SMH
On second thought, in about 2-3 years the only player challenging Wemby as one of the best players under 25 is Paolo (not Chet). Wemby and Paolo will gonna fight for top billing when Joker starts to decline.
My hope is by then the Magic --> LA pipeline for big men continues.
Shaq
D12
Paolo
Bust imo
Don't sleep on Sengun in Houston.
I couldn't believe this reverse he put on Claxton at the 1:00 mark
I hate the Spurs man. SMH
He gonna be nice. Glad his injury was minor.
You're only four years removed from a le; I don't want to hear any ing.
Keep on that wishful thinking, bro.
Meh Kareem was 225 when he came in the league at 22 and lasted 20 years.
tbh kareem was shorter, weighed more, and played his prime years in an era where the average weight was around 206, defense was even more non-existent and less physical than it is today, while playing a good chunk of his career with magic (during the years the league actually became more compe ive and serious).
wembys gonna have to battle it out with massive dudes who outweigh him by 50+ like embiid, giannis, towns, jokic, banchero, etc
unless he gets a couple of star guards/wings to counter teams with guys like joker, hes gonna have to put on some serious weight. at his height, and especially with his frame, guys with that weight generally dont last super long. see yao.
hes gonna have to overcome some major odds (just from a physical standpoint alone, not even considering any other factors) to be an mj/bron level player as so many are predicting
lol denial
With 70lbs added, he'd need to change his game completely and become a banger. There's no reason to do that. He needs to remain flexible, light on his feet and healthy. I doubt any scout saw Victor and thought "he'd be great if he could only put on 70lbs". This isn't 2004.
You think the game was less physical in the era of enforcers and before the flagrant got put into the rulebooks to protect Jordan? Kareem was going against 300 lbs Chamberlain in the WC his first few years in the league. Yao is precisely the reason I don't want Wemby putting on a ton of weight, playing at over 300 lbs killed Yao's feet. Well that and China making him play on a stress fracture because the Olympics were in Beijing. Of the guys you listed only Embiid and Jokic are in that 280 lb class you say Wemby needs to get to. Giannis is like 245, Banchero 250, and Towns 250. He'll put on size but he's never going to be Embiid ripped.
Also Wemby even at rookie weight was still fine to reject Giannis' when he tried to throw his body into him and bump him off the shotblock.
Last edited by baseline bum; 03-18-2024 at 08:13 PM.
70lbs isnt much at his height. yao was well over 300 and still thin as heck.
kareems prime was in the 70s. the "enforcer" stuff didnt start until the mid to later 80s, when kareem was at his end and being carried by magic.
being abnormally tall is also a problem. guys that tall simply don't last. id be shocked if wemby lasted more than 8-10 seasons while staying healthy the whole time.
he may last a bit longer staying lighter, but it wont be long regardless. and he will get bullied left and right, like he already is.
lower center of gravity while being heavier, means hes gonna get bullied lol.
an occasional shotblock doesnt = unable to be bullied. at his height hes simply going to get a solid number of blocks. even shawn bradley got a lot of blocks, didnt change the fact that he was bullied the majority of the time.
i think wemby will be a fantastic player. just not a top 10 all time player, and especially not remotely close to goat level as so many people proclaim. i think he has too many physical limitations. id say the only way he reaches that level is if he successfully puts on 60-70 lbs and manages to maintain his health and longevity while doing so (plus winning a boatload of mvps, les, and all-NBA 1st team selections). so pretty much impossible.
Disagree, the 70s was a prime era of enforcers and dirty play. Eg Kermit Washington nearly killing Rudy T. Kent Bentson breaking Kareem's rib and getting dropped for it. There were at least two Spurs games in the 70s when the opposing team went in the stands to beat up fat Mexicans. One against the Celtics in the playoffs, another against the Nets in the playoffs. One of the big reasons the TV ratings were so terrible, because the game was pretty violent then and the NBA was seen as a bunch of thugs.
regardless i originally wasnt talking about fist fights and dirty stuff. i was simply talking about defense. fighting and dirty play does not = strong defense. it doesnt take much to watch how absolutely awful defense in the NBA actually was until the 90s (and even then, unless it was a full court press, nobody bothered to guard anyone more than 19 feet from the basket)
Majority of injuries happened not because of other players hurting you, and most definitely not because you try to defend bigger players, it’s because you are too big for your own skeletal structure to hold you up, and this is especially true for bigs.
Walton, Sampson, admiral, Sabonis, even Duncan’s knees to an extent. You also have Anthony Davis, Embiid in the modern days. Jokic is actually strangely healthy so far despite his weight. Shaq and Hakeem also dealt with minor injuries here and there but were lately heavy despite their frames. But they are definitely the minority.
Of course there’s a heavy dose of luck involved. Wemby is incredibly flexible and his frame doesn’t give him the wear and tear. People cite Kareem a lot but another player is Garnett. Big guy who moves like a guard, rail thin but deceptively strong. If wemby can model his game after Garnett, but with better inside scoring, the spurs would have a much easier time building the team.
Hope wemby can build on his lower body strength so he won’t be bumped out on drives and moved out of position relatively easily. He doesn’t need to gain weight, just lower body strength.
Sweet Jesus, you ain't laid something choice like this down for years, amb.
amb
People said KD needed to put on weight. Not everyone needs to be a body in the paint, plus you'd stunt his career about 8 years if he got anywhere near 300.
And you haven’t had a compliment this backhanded since … well, yesterday.
It ain't backhanded whatsoever. (That) arguably was your finest hour. You & I think alike more than you realize, amb.
Speakin' of 300 your head is close to that, Lue...pure cement.
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