Monday, 25 August 2025
Friday, 27 June 2025
PROJECTED ROOKIE SCALE 4-YEAR CONTRACT BREAKDOWNS FOR ALL 30 #NBA 1AT ROUND PICKS
Projected Rookie Scale 4-Year Contract Breakdowns for all 30 #NBA 1st round picks.
Sunday, 12 May 2024
VICTOR WEMBANYAMA HAILED AS NBA ROOKIE OF THE YEAR IN CEREMONY
SAN ANTONIO -- After teammate-led chants of "Wemby! Wemby!" a smiling Victor Wembanyama entered the theater at the Scobee Planetarium to a rousing ovation from the 50 or so children in attendance.
This wasn't your normal Rookie of the Year award presentation -- fitting for someone who has been dubbed an alien.
Wembanyama walked in and took his seat in the front row of the 100-seat theater with kids from local Boys & Girls Clubs, Big Brother/Big Sister programs and students from a nearby elementary school sitting amongst several of Wembanyama's San Antonio Spurs teammates and staffers.
Before he walked in, Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan got the kids riled up and chanting as the Rookie of the Year entered the room.
Wembanyama and company watched a video about his rookie season -- featuring clips from Wembanyama as young as seven years old -- before Spurs general manager Brian Wright presented him with his trophy.
"This is one of the representations of our progress throughout the year and all the efforts we made on the court," Wembanyama said. "I think receiving this trophy here with fans, with kids and everyone being happy to be here, it's also a good feeling for me and a good representation of the love that we felt throughout the year. To me, this is the right way to receive [the trophy]."
On Monday, Wembanyama was named the unanimous winner of the Rookie of the Year award, becoming the sixth player to do so in the last 40 seasons and the first since Karl-Anthony Towns in 2016 with the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Despite that, Wembanyama said he never felt that the race was over because he was focused on other things.
"I had other things to think about," Wembanyama said. "I had a responsibility towards my team and the challenge of staying dominant and helpful for the team and also staying healthy. I had many things on my mind the whole season. It was no bigger than that."
Wembanyama said he got goosebumps watching a video the Spurs prepared for him that featured clips of him playing basketball as young as 7 years old.
But after that played, Wembanyama accepted his trophy from Wright and then had his own video in which he thanked those who came before him with the Spurs, coach Gregg Popovich, his teammates, coaches, staff members, his family and eventually the fans, finishing the video with: "The future is going to be fun."
"I'm realistic, I know there's going to be videos of myself on the internet and they're going to talk about winning the award, but there's so much more to this," Wembanyama said. "To me, it's so much more to recognize each other's greatness and value.
"I mean, this is not enough. This is barely something. I want to keep the momentum going and let everybody know they are a part of the family and a part of the story. I believe in the fans, my teammates, the staff. I believe in them as much as I think they believe in me."
Next up for Wembanyama are the Summer Olympics in Paris, where he'll get to represent his home country of France on the international stage.
"This summer is special because it's pretty busy," Wembanyama said. "But yeah, I'm still going to have time to, I've had time to relax already in France a little bit with my family, and now I'm going to have time to practice and I'm going to have just a little bit of time after the Olympics, hopefully to work out before the season."
Tuesday, 16 April 2024
Friday, 12 April 2024
WEMBY'S ROOKIE YEAR IS WINDING DOWN, AND THE NUMBERS HE PUT UP ARE HISTORIC
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| AP Photo |
Victor Wembanyama figured he might be getting into trouble. It was a rare moment of celebration for the San Antonio Spurs in this long season, a win over the New York Knicks last month that had another sold-out crowd stirred into a frenzy.
He had just intercepted the game’s final pass as time expired. He high-fived a courtside fan, then tossed the ball to someone about 10 rows deep in the stands. Everyone loved it, except the NBA, which fined him $25,000 two days later.
Money well spent, he figured.
“I remember players being fined for this, but they threw it always in a bad way,” Wembanyama said. “I threw it to make some guy’s day.”
The guy who caught the ball had a moment he’ll likely never forget, and the 20-year-old Wembanyama sure looks like someone who’ll create a lot of those moments going forward. He is a 7-foot-4, walking, talking, dunking, shot-blocking, step-back-3-making, crossover-dribbling, viral moment waiting to happen, a giant of a man with the frame of a center, the skills of a guard and who is about to wrap up a rookie season where most would say he exceeded a stack of expectations that stood taller than even he does.
