treasure the next 2 years of victor wembanyama while it lasts

soon, wemby will be unstoppable and less fun to watch

right now, victor wembanyama is the most fascinating player in basketball. he’s a physical freak of nature the likes we’ve never seen, has a skillset and bag that’s deep to an extent we’ve rarely seen, is still super young, his teammates are young and developing too, and his team isn’t (expected to be) competing for a championship.

which means no one on the planet, not even himself, knows what his optimal playing style is yet. there’s no pressure, no established system to conform to, no veteran hierarchy. he’s allowed to freestyle and experiment.

in a single game, wemby will pull up from 30 feet, run an inverted pick and roll as the ball handler, and make plays from the low post. he’ll set picks and roll to the rim. set picks and fade to the perimeter. catch and shoot. step backs, side steps, step throughs, one legged fadeaways. floaters. aggressive drives with power. finesse finishes with touch. facilitating from the elbow.

the potential outcomes of any given play are endless. he can do anything at any moment and it actually works at the nba level. no one’s ever had this much optionality before, game to game, play by play.

this phase has maybe 2-3 years left. maybe less.

then comes the transformation every generational talent goes through. and when it happens, this version of wemby disappears forever.

look at young lebron highlights from his first cleveland stint. those first 3-4 years, he took and made some of the most ridiculous low efficiency shots possible. the bag was on full display, and it was electric to watch.

then he made the finals, the media pressure intensified, and his game had to mature fast. by the time he got to miami, he’d transformed into the first version of hyper efficient bron. the optimization was complete. and since then, we’ve never seen raw, experimental, deep bag lebron ever again.

same with giannis. people who don’t know ball call him “run and dunk man” and pull up clips from his rookie year saying his shooting form used to be better, that he’s somehow regressed. not true. early giannis tried everything, then he figured out what makes him unstoppable. and now he just does those things until you break. the bag got smaller and became lethal. that’s not regression. that’s evolution into dominance.

kyrie too. he obviously still has the most creative bag in the league and pulls it out when necessary, but watch him game to game now. most possessions, he’s hyper efficient. minimal dribbles, one or two moves max, bucket. the artistry is still there, it’s just been distilled into pure efficiency.

that’s what wemby will become. hyper efficient. a few go to moves and spots. repeatedly dominating with the same stuff. he’ll cut out the vast majority of his bag. and people will claim he regressed or isn’t as fun anymore or his game got boring.

but that will be his final form. the scariest, most dominant form.

which parts of his game survive the filtering process? nobody knows. not the spurs coaching staff. not the analysts. not wemby himself. he’s still figuring it out in real time.

and that’s what makes right now so precious.

you’re watching basketball history that only exists in this exact window. unprecedented physical dimensions, legitimate skill depth, complete situational freedom, zero pressure to optimize immediately.

this version is temporary. once he solves the equation, once he identifies the three or four things he does better than anyone can stop, it vanishes forever.

we’re watching someone with gifts we’ve never seen discover what’s optimal, in real time, with complete freedom, at the highest level of basketball. it’s a moment that exists only once.

two years from now, when wemby is hunting championships with his streamlined game, when he’s methodically destroying teams with the same moves over and over, when casual fans are complaining that he’s not as fun anymore, you’ll remember this.

you’ll remember when he could do everything. when every possession was a mystery. when the possibility space was infinite.

and you’ll wish you paid more attention.

treasure it while it lasts.

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