Victor Wembanyama had his second straight 40-point, 15-rebound game on Wednesday against the Warriors, becoming the first Spurs player to accomplish that.
SAN FRANCISCO — It’s not always easy to spot greatness. For a while, it was hiding in plain sight for the Golden State Warriors. Steph Curry was different. He lacked many of the transformative traits that are easy to spot from far away. But he didn’t just need someone to believe in him. He needed someone to understand him.
Curry revolutionized basketball, perhaps the last transformative moment basketball has experienced. Until now.
Victor Wembanyama is changing things. He shrinks the court in ways the NBA is still trying to fully grasp. He distorts game plans, skill sets and comfort zones in ways not seen since Curry’s ascension. In just his third year, Wembanyama has already become the next basketball revolution.
The San Antonio Spurs’ task this season hasn’t been just to play well around Wembanyama. It was to learn Wembanyama. It was to help him understand himself.
That’s a journey Curry knows better than anyone.
“It’s just a natural progression that you can’t really force until your talent becomes so undeniable in your style,” Curry told The Athletic. “And if it leads to winning, it becomes like a collective effort, unlocking it, unleashing it, and then you being able to uplift players around you. So it’s a two-way street.”
You can’t find greatness without finding your voice. That manifests in different ways. There’s vocalizing in the locker room and on the floor. Then there is playing your game without doubt. Not just breaking through the fear of failure, but trusting your experimentation. Can you dare yourself to do what nobody else is doing?
Audacity is the fuel that propels great talents to unforeseen heights.
“That happens just because you’re not who you are without that,” Curry said. “Talent can only take you so far with God-given attributes. But he seems more vocal than I was at the time, like at this stage. And obviously, he’s the number one pick, so it’s a different trajectory than what I took in a little earlier development, but the same kind of vibe.
Wembanyama shaped the Spurs’ identity from preseason media day. He declared that defense was non-negotiable. It wasn’t long until the Spurs had one of the league’s best defenses. He declared they would be a playoff team; now they’re in the hunt for the NBA’s best record — 58-18 after Wednesday’s 127-113 win against a Warriors team playing without the injured Curry.
“A team has a true identity built around you that might be ahead of schedule, and so you kind of throw everything you have at it,” Curry said. “To that point, his spirit, I’m sure, when he walks into that locker room, everybody has the belief that they can win. That’s hard to find, too.”
It’s not hard for Harrison Barnes to believe. He’s seen the warning signs of upheaval. Barnes was on the Warriors’ first championship team with Curry in 2015. He was the wing who complemented Curry, figuring out how to space a floor reconfigured by a shooter who changed our perception of shooting. Now he is doing the same with a completely different, yet comparably distinct player.
“It takes a collective to recognize that, to be able to give space, allow Victor to grow and develop into whatever type of player he wants to be,” Barnes said. “I think it’s easy to try to sometimes pigeonhole people or say, ‘Are they this player or that player? Should we run our offense this way? Does this person have to conform?’ But I think over the course of the season, his game has evolved. He’s changed. He’s become more confident, assertive (and) aggressive.”
The Spurs’ front office and coaching staff had an idea of what this thing could become early on. While the outside world saw a roster with a point guard logjam and questionable shooting, they saw a collective of ballhandlers particularly suited for Wembanyama’s vertical spacing with decisive wings who would shoot unabashedly and defend consistently. The result is a juggernaut propped up by a guy just figuring out his game.
“Well, they kind of just automatically become the framework. You put everybody else around guys like that,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “You build your team around Wemby or Steph, and you try to find players who complement them. They are the system. When it comes down to it, that’s what makes superstar players who they are. They’re so good that you shape your team around them.”
The key for the Spurs is that they have to live up to Wembanyama’s standards. His teammates praise his work ethic and persistence. People wonder how he’s become the first 7-and-a-half-footer to do what he does.
Well, he goes to bed at 8:30 p.m.. He does whatever he can to make sure his body is right. He shuts off his social battery when he needs to, whatever directs energy into being the best basketball player he can be.