“He’s the future of the NBA,” Denver coach Michael Malone said. “We’re watching the ascension of the next great player in the NBA. … There’s not a lot that that young man cannot do.”
Wembanyama’s numbers for the season right now: 21.3 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 3.6 blocks per game. Blocks only became a recognized stat in 1973 so it’s almost certain that Wilt Chamberlain would have been on this list, but officially, there have been only two instances in NBA history where someone finished a season averaging that many points, rebounds, assists and blocks. Both were turned in by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Wemby, as he’s known, put up those numbers in Year 1. Be afraid, NBA. Be very afraid.
“I don’t want to take a leap,” Memphis’ GG Jackson said, “but he’s definitely going to be one of the greatest defenders of all-time when it’s all said and done.”
Wembanyama will be the Rookie of the Year, surely overwhelmingly, possibly unanimously. He could be part of the All-NBA team. He might even be Defensive Player of the Year as a rookie. Consider the opinion of Golden State’s Draymond Green, a past DPOY winner himself, who said a few weeks ago that Wembanyama should not be considered for that award because of the Spurs’ record.
And then the Warriors and Spurs played a few weeks later. Green changed his mind. Wemby is his pick.
“I don’t know what lab he was created in,” Green said on his podcast, “but I need to go create me a son in that lab because dude is unbelievable.”
Green said he was so locked in on getting a signed Wembanyama jersey for his son that night that he forgot to hug Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, his former Olympic team coach.
When Wembanyama came to the U.S. last year there were reasonable questions about what his transition to the NBA would look like. Could he endure the rigors of an 82-game schedule? Would he be able to guard stronger, heavier opponents?
He's answered every question, some of them emphatically.
Among the highlights — a 40-point, 20-rebound game against the Knicks (the one where he threw the ball into the stands); 10 games of at least 30 points; 40 games of at least 20 points; two triple-doubles (one with 10 assists, one with 10 blocks); and what's known as a 5x5 game — five or more points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks in the same contest.
He did that against the Los Angeles Lakers with Feb. 23 with 27 points, 10 rebounds, eight assists, five steals and five blocks. It was only the 22nd such game in NBA history and the first in more than five years. And it came exactly one day after he was one assist shy from another 5x5 outing.
“He doesn’t have a ceiling,” Lakers star LeBron James said that night. “He can do whatever he wants to do in his career."
That's what the Spurs are banking on.
Wembanyama has spoken with reverence for San Antonio and Popovich from the beginning of this journey, starting with the night the Spurs won the draft lottery. Wembanyama is now well-versed in breakfast tacos (a San Antonio staple), cowboy hats and how to play the game the way that Popovich wants.
“He's a multi-talented young man,” Popovich said. “And he's going to show us things that none of us have ever seen before. ... He's getting more and more solid, more and more disciplined, getting more and more used to the contact that he gets, the attention that he gets. It's a tough position for him to be in. But he handles it with class and with pretty good smarts.”
Wembanyama will return to France at some point this offseason; he'll be on the Olympic team that will be one of the star attractions at the Paris Games. He might be the face of those Olympics, arguably the biggest name that the home nation has to hang its gold-medal hopes on.
“People ask me if I'm surprised and I say no, I'm not, because I've seen him for a long time and I knew he was going to be special,” said Philadelphia forward Nicolas Batum, one of the leaders of the French national team. “I didn't think it'd happen this fast. I didn't expect these numbers in Year 1. But it's good for him. He's a great kid. He knows who he is, he knows what he can do and he's in a great organization.”
The Spurs aren't contenders yet. But it's easy to envision it happening before long. Players have always wanted to play for Popovich. Players will want to play with Wembanyama. He's only going to get better. Awards, accolades, attention, it's all nice, sure, but none of it is what matters most to the kid. He came to the NBA to win.
And he believes that day is coming.
“I've just witnessed so much greatness. And I want to be a part of it,” Wembanyama said. "More and more, I'm seeing that I’m already able to compete with those guys. I'm not near, but I'm on the right path. I know it. And I’m going to get there one day soon.”
- TIM REYNOLDS
