You are right. All those guys turned out pretty well and won a lot of les...
I don't know if Derrick Rose and John Wall are good counter examples for the Wemby-will-always-be-injured-because-he's-thin debate...
I hate all of those players. None are franchise guys. I'd also prefer a Euro who might, you know, actually STAY in San Antonio. Victor's frame is also not really an issue. Go back and look at Giannis or even our own Devin Vassell as rookies. Sticks. You can add weight over your first two years or so.
If wemby can stay healthy in the rough and tumble European leagues, he’d be fine intodays ultra soft nba.
It isn’t Victor’s frame that correlates with his ability to stay healthy, it’s his height. Players over 7’2 have hardly stayed injury free. Like ever.
Shawn Bradley had seven seasons where he played 82, 82, 81, 79, 77, 77, and 73 games.
https://www.basketball-reference.com...bradlsh01.html
Mark eaton and manute bol stayed relatively healthy over their careers. There was that 7’3” guy who played for the wolves a bit that was relatively healthy. But point taken. Yao Ming, gheorge muresan, rik smits and Ralph Sampson all suffered.
Out of the 55 total players who are 7’2 or taller in the history of the NBA…
only 11 players played eight seasons worth of games (650 games)
That means only 20% of these excessively tall players have a real worthwhile NBA career
that number becomes much worse if I filter it by Wemba’s height (is it 7’5” now?) and find similar players that way.
And all 11 of those players played in an era with much slower pace meaning less pressure on their joints.
To make matters worse - out of all 55 of those 7’2” and over players, only one became a superstar.
Last edited by Dejounte; 11-18-2022 at 12:45 AM.
The average NBA career is about 4.5 to 5 years across the entire spectrum of height in the league, so saying that the random sample of taller players didn't play eight seasons doesn't mean anything. A selection of players of any height aren't going to play an average of eight years.
Average careers for players with…
Height of 7 feet or more = 5.78 seasons.
Height from 6-7 to 6-11 = 5.43 seasons.
Height from 6-3 to 6-6 = 4.51 seasons.
Height 6-2 or below = 4.12 seasons.
https://weaksideawareness.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/average-nba-career-length-for-players-details/#:~:text=Height%20of%207%20feet%20or,2%20or%20belo w%20%3D%204.12%20seasons.
Last edited by R. DeMurre; 11-18-2022 at 01:42 AM.
Eight seasons is about the length of which Murray was a Spur so think about how short-lived that was. Five seasons is about a rookie contract and a half. There’s a better way for filtering this, such as if we look at non journey men/ non busts only, and I can do it when I’m not doing all this on my phone. It’s obvious any data that reports the average length of career that’s shown in your list is misrepresentative of the argument at hand. One reason being is that it includes 7 footers to 7’1”, which I didn’t argue against having long careers. Givony has reported two days ago that Wemba is at 7’4” now. Another reason the list is misrepresentative is the volume of players at each group. Third, like I mentioned earlier, it’s taking into account players who weren’t good enough for the NBA.
I don’t question how good Wemba will be in the league. In fact, I would take him at #1. But people drinking the koolaid can’t ignore the likelihood of a injury-prone career reality when it comes to excessively tall players like Wemba.
You said "it isn’t Victor’s frame that correlates with his ability to stay healthy, it’s his height. Players over 7’2 have hardly stayed injury free. Like ever."
When one of the best ever was among the most durable as well, that proves it CAN be done. But now you want to make it about career success, disregarding
a) that the same argument can be make for players of any height
b) being above a certain height is the one trait more likely to get you to the NBA by itself (without any other obvious success predicting trait or skill)
So yeah... considering how small the sample of people that tall is, and how unlikely having a long NBA career is in general, coming up with a short list of successful players of such height is an extremely underwhelming fact to support your stance, especially when we're talking about a player whose talent gap compared to just about anyone in your list is ABYSMAL... except the guy you seemed to be forgetting.
"drinking the koolaid"? people aren't ignoring that there's a significant risk of him dealing with injuries, but going from that to the notion that he's somehow doomed to bust out as a result of injuries is an entirely different claim, particularly when that's also related to other factors that can be influenced, like load management, playing style, etc. Can it happen? Sure... it also happened to 6'3" Derrick Rose at 23...
With a player of Wembanyama's caliber, a 5 year career would be a huge disappointment. Like was said earlier the pool of comparable players is too small to make statistics though. you'd need to look at not only the NBA but maybe add the various European leagues in history to add more players that big and see if the trend is the same over there.
Also, I know for a fact that Victor goes through very rigorous training focusing specifically on balance and stretching, which probably none of those other bigs ever went through. He's giving himself every chance to succeed. That's also part of the reason why he's so much more "gracious" than all of them ever were.
As a pre-NBA Spurs fan, I'd bump up my avatar to 1329 games.
Two counters to arguments above:
1) Some tall players don't have longer careers because they aren't good basketball players. Wembanyama is a good basketball player.
2) Wembanyama already had injuries. Without data, I believe previous injury history is more predictive than height.
Have to take VW if they land the first pick.
Then if they don't want him they can swap him for the 2nd pick + other assets and take Scoot Henderson.
This is why I'm not mad at the idea of scoot at all. I'm just not sold on Wembys sustainability. I feel Scoot would have the Prime time appeal as well. He's also where the spurs are the weakest at right now with sochan, vassell, and keldon making up the core.
I don't see why people are so quick to want to get rid of Poetl either. He said he wants to be around and go through the rebuild with the team. He wants to stay a Spur and he gives you what everyone hopes drafting someone like duren would give you. He's already a great role player for the young guys with minimal ego. He's perfect support for a rebuild.
Would love to roll the dice on wemby but Scoot really looks like a great fit in SA. He's the alpha go to crunch time player every team needs in the position the spurs need the most.
But outside of those two, the top forwards look like they can be very special. A top 5 pick will be great this year.
The thing that worries me about Scoot is that he’s an American who came up thru the AAU system, and will likely bolt for a big market at the first oppo. What good is it if his hypothetical longer career is spent somewhere else?
Using "somehow doomed" is disingenuous at best when there's proof being provided. Let me be clear that it was my mistake that there happened to be ONE guy out of 55 that didn't have an underwhelming career.
But here is drinking the koolaid for you:
1) Pointing out only ONE player as a reference to Wemba possibly being OK for his career is ignoring the odds, which you acknowledged that there is a significant risk of him dealing with injuries (your own words)
2) Falsely claiming that there's a talent gap between Wemba and the guys I listed from my list. I'm not going to go through the entire 55 players, but from the first several that I clicked: a 4th overall pick, a 1st overall pick, a 2nd overall pick, a 2nd overall pick, a 4th overall pick, a 1st overall pick, a 2nd overall pick. Just because we know how they turned out doesn't mean they weren't viewed as talented players when they were first drafted. And it's incredibly presumptive to say that Wemba will have a better career than them when he hasn't stepped on the NBA court. Greg Oden was hailed as the next great thing until he wasn't.
3) Stating that height gets you more likely into the NBA is a trivial statement and not sure relates to the current discussion (which is reiterated again below) so you may want to elaborate on this further. Being too tall isn't some abstract idea. There is such a thing as being too tall for NBA basketball as there is being too short to play NBA basketball. A 9 footer doesn't mean you're going to be the best at basketball. There are drawbacks to being too tall.
The argument at hand is that OVER 7'2" = Career is significantly likely to be derailed by injury (which you said word for word you agree with). My focus is on the odds.
And for the sake of the argument, here is Wemba's injury history:
1) Stress fracture in fibula
2) fractured finger
3) psoas injury (a "very rare condition" that causes back pain)
Let me repeat: I would draft Wemba with the #1 pick given these concerns. I simply disagree with the notion that once he's drafted, simply taking preventative measures will make him the second ever most durable player in that height range. The concerns will be there from the beginning of his career to the end, and that's because you can't disregard history that is known with players this tall.
Last edited by Dejounte; 11-19-2022 at 08:38 AM.
And y'all are acting like I'm taking some unpopular stance about this. There are many who absolutely feel the same way, hence the phrase "drinking the koolaid" for those who think otherwise on the subject.
Drinking the kool aid is actually the opposite of that. It’s going with the crowd, the consensus. In Jonestown, there were over 900 who drank the cyanide laced koolaid, and only like 10:who escaped into the jungle.
Last edited by exstatic; 11-19-2022 at 11:52 AM.
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