Then he goes out there and unleashes all of it. That’s the standard he has set. That’s the standard of someone who changes everything.
“He’s got attributes that, obviously, you can’t teach or truly understand because he’s such a one of one,” Curry said. “But I think most of all, from what I see, I don’t know him like that, but his competitive spirit and his energy is contagious in there. It’s not just his talent; it’s the way he approaches it too.”
Wembanyama finished with 41 points and 18 rebounds on Wednesday, becoming the first Spur to post back-to-back 40-point, 15-rebound games. No qualifiers like 3-pointers or blocks to make the stat neatly fit Wemby’s skill set. Just straight up dropping 40 and 15 on consecutive nights. Not Tim Duncan. Not David Robinson. Just Victor Wembanyama.
He’s torching the easy opponents, showing how competitive he is going to be night in, night out.
Now his fixation is the MVP award. When The Athletic told him that even if he doesn’t win it this year, it will be his to lose by next season, he said the first one is the hardest. He didn’t want to lose the opportunity to get the trophy when it is so close.
“I do care deeply about it, and I think that all the greats that are in the Hall of Fame, or that are in our mind the best of all time, they have fought and grabbed everything they could grab early on in their career,” Wembanyama told ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt after Wednesday’s game. “If I want to make my spot among the greats, I gotta try to not miss any occasion. I have to put my name up there.”
Maybe it’s the memory of the blood clot a year ago that feels like a faint memory in light of his season. Though this is just the beginning, it comes in the context of everything he almost lost not too long ago.
Curry went through his own obstacles with ankle injuries early in his career. He wasn’t the top pick like Wembanyama. He wasn’t a chosen one. He had to prove he could stay on the floor and prove that his game deserved its space and respect. Greatness comes through triumph over adversity, and those early battles shaped who he eventually became.
“It’s just how you deal with it. It’s not always going to be a straight line,” Curry said. “So how you deal with failure and how you deal with playoff experience and all of that, is going to define a lot. Because most people don’t get it done on their first try.”
Wembanyama has been transparent about the Spurs’ title hopes all season. He acknowledges they do not have the kind of experience champions usually have. Curry’s Warriors lost in the first round of the 2014 playoffs under Mark Jackson, then came back the next season under Kerr and won the first of four titles. The Oklahoma City Thunder made the second round a year before they won the title last June.
The Spurs had the second pick in the draft last summer. This is unmistakably their first try.
While Barnes and Luke Kornet have rings, few remnants remain within the front office of San Antonio’s championship years. The Spurs have memories and tales to guide them, but this is a team currently forging its own history.
“We don’t have experience, right? Screw it,” Wembanyama told Van Pelt. “I mean, that’s all we got. We’re not going to play any different way just because it is this way. I mean, we’re still going to play 100 percent and go to try to win this championship. Screw it.”
When the Spurs reached the 50-win mark this season, players joked that now it’ll be 17 more years of this, just like the Duncan era. But Barnes cautioned that the pursuit of excellence requires longevity, that consistency and continuously building good habits is the great challenge that has kept the league repeat-champion-free for nearly a decade now.
Wembanyama has exemplified the championship standards everyone espouses. He is not unique in his desire to be great. But his ability to apply and understand the lessons he’s learned is special. His skill set in his frame is remarkable. He has all the ingredients of an era-defining player.
Will he respond well to failure? Will he navigate the winding path to becoming legendary as well as Curry? As the playoffs arrive, Wembanyama will finally get to see how it all comes together.
“Who knows how it shakes out?” Curry said. “But it’s the biggest part of the journey that you have to figure out on the fly.”
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Jared Weiss is a staff writer covering the San Antonio Spurs and Victor Wembanyama for The Athletic. He has covered the Celtics since 2011, co-founding CLNS Media Network while in college before covering the team for SB Nation’s CelticsBlog and USA Today. Before coming to The Athletic, Weiss spent a decade working for the government, primarily as a compliance bank regulator. Follow Jared on Twitter @JaredWeissNBA
