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Victor Wembanyama’s teammates somehow can’t complete an open pass to the 7’4 rookie
The San Antonio Spurs made a conscious decision not to rush into contention when the team won the lottery to land generational draft prospect Victor Wembanyama with the No. 1 overall pick. Wembanyama seemed poised to be at least a solid player as a 19-year-old rookie entering the league, but the Spurs wanted to push the limits of his skill set for future development — and make sure they could add another high lottery pick next to him in the 2024 NBA Draft.
The Spurs lost to the Chicago Bulls, 114-95, on Thursday night to continue their free-fall down the standings. San Antonio is now 4-23 overall, and only the Detroit Pistons — who are on the verge of the longest losing streak in NBA history — are worse. It’s important to remember the Spurs made an intentional choice to prioritize development over instant wins this season, because so much of the low-hanging fruit on the team comes back to their inability to maximize Wemby’s incredible talent.
The big storyline of San Antonio’s season has been the, uh, experimentation with the point guard position. Legendary head coach Gregg Popovich has benched incumbent lead guard Tre Jones to instead give second-year forward Jeremy Sochan most of the facilitating duties. Sochan is 6’9 and came into the league with a reputation as a good playmaker for his position … but his position was never supposed to be point guard. It’s put Wembanyama in situation where he needs to create most of his offense himself because his teammates can’t get him the ball.
Wembanyama looked visibly frustrated when Sochan missed him for an easy dunk on Thursday against Chicago. Bulls announcers couldn’t believe the Spurs kept failing to get him the ball.
“I don’t know how you miss a 7’4 guy,” analyst Stacey King said on the Bulls’ broadcast. “It’s almost like the team is reluctant to throw it to him.”
Spurs teammates have consistently failed to get Wemby the ball in advantageous positions since the start of the year. It’s gotten so bad that Wembanyama is jumping to complete alley-oops even when the pass isn’t there — which he did a few days earlier in a loss to the Pelicans.
A lack of passing around him has killed Wembanyama’s overall scoring efficiency. His 52 percent true shooting this year would be abysmal scoring efficiency for anyone, but especially for a 7’4 guy. The stat “true shooting plus” puts scoring efficiency in perspective by making 100 league-average for any given year. Wembanayama is only at a 90 true shooting plus this season, per basketball-reference. To put that in context, fellow Rookie of the Year contender Chet Holmgren is at 64.6 percent true shooting and 112 true shooting plus this year.
The decision to roll with Sochan and reduce Jones’ role has been the biggest issue — but no the only issue — with failing to maximizing Wembanyama as a play-finisher so far. Wembanyama’s field goal percentage is somehow only 19.4 percent off a pass from Sochan, per NBA.com via online pal Polar. Sochan has also made more passes to Wembanyama than any other teammate this year. By comparison, Wemby is making 55.8 percent of his shots off a pass from Jones, but he’s only playing 23 minute per game after playing more than 29 minutes per night last year.
The memes were out in full force last night as the Spurs continued to miss Wemby:
The front office NEEDS to get playmakers around Wemby
Not one good passer in the starting lineup is crazy
— Spurs Culture (@SpursCulture) December 22, 2023
There is an argument here that the Spurs are doing the right thing for their future despite such ugly results in the present. With a clear lack of plus passers around him, Wembanyama has had to flush out his own creation ability, which should serve him well down the line. The Spurs will have a high lottery selection with their own, and also own the Toronto Raptors’ first rounder which is tracking in the lottery. Our 2024 NBA mock draft has Serbian point guard Nikola Topic as the No. 1 player in the class. USC point guard Isaiah Collier could be another good option for San Antonio.
The lineups the Spurs are playing around Wembanyama are probably going to look a lot different next year. San Antonio doesn’t just need a point guard — it needs more plus passers in the lineup. If Wemby’s rookie year was about discovering how the team should be built around him going forward, the roster’s biggest flaw is already painfully evident.
