[Highlight] Victor Wembanyama with the unreal block on Cade Cunningham’s floater attempt, as Stephon Castle makes the corner 3 at the other end, to the delight of Wemby (with replays)
Spurs offensive rating in the possession after a Wemby block has to be like 190 I swear. Shit’s magic.
That’s because most of his blocks are kept alive so it’s essentially live ball turnover and fast break on the other side
72% of his blocks are recovered by his teammates. Bill Russell territory
Is there more for comparison with this stat? Like i know Russell was renowned for it, Wemby feels like he keeps a lot in play, but how do they compare to like the next closest or league average?
Duncan was actually famous for doing it too. He once clowned on Dwight because Howard would take every possible rejection and launch it into the 6th row, whereas Duncan would just swat it down to teammates and cause a turnover.
Duncan is right lol. Its always a trip to see shot blockers cock back and hit the ball into the stands lol. All that effort you could’ve just grabbed the ball.
There was literally a paper at Sloan about blocks value and it was called From Dwight Howard to Tim Duncan. Because Dwight’s blocks were the least valuable and TD’s were the most valuable.
where do you got this? I’m genuinely curious how much the other legends measure up on things like this
The Tim Duncan Special
There was an awesome video I saw that put into perspective how good TD was at keeping blocks in bounds compared to Dwight Howard. It was some crazy stat like in one season Duncan blocked more shots in bounds than Dwight did his whole career
Yeah my favorites are when he volley spikes it straight to a teammate for the instant fast break. I’m like “whoa!!”
He learned from the best
https://youtu.be/G7Wa3C8s3Xg?si=146fLK2uRJ8-_xUB
I’d feel invincible if I just saw my franchise player do that to theirs lol, can imagine the shot afterwards feels divinely guided.
You roll with advantage after a Wemby block
Nat 20
You’re a short motherfucker and nobody likes you
+3 to perception and +3 to athletics
I remember a post on the spurs subreddit where somebody counted and wemby alone was at like 80 from 2 100 from 3 after a block
It’s just so impactful as well.
That’s a net 5pt difference, assuming Cade would normally make that bucket and Castle’s drills the 3.
Can’t be overstated how important that can be in a tight game against quality opposition, particularly because he has demonstrated the ability to get multiple clutch blocks within a short period. Suddenly you go from exchanging shots and scores, to either closing big gaps or getting genuine breathing room in front.
He did this at least twice in this game resulting in a Spurs 3, which ended up being the difference in gamescore.
And this is stuff that’s also relatively hard to quantify. Sure, it’ll go into the stat column as a block/turnover forced by Wemby and a 3 on the other end, but there’s no way to capture the impact it has on morale for both teams. Wemby goes up gets a block that would be on most players “greatest plays of all time compilation”, he does it nightly, and the Spurs usually convert on the other end. Other team looks up and the score just went from -4 to -7 in about 5 seconds when they thought they were about to cut it to 2 and have some momentum working for them.
Meanwhile, the Spurs players just got another reminder that a once-ever guy has their back on defense and if a shot is at all blockable near the rim, he’s going to outer space it. Vibes DO matter on the court because they’re reflective of effort. I can’t imagine the mental difference it must make between watching an alien swat the other team’s best player and convert into a team 3 vs having a superstar not even try to get back on defense because he’s whining at the refs for more foul calls.
No it’s the spurs.
It’s like a 16 year old playing in the driveway with his 10 year old brother. Who else is gonna have a chance at that ball?
They didn’t anticipate this possibility when they made goaltending rules
Shhh might give Silver an idea to add a goaltending zone
Honestly the league might need to start thinking about rule adjustments for guys with his kind of reach.
Nah, this kind of stuff gets the ratings.
I think that is goaltending, ball is on its way down?
Idk, use the distance between the white of the backboard and the top of the ball and it kinda looks like its getting smaller still when Wemby makes contact
Edit: This is the best I could get from the video. Looks like it might still be rising
Good angle. It might still be rising, but the resolution of these images is not enough to tell, as the difference is somewhere in the sub-pixel range. If it is not rising, then by the time of the second frame it must be falling. (It spends 0.0 seconds neither rising nor falling, so it must have reached its peak between the two frames.) I also don’t think wemby quite made contact by the second frame but the fingers are too blurry to be sure. So it still has time to fall. On the other hand if he actually did make contact by the second frame, then the position of the ball was moved by his hand, so it doesn’t indicate it wasn’t falling.
As a rule of thumb, I would say that if wemby or anyone else blocks a ball from the bottom, as he clearly is doing here, chances are extremely high that it is a goaltend, as otherwise he would have had to not only time it incredibly precisely, but also jumped/lifted his hand faster than the ball, which seems really unlikely. Think of it this way: when have you ever seen someone shoot a ball then another player rockets up from beneath to block before the ball reaches its apex? So I think refs should use this indicator bc they don’t have perfect slomo vision of every play.
In that pic, it doesn’t look like it’s going up
Looks like going down
He’s still eligible… they are about to overtake OKC for the first seed… i’m not saying anything…
We watch quietly 😬
It is so fucking weird to have Lakers fans cheering us on. Like that’s something I never thought I’d see regardless of where we are in the standings relative to each other.
I have followed Wemby since his rookie preseason. I am a huge believer.
Unless they’re playing your team I don’t know how you could dislike the Spurs right now. They’re in the young upstart phase. They have a collection of high energy players who seem to actually enjoy playing basketball. And they’re lead by one of the most exciting players in the history of the game.
He’s too good to ignore or hate on.
It sounded like Detroit was booing him at the free throw line in the 2nd half
I’m eagerly awaiting all the “best player, best team” back-pedaling.
One game isn’t the entire season. Just to clarify
I hope he’s wearing butt pads, that fall looked like it hurt a bit.
The thought of Wemby winning ROTY again is honestly hilarious, the league wouldn’t know what to do.
Eligible? Like is Alabama looking to give him a scholarship and NIL deal?
he’d need to play 23 of the last 25 games to be eligible
22* he can miss 4 more.
Wemby is pistons kryptonight. They thrive in the paint but man its so hard when you have a literal alien in there defending.
This is what Obama was talking about.
Same reason we beat the Thunder 3 times in a row.
I mean, Castle and Vassell being defensively stout in their own right doesn’t hurt.
We have such a ridiculous amount of talented young guards on this squad.
He’s basically turned the paint into a no-fly zone for them, it’s wild to watch.
Area 51 babyyyyyyy
Kryptonight, Supperman’s weakness.
Spurs are scary
I almost felt bad for Cade tonight. At least until he pushed Castle down. Dude doesn’t even talk lol how do you have beef with him
KG had beef with Tim Duncan until he realized Tim absolutely did not care about him at all lmao
KG: Timmy hits you with the “ooh” and “yup” trash talk
“nice try”
“almost”
Timmy doesn’t have a degree in psychology for nothing!
kg had “beef” witheveryone including himself.
I almost felt bad for Cade tonight.
Tbf it was their first match-up ever. That shit gotta through you off.
Bro even ur star player is saying he aint shit when they last play like wtf?
Cade is fake tough. Sad to see.
Cade lives in Knicks fans heads rent free 😂
This is just an evergreen highlight reel every Spurs game:
Every Wemby block is a goaltend according to Pistons fans.
That mf blocked it above the square. Fuck a goaltend that shit should be illegal off gp
Honestly I’m gonna get hate for this but he’s so broken that I would be open to a rule change for this lmao. It definitely shouldn’t be a goal tend because that’s just unfair to him but I’d consider a compromise like block above the square is equivalent to a block out of bounds. Pistons get ball on the baseline. Or if you didn’t want to punish Wemby that much you could make it where block above the square is equivalent to out of bounds on Detroit. