last year at 112.5. So in other words, Victor Wimmyiama's defensive talent

is enough to take effectively the worst defense in the NBA and turn it into a top 10 defense. The scheme versatility is off the charts. He can defend in any pick and roll coverage. Like he's insanely good as a drop coverage big, but he can also come up to the level and bother pull-up shooters. His ISO numbers were a little tricky

because of his issues with Biggs, which we'll get into in a minute, but guards in pick-and-roll and switches, he did very well on. He's insanely good as an off-ball help, like you'll just see these highlights where a guy gets blocked at the rim and he didn't even know Victor was in the play. He just can shock people with his ability to cover ground and erase mistakes from his teammates. And again, like, if you look at the ISO numbers, there are examples of

like Anthony Davis overpowering him, Jaron Jackson overpowering him, Yokic obviously had some success against him one on one. But overall, even with those guys, like there's random possession. in regular season games where those dudes just dropped their shoulder and just went right through Victor Wemianama. But then he'll walk in at the tail end of a game and get really physical. And his length just becomes such a factor that I still think he's pretty good at defending those guys in a big spot anyway, even with the giving up all the weight. Like there was a game against Denver last year, the one where they won in Denver, where Yokic was given, uh, wouldn't be a lot of issues, getting a lot of deep seals, getting a lot of layups.

But then two possessions at the tail end of the game on the right block, he played phenomenal defense. One where he absorbed the contact well, stayed in front, enforced Yokic into an incredibly difficult hook shot that Yokic made because he's fucking crazy good. And then the next possession, they went right back to Yokich on the right block. And Wembe smothered him so bad that Yokic just threw the ball away.

And the next thing you know, Devin Vassell was icing the game with a dunk at the buzzer on the other end of the floor. Or like, even with those one-on-one situations where he's had some issues, I, like, if there's a five-minute stretch at the tail end of a game where Victor needs to guard Jaron Jackson this year, I think he's going to figure out Jaron Jackson, you know. He's just, he's skinny. And there were times where it was almost like he got caught off guard as one of those dudes

just like, I'm plowing through you right now. And so, yeah, is ISO numbers weren't great statistically this year. But overall, he defended guards extremely well in switches. defended well in every coverage. He defended as an offball defender extremely well. Even if you factor all that stuff in, his overall, like even if we want to get nitpicky, his overall total impact as a defensive weapon is far and away the best in the league to me. So it feels lame to even focus on that specific element of it. He gets shoved around sometimes and he'll still break your offense. And that's ultimately what sets him apart.

and just wait until they actually surround him with some competent defensive players. That's when you're really going to see a crazy level of defense at our Victor Wemnon Yama and the Spurs. I'm not super high on the Spurs this year. I don't think they have very much talent on their roster compared to the other top NBA teams. They're a really poor off-ball shooting team

and they don't have enough defensive talent to be reliably great on that end night tonight. I think there'll be a play-in team this year. But I am super high on Victor Wimbenyama. and I think he has the potential to explode onto the superstar scene this year. It comes in at number seven in this year's player rankings. All right, before we get out of here today, Patrick Beverly said, quote, Hey, it's us, the Jonas Brothers, and guess what?

We have some big news. What's the news, huge news? We created our own podcast called, Hey, Jonas. We invented a podcast? Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to our first people to do podcasts. Pretty, yeah, pretty wide range of podcasts throughout there. But this one's extra special.

So how do we actually come up with a name, Hey Jonas, guys? I honestly don't remember. I think it was on a call about what we should call it. Well, we were thinking I'm originally calling it one of the early names of our band before Jonas Brothers. This is how you guys remember it going down? Yes.

I have a very different memory of this. We were talking about a thing, a bit for the podcast, where people could call in and say, hey, Jonas. And then I wrote down on my little notepad, Hey Jonas, and offered it up as a potential title. for the podcast. But thanks for remembering that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel. Help an Acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform?

We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. Highlights are trending. Opinions are flying. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened.

That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. Every episode, we're cutting through the noise. Breaking down the plays, the controversies, and the stories behind the headlines. We go straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions, the stuff nobody gets to hear. The laughs, the drama, the triumphs, the moments that never make the highlight real. From viral moments to historic games, from buzzer beaters to controversial calls, we break it down, give you context and ask the questions everybody wants answered. Sports Slice brings you closer to the action with stories told by the people who live them.

Listen to Sports Slice on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Follow Timbo Slic Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. The French Open is one of the toughest tests in tennis. And I know firsthand because I competed there myself. I'm Renee Stubbs, and on the Renee Stubbs Tennis podcast, I'm breaking down everything happening at Roland Garris. Every match, every upset, and what it really takes to win on clay. Jen should win?

I mean, she went down in three to Rovachina, but I'm delighted. Yeah, she's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lena Rubakina is arguably the best player in the world right now. And I actually can win on any surface. Because if she's serving, well, good luck. Consider this your court side seat to the French Open. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. If you put Paul George in that role as Clay Thompson playing with Steph, Drebeen Green, and Iguodala, I think that Golden State probably wins more championships. I completely disagree with this. And I don't mean it as an attempt to say that Clay was a better basketball player than Paul George at his peak. I don't think you can make that case. Paul George once finished third in MVP voting.

He has three times as many all-MBA selections, including a first-team all-MBA selection. But specifically when you look at Clay Thompson's role on the Warriors, and what they specifically needed from him, I thought Clay was every bit as impactful in that role as Paul George could have been, possibly even more so. For starters, Clay Thompson is one of the most underrated defenders of all time. He only has one all defense selection in 2019. He made second team. But for the entirety of his prime with the Warriors, he was an excellent perimeter defender.

He has great size and strength for position. He can guard up and down. He could guard Kyra Irving well, but he could also guard big forwards well as well. He has good lateral. quickness can slide his feet. Excellent instincts. This is the big thing that sets him apart. He was just always really good at anticipating which ways guys would go and then beating them to spots, getting good contest, taking contact, just getting a good contest. Like, I thought the Jalen Brown series in 2022 was a great example of this. Like, this was after his ACL and Achilles injuries. He struggled early in the series so much so that they briefly switched Draymond Green onto Jalen Brown. But towards the tail end of the series, especially in game four and in game five,

Clay guarded Jaylen Brown phenomenally well and was just starting to anticipate his moves and was beating him to spots and taking that contact in the chest. I think Clay is, like, don't get me wrong, Paul George probably at his peak

was a better defender than Clay, but that gap is much closer than we think. And I don't think Paul George could have done much better for the Golden State defense in the specific role than Clay did over those years. And then on offense,

again, it's important to look at what they need. out of that role alongside Steph. Yes, Paul George in his prime certainly would have been a much better lead option to run an offense than Clay Thompson. But it's important to acknowledge, first of all, even then, Paul was probably still not good enough

to do it at a championship level, and we're discussing it in the role of playing alongside Steph. The Warriors' offense was all about read and react basketball, quick decision-making, very little dribbling, playing with an advantage. When Steph was off the floor, Clay was able to provide a reasonable maximally of what Steph did as an off-ball shooting gravitational force

so that the Warriors could run the same offense and essentially kind of keep some continuity there. And he was an absolute monster on the floor alongside Steph, benefiting from his gravity, bringing much of his own kind of a counterbalance effect that, you're like in that role is so important. I mean, look at the job that we've seen guys like when Buddy Heald played well,

last year. Like on the nights that Buddy Heald played well, they looked like old Warriors teams. It was Buddy Heald's inconsistency that ended up being a problem, right? But Clay Thompson brought that pretty consistently every night during that era,

and that was what allowed that Warriors' offense to reach the level that they did. Clay wasn't as good as Steph, but his shooting ability was immensely valuable to that Golden State team. Now, could Paul George have won a title with Steph? Sure. But I just pushed back on the idea

that they somehow would have been better or that they would have won more. That's just not how basketball works. It's so much more complicated than that. Your value as a player is unique to your role, unique to what the team needs out of you. I actually found this concept generally within modern team building to be very interesting. We've talked about it with Luca and the idea,

like, essentially that when you have a supreme offensive engine, you don't need to track down another top-tier superstar to push you over the top. When you have a supreme offensive engine, the game is so easy that you can rely on just a really, really good star and then really high level role player talent around them, right? Like LeBron James with Kyrie Irving, for example, or Steph Curry with Clay Thompson, Nicola Yokic with Jamal Murray. Luca Donchit hasn't won a title yet, but he got close with Kyrie, right? I do believe that Luca could win one without a superstar teammate. they certainly need to be surrounded by talent.

I'm not trying to say you don't need talent, but you open yourself up to being able to surround those guys with really high-level role players because those offensive initiators generate such insane advantages that even high-level role players can fill a real role on offense. Like, Draymond Green's role on offense

was unlocked by Steph's shooting gravity. It's what made that work. The guys like Luca and LeBron, there are not a lot of teams where you can just surround one guy with a bunch of shooters and the offense is great. It worked with those guys because they were setting those guys up with such high quality three-point shots and because they were able to absorb so much usage. And again, Luca hasn't done it at a championship level yet,

but I believe he eventually will. And LeBron did, right? They need some support, right? Steph doesn't win the title without Clay Thompson. LeBron James doesn't win the title without Kyrie Irving, Luke Adon, or excuse me, Nicole Yokic doesn't win the title without Jamal Murray, but those are guys that are like clearly off of that superstar tier that are really good at one thing. For Clay Thompson, it's nuclear shooting.

He's probably the second best shooter of all time. And with Kyrie Irving and Jamal Murray, it's that just bucket getting. It's the random possession here or there where you just need that guy to create a great shot. Having these elite offensive engines gives you the ability to build a roster that is open to more of that depth of role player talent and less dependent on superstar support. You give those guys a legit superstar and they're just going to win easy, right? Like Steph got KD, he won two easy ones. LeBronhead Anthony Davis is a top five player one season.

After that year, AD declined pretty quickly into that second tier of stars. But when LeBronhead AD is the top five player, that was the easiest title he won. No one threatened to that team in 2020. because you had two players at that level. If you gave Yokit, Shea, Gilderst, Alexander, they're winning the title this year easy. But those guys don't need that. They are capable of winning

with really high-level role-player talent because of their ability to generate such easy offense for their teams. I just think, like, I just think Pat's comments are both a lack of understanding of what made the Warriors great, which started with Steph creating easy roles for everyone. And then I think it undersells what Clay did.

there. His ability to impact games kind of at the level of that of a superstar in his role. Some of the craziest moments in Warriors history were off the fingers of Clay Thompson when he would just get blazing hot or when he would sit down in a stance and play incredible on ball defense against a star on the other team. And I just think he deserves more credit for what are you accomplished there. All right, guys, that's all I have for today. As always, I sincerely appreciate you guys for supporting me and supporting the show. We will be back on Friday with our mailback. I will see you guys. Hey guys, it's us.

The Jonas Brothers. I'm Joe. I'm Kevin. And I'm Nick. And guess what? We created our own podcast called, Hey Jonas. Nice. We invented a podcast?

Well, we didn't invent it. We just contributed to it. We get to ask other people to do podcasts. We get to ask other people questions because we're sick and tired of being asked questions. Well, sick and tired is a strong way to put it. But, you know. Tired and sick. Tired and sick.

Listen to Hey Jonas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and Friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer, Streeter Seidel, help an a cappella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Winning on Clay is an art. The rallies are relentless, and at the French Open, only the toughest survive. I'd know. I competed there for decades. Join me, Renee Stubbs, on the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast, for no-nonsense breakdowns of the biggest matches, the toughest players, and the moments that define Roland Garris.

Jench won. She's an outsider to win the French for me. And she likes Clay. Listen, Lennar Rabakina is arguably the best player in the world right now, and I actually can win on any surface. Listen to the Renee Stubbs tennis podcast on the IHeart Radio app. Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Presented by Capital One, founding partner of IHeart Women's Sports. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque.

Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.