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Lol no seeing our players get stronger is absolutely devastating! You are wrong here.
When Wembanyama first came into the league, Spurs fans were excited and optimistic about the team's future, a bunch of us were really worried about whether he would be able to remain healthy. He looked somewhat frail and very thin. We added Fox along with veteran PG Chris Paul. We have Castle and Vassel and Mamu as part of a young (apart from Paul) nucleus. Then we found out Victor had a blood clot which upped many of our fears. As everybody here knows, the doctors said they caught it early and he is expected to make a full recovery.
Sean Elliott had said that Victor had added 25 pounds onto his frame. Still, his height and the jersey emphasize how thin he appears. I saw a couple of videos which, of course, show Wembanyama in them. They are when he passed out the popcorn and another when he was in his jersey speaking to the crowd. To my eye, he looks physically stronger than previously.
Clearly his health is paramount to the team's future return to relevance. Seeing him appear physically stronger is, to me, a relief. Anybody else agree or am I completely wrong here?
Lol no seeing our players get stronger is absolutely devastating! You are wrong here.
Of course he will get stronger and fill out more as he gets older.
Just get him whataburger and some churros
To me Wemby really needs to work on his conditioning as he was always gassed late in games and had problems playing back to back. As far as him getting bigger I don’t really think he will add that much more muscle with his frame at most we are talking about 10 to 15pds. He never is going to be a big banger down low or a great screen setter as he is just so thin.
Not hating on him as no one is perfect but so far it is pretty clear we need to pair him with a big PF and a good backup Center to complete this team - A good shooting SF would also be a a welcome addition.
I sometimes want to comment on Victor's conditioning, but I don't normally say much because I have no idea what it's like being 7'4"/5" and if that contributes a little bit to it. Maybe it's very hard to have elite condtioning at that size? I really don't know, so I can't comment on it much.
It's definitely NOT because he's lazy as some posters here liked to say about him earlier in the season.
Last edited by Ice009; 03-23-2025 at 11:13 AM.
To be fair, it is a lot of vein mileage that poor heart has to pump.
A player that I keep going back to is Houston- Ralph Sampson who was 7’4, and weighed around 230 pds. To me Wemby should watch his tape I think it would help him figure out a lot of things and also who ever our new coach is to see how Houston used him.
If we look at his career I think Wemby has about 6 years of great basketball after that it will probably be injury plagued as Sampson career was shut short from back and feet issues. The only way to extend him is to reduce playing time and keep him away from bruisers.
Well, I didn't see him on the bench the last two games I attended. That Mamu 34pts performance was such a great game to attend.
I don't really want to go back and look at that as it's probably a depressing story. I am hoping Victor is different. Treatments and medical procedues and things like that seem to be better these days, and that coupled with better understanding of nutrition, I'm hopeful Victor can have a very long and productive career.
But yeah, we need to keep him away from bruisers. Don't need to add unecessary wear on him trying to play against those types of players on any kind of regular basis.
Having said that, what makes Sampson different to Kareem (apart from being a little bit taller)? Kareem is more the guy I'm looking at to compare to Victor body wise as I know a bit more about him, but that is probably because he had a long career, so I've heard more about it. I assume the reason we don't hear much about Ralph Samson is because he didn't have many years where he was healthy? I assume he was really good when he was healthy?
Edit : I'd been meaning to ask about him not being on the bench. Is he still with the team, or has he gone off somewhere else? Hopefully everything is all OK. I also wonder if he was maybe there but staying out the back instead rather than going courtside?
The Rockets rushed Sampson back from a knee surgery in 8 weeks in 1987 and that basically ended his career. There is a lot I'm concerned with on this Spurs team from coaching to ownership to the front office but pressuring an injured player to rush back isn't one of them. Also I'm old enough to have seen Sampson's entire career and he was never Victor. For instance his career high was 2.4 blocks a game in an era where the ball went in the post every possession while Victor put up 3.6 bpg as 19-20 year old and was up to 3.8 blk this season in an era where everyone shoots the three and block opportunities are at a minimum. Victor's block rate was on par with Manute Bol's last time I checked. Sampson was never half the defender Victor is. Anyways, I don't buy the narrative that Sampson was inherently injury prone: his career was wrecked his team mismanaging one injury. Same as Bill Walton. Same as Grant Hill. If the Spurs let Tim Duncan come back and play on that torn meniscus in 2000, and he desperately wanted back that season, we'd probably be saying the same for him and calling him one of the greatest what ifs. Same for if Don Nelson wasn't there to keep Cuban from rushing Dirk back in the 03 WCF after Nelson promised Dirk's dad he'd look out for his son and put what was best for Dirk first.
Last edited by baseline bum; 03-23-2025 at 06:12 PM.
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