How We Failed Wemby (and How We Can Fix It)

[Atl Spur]

of course it is because he has to bring it on both ends. And wrestling in the post tires you out even more. That being said it's not that his jumpers are short, but he's definitely settling for dumb shots or passing the ball back out when he's tired.

Agreed! He needs to be more patient but also impose his will on the other team. I will say again, take the Dirk approach on offense ( mid post is killer / with occasional open 3 ) & various pic and rolls.

[hater]

Wembys career will be fine as long as hes healthy

His most pessimistic outlook is still a perennial allstar and multi year champ

But it does looks like he will have to leave the Spurs to even achieve that low bar

Who d is the scrub that is coaching right now???

Smdh

[Leetonidas]

Trying to give Wemby the benefit of the doubt that he'll shake the rust off soon. It's still early so I don't think it's time to panic yet. In 10-15 games we'll see. Definitely is becoming a legit concern though

[Mugen]

He needs to learn some accountability and not just have another excuse tbh. The coaching was bad last year as well and he still produced.

Seems like growing pains and fatigue catching up to him after his first full season of NBA ball + Olympics play. I think he'll break through it tbh.

[Raven]

It's a real concern. I've been annoyed by his Stephen Curry shot selection since the start of the season. Fortunately he's curtailing his chucking a bit lately.

That said, I'm not really worried long term. End of last season was good, but the team still didn't know how best to play with Wembanyama, how he requires so much space and has issues with position.

The league is the best in the world, and really good at adjusting to young players. Teams know when to dig at his drives, when to send doubles, how to jam areas to hurt where he operates. He's also more of a SF in playstyle where his shooting isn't quite there at this time.

The team seems to be taking the early part of the season to work pieces in and see what fits. This is a better version of last year, or at least one where we're actually still winning. But I think they're working things out. Paul and Wemby didn't have much preseason game time together. They need to learn how to win with and without Wembanyama and this was working pretty well, or at least they were activating Sochan a lot. And then they've been missing a key SG.

I dunno. It's a long season. Dude is tired from the summer. They have room to tinker and work while they're still .500 already.

if i were to take a stab at fixing his post issues, i would say that he should be less focused on trying to get position and more focused on running in circles around the paint, since nobody can block him.

[itzsoweezee]

He’s out of shape and consistently putting in a half assed effort in most games. He’s shooting threes rather than moving around on offense. He’s subbing out 5 minutes into the game. He’s not putting in consistent effort on the defensive end - last year he was guarding entire areas of the court by himself, he’s not doing that now.

I don’t know if he’s injured, or just out of shape, or maybe he’s just internalized that these games don’t matter. But it’s pretty clear that wemby’s poor play is not due to X’s and O’s or roster construction.

[MannyIsGod]

Wemby is not "fine"

What other 20-year old blue chip prospects regressed their second season?

Here are some 20-year old blue chip prospects in their second seasons:

Lebron: +8.8 ppg, +1.3 apg, +1.9 rpg, +0.066 TS%
KD: +5.0 ppg, +0.4 apg, +2.1 rpg, +0.058 TS%
Luka: +7.6 ppg, +2.8 apg, +1.5 rpg, +0.040 TS%
Ant: +2.0 ppg, +0.9 apg, +0.1 rpg, +0.37 TS%
Wemby: -3.0 ppg, -1.1 apg. -0.8 rpg, +0.2 bpg, -0.035 TS%

We should go back and let those other guys know they were "supposed" to regress their second years when they were 20.

You know better than this Scott. But if you want to bet on whether or not Wemby will have regressed when it comes to the end of the year stats I am happy to bet if you actually feel he has regressed. But I suspect you know this is a small sample size after the league has learned to adapt to him and while he is shooting poorly and he will figure it out quite soon.

[SupremeGuy]

Its just the same the inly difference was timmy has high BBIQ,post moves and always play in the post.

I dunno, man. Seems like Wemby gets swarmed a lot more than Timmy ever did. More like David tbh. But The Admiral had the body and mentality to play hard in the paint. Wemby seems like he wants to be a guard. I don't think anyone would have a problem with that if he was hitting his 3s at a high percentage. Lew and Hakeem need invites to give Wemby some hook shot training tbh. Since he clearly doesn't want to bang.

[LeBowen]

I dunno, man. Seems like Wemby gets swarmed a lot more than Timmy ever did. More like David tbh. But The Admiral had the body and mentality to play hard in the paint. Wemby seems like he wants to be a guard. I don't think anyone would have a problem with that if he was hitting his 3s at a high percentage. Lew and Hakeem need invites to give Wemby some hook shot training tbh. Since he clearly doesn't want to bang.

Can't compare the game back then to what we have now.
Timmy was also 21y6m old when he made his NBA debut. Played alongside an all-time great and had a very good roster around him.
Wemby won't turn 21 for a couple of months. Drafted into a top3 worst roster in the league.
Admiral was 24 in his rookie season.

[Pauleta14]

of course it is because he has to bring it on both ends. And wrestling in the post tires you out even more. That being said it's not that his jumpers are short, but he's definitely settling for dumb shots or passing the ball back out when he's tired.

Why would someone who's shown poise and high BBIQ would suddenly make dumb decisions every games...?

Stamina could indeed be an explanation, but it's his 9th game now, it can't be (just) that

To me it's just a childish behaviour, there's still a kid in him and that's probably the way he's acted with his parents and teachers all his life. He's not a confrontational person, not the type to say out loud if there's a pb, but keep it for him for too long.

Pop was the one that took care of it last season after the ASG, now that he's gone, Wemby is ed

[Pauleta14]

https://www.youtube.com/live/_d2qeVt...46xjjZy2yEK3On

[Pauleta14]

Tim Legler seems to agree. The Spurs are mismanaging Wemby

The whole league can see it but ST knows better

[scott]

Wemby has failed himself not coming into the season in shape. He's gassed after every 5 minute stint. The guy literally can't play longer than 5 minutes and that's with time outs in between.

Wemby failed wemby by playing street ball.

Yeah Wemby’s playing a completely different style than the one where he was dominating towards the second half of last season.

You see, the thing is... these are not mutually exclusive to my point. Yes - Wemby is too blame for a lot of this stuff. His lack of conditioning, his lack of discipline, his propensity to jack up threes... he is all equally responsible for all of these things.

But, who is that mentor, that on the court leader to guide him to how to play the right way? CP3 is the closest thing we got, but he is no longer capable of leading with his play on the court. It's not CP3s fault he was born 39 years ago - but that is a fact we need to acknowledge.

Wemby is not getting coached, and he doesn't have that on the court leader to show him what winning basketball looks like. That is the Front Office's fault, and that is where they've failed him.

I wish we could just say this is a slump... but it's not. It's not just that Wemby's 3s aren't falling, it's that he's playing an entirely soft, street ball style that won't be corrected if those 3s start falling... in fact, it may reinforce this bad behavior and make it worse!

We should have put a better team around him so that this kind of play would not be acceptable. Right now, it just gets accepted because "we're seeing what we have"

Wemby NEEDS to ask for a trade ASAP

We were right last season, this is the worst organisation and roste for him by far

What? Delete your account.

[scott]

I keep going back and forth on this...noone should be absolved of their part of the blame.
Coaching has been subpar, spacing is disgustingly bad, most of the roster still can't get the ball to Wemby, but he's also looked poor in most situations.

First off, I don't buy into those low effort arguments because every single NBA player prefers being active on offense.
Wemby's defense has been beyond ridiculous and anyone who doesn't see it is a blind hater. He's at 3.7 blocks per game with opponents regularly it passing out because they don't even bother to challenge him.
He didn't have a single game with more than one or two bad possessions. He's easily on GOAT defender trajectory.
If he shows effort on defense, there's no reason for him to not show it on offense.

To me it just looks like he's straight up lost and doesn't know what to do because he lost confidence.
That's where coaching staff should come in.
Instead they told him to jack it up from deep at will. I don't think Wemby is a player who'd do it against coaching staff's wishes.
It's obviously not working and he's doubling down, starts shooting until he makes some.

But the biggest issue for me are his handles. They're obviously great for someone of his stature, but he's still a 7'4 player and the ball simply has to go high while he's dribbling.
Everyone figured it out and it's really easy for good defenders to force turnovers. I don't think Wemby should be handling the ball on the perimeter unless it's an iso against slow bigs.
There's no advantage to be had against wings or guards, he's not beating them off the dribble.

If we're talking post-ups, he lacks strength and again everyone figured it out.
Some are saying we should bring LMA to coach him, but much like LMA wouldn't be able to handle it like Wemby, Wemby can't use LMA's moves with his current physical tools.
Every time he tries to go up for a fadeaway he gets bumped and pushed off the balance. Same thing happens when he tries to put it down on the floor and attack the basket.
Unless he's really deep and long enough to lay it in, he loses balance and can't get to the basket.
What coaching staff should work on is his face-up game around the post.
Get Timmy in and work on those jumpers close to the paint. With his touch (31-34 FT so far) it should be automatic.

But for every Wemby's flaw, the team is o much worse.
Just rewatch last night's game. At least 5 situations where they can just throw it high while he's got the defender somewhat sealed in the paint, but they don't...then Wemby just goes back to the corner and is out of possession completely.

Lastly, Olympics obviously messed with his preparation and he looks like we're 60 games into the season. Completely gassed after 7 minutes.

Overall, as long as his defense is on current level, there should be no alarms, it should be on coaching staff to figure out how to get him more easy points because he's obviously showing effort, even though it sometimes doesn't look like it.

Yes, exactly! Everything you just described - from the coaching to the lack of what's around him to his own culpability - that is the failing. The Spurs can only control two of those three things, and try to influence the other. But they've just said " it, it will figure itself out with another high draft pick eventually". That's the failing.

[Pauleta14]

What? Delete your account.

Every thing's gonna be ok scotty, just breathe

[scott]

Last time I checked, when those other guys stub their toes, Wemby doesn't feel it. You can't have it both ways. Wemby can't be praised for having better numbers than those guys his rookie year and then panic when those guys catch up the next year. Growth isn't linear. We all know why Wemby is struggling to put up points this year. It's not a mystery. If the goal is to get him to have better numbers, he needs to stop being a perimeter scorer and focus more on playing off his teammates. His efficiency, rebounds and points would go way up, and his turnovers would drop. But that would imply that he isn't the greatest, or limit him or some other nonsense, so we can't have that.

I don't know of anyone who is against the bolded portion. That is absolutely what should be happening, but it's not - and it is a disservice to his development. Why? Because there is no accountability from the coaching staff or his teammates. He's just allowed to be an inefficient chucker. But here you are, telling us this is "what he is supposed to do"

There's more than one way to sniff, man. Obsessing over Wemby's exaltation fits that category. At least for Pop sniffers, people are doing it based on what he's already done versus what they hope he'll eventually do. We can be Spurs fans who enjoy Wemby without constantly panicking over his place next to the greats.

Once again, you completely miss the mark. This isn't about Wemby's stats or his place among the greats. It's about the fact that we are witnessing him ACTIVELY GETTING WORSE on the offensive side of the ball in the apparent hope that he'll eventually just figure it out on his own.

We should have high expectations of him, and our team should be doing everything in its power to help him reach those expectations. The GOATs don't achieve greatness but just some laissez faire approach to the game and hopefully they'll be good and we'll also happen to win. They push themselves. Right now, Wemby's only pushing himself in the wrong direction and our coaching staff and team structure only serves to either enable it or, at a very minimum, do nothing to stop it.

[scott]

Sorry scott, Wemby's the one playing low BBIQ ball. He needs to ing quit roaming to the three point line constantly in halfcourt sets. Every time he puts up one of those catch and shoot threes from the top of the key area might as well just call it a turnover. Can't blame this season on the supporting cast, even Branham is looking decent and Sochan is becoming the player we all envisioned in 2022 ( ing sucks losing him 4-6 weeks).

This is actually the point, my man. Where is a coach or a team leader to actively manage him into improving that BBIQ?

Branham and Sochan can be playing great, but let's be honest... they are not going to be the ones who talk sense into him and hold him accountable. A CP3 type, closer to his prime, would have been that guy. You need a coach who is actively COACHING, and it helps to have an on-the-court mentor who leads either with words or with actions on the court.

You listen to Tony Parker interviews and he talks about how Timmy intimidated the out of him because Tony knew bull wouldn't be tolerated. Who's the guy on this team to not tolerate Wemby's bull and get him pointed back in the right direction?

[Pauleta14]

Instead on only focusing on how Wemby looked at the end of last season when he was dominating, you should focus on how his teammates looked and how the team played for him, which they just stoped doing...

Even with Vassell out and a bunch of Gleaguers he dominated the Nuggets, it's not just having 3pts shooter to space out, it's the movements around him and THE WILL to play via him, using him court vision, playmaking abilities etc

They just stoped doing it and oh surprise Wemby looks as lost as last season's pre ASG

[scott]

He needs to learn some accountability and not just have another excuse tbh. The coaching was bad last year as well and he still produced.

Seems like growing pains and fatigue catching up to him after his first full season of NBA ball + Olympics play. I think he'll break through it tbh.

Absolutely - and that's the point. Who is keeping Wemby accountable? It's not just that his shot isn't falling and that he is rusty... he is playing WEAK and STUPID.

The Spurs would be well suited if 1) the coaching staff held him accountable (since he says he wants to be coached hard) and 2) he had high performing teammates who didn't tolerate this and forced Wemby to raise his game.

People naturally respond to the environment around him. Being a team full of scrubs doesn't force Wemby to elevate his game. Being on a compe ive team would... we've seen in the past last year how he would elevate his game a notch in close or perceived "big games". We need more of that.

[scott]

You know better than this Scott. But if you want to bet on whether or not Wemby will have regressed when it comes to the end of the year stats I am happy to bet if you actually feel he has regressed. But I suspect you know this is a small sample size after the league has learned to adapt to him and while he is shooting poorly and he will figure it out quite soon.

Yes it's a small sample size, but do you watch the games, Manny? So far this season, he has quite clearly regressed on the offensive end. It's not just the fact that his shots aren't falling... he is playing soft and making stupid decisions - especially compared to how he was playing after the ASB last year.

We need not wait for the sample size to get larger to take corrective action on an obvious problem.

[vy65]

I have similar concerns, but not as severe as Scott's. Wondering aloud, I wonder if the team is doing another 20-game experiment (like the Point Sochan one from last year) where they're letting Wemby do his best KD impression to see if it's something that will work. It clearly hasn't 11-12 games in.

I'd be all for adding talent to the roster, but that begs the question of who. Ideally, you'd want a big man. Giannis comes to mind with how the Bucks are doing, but I don't think emptying the cupboard for him is worth it. Is it someone like Randle? I don't think so. Ayton? no. Some white stiff like Vucevic or Zubac? Probably not. Aside from big men, the only star-tier player that's available right now is Zach Levine -- no thanks. Other than that, I can't think of anyone who would fit the description.

[Leetonidas]

Wemby is not "fine"

What other 20-year old blue chip prospects regressed their second season?

Here are some 20-year old blue chip prospects in their second seasons:

Lebron: +8.8 ppg, +1.3 apg, +1.9 rpg, +0.066 TS%
KD: +5.0 ppg, +0.4 apg, +2.1 rpg, +0.058 TS%
Luka: +7.6 ppg, +2.8 apg, +1.5 rpg, +0.040 TS%
Ant: +2.0 ppg, +0.9 apg, +0.1 rpg, +0.37 TS%
Wemby: -3.0 ppg, -1.1 apg. -0.8 rpg, +0.2 bpg, -0.035 TS%

We should go back and let those other guys know they were "supposed" to regress their second years when they were 20.

I assume those are full season numbers compared to Victor's first 9 games? Probably would be able to draw more conclusions by comparing the first 10-15 games of those guy's 2nd years instead of the entire season imho

[Mugen]

This is actually the point, my man. Where is a coach or a team leader to actively manage him into improving that BBIQ?

Branham and Sochan can be playing great, but let's be honest... they are going to be the ones who talk sense into him and hold him accountable. A CP3 type, closer to his prime, would have been that guy. You need a coach who is actively COACHING, and it helps to have an on-the-court mentor who leads either with words or with actions on the court.

You listen to Tony Parker interviews and he talks about how Timmy intimidated the out of him because Tony knew bull wouldn't be tolerated. Who's the guy on this team to not tolerate Wemby's bull and get him pointed back in the right direction?

I hear what you're saying but the reality of Wemby's situation is that he's just not gonna have the same benefit as Timmy/Tony did in terms of having alpha dog mentorship. Those were frankly lightning in the bottle situations and what Wemby is going through now (having to learn to be a leader and hold himself accountable) is much more the norm in the NBA when you're talking about ty teams.

You just can't bring in a D-Rob or Timmy type to "intimidate" Wemby. I do think the FO recognized the importance of veteran presence in the locker room during last season and that's why CP3/Barnes are on the team tbh.

In theory, it should be Pop but a coach (especially an old one who got passed by the game years ago) can only have so much impact.

Wemby is going through some growing pains. You can argue about him needing more structure around him and I don't necessarily disagree. But ultimately the onus will be on him to mature and get through this like other great players have done in the past tbh. He needs to learn accountability and not just talk about it. What we're seeing right now is that process play out tbh, as painful as it may be right now.

[scott]

I have similar concerns, but not as severe as Scott's. Wondering aloud, I wonder if the team is doing another 20-game experiment (like the Point Sochan one from last year) where they're letting Wemby do his best KD impression to see if it's something that will work. It clearly hasn't 11-12 games in.

I'd be all for adding talent to the roster, but that begs the question of who. Ideally, you'd want a big man. Giannis comes to mind with how the Bucks are doing, but I don't think emptying the cupboard for him is worth it. Is it someone like Randle? I don't think so. Ayton? no. Some white stiff like Vucevic or Zubac? Probably not. Aside from big men, the only star-tier player that's available right now is Zach Levine -- no thanks. Other than that, I can't think of anyone who would fit the description.

Yeah, I don't think the opportunities are there to add a second star right now, neither from a cost perspective or from a availability perspective. A Devin Booker would be ideal... but he's neither available or affordable, so it's not worth thinking about.

However... I think we could make some smaller moves that just improve the overall level of our team to a point where Wemby is "forced" to quit ing around and to play winning basketball.

What if you added a Dorian Finney Smith to this roster to take up Keldon Johnson minutes?

We've talked about Brooks Lopez before... what if you could upgrade from Collins to him?

These are guys who will necessarily spend a lot of time with Wemby on the court, but they'll raise the level of our team and (I hope) elevate Wemby's game as they'll make us generally more compe ive and the team overall will be trying to win games.

I think this is the correct part of what Pop said before last season - winning is important, not just in the aspect of competing for les, but because winning is also a development tool. Winning teaches guys how to play like winners. Right now, we lack that and we seem to be okay with it.

[scott]

I assume those are full season numbers compared to Victor's first 9 games? Probably would be able to draw more conclusions by comparing the first 10-15 games of those guy's 2nd years instead of the entire season imho

The stats are just a proxy for individual performance, because what else is there to go by. I only brought those up in response to Chinook's asinine suggestion that 20-year blue chip prospects are "supposed" to do what Wemby's doing (noticeably regress). Ignore the stats and just ask yourself... does Wemby look better or worse than he did last year on the offensive end? He looks SIGNIFICANTLY worse to me, it is quite obvious regression. This is no bueno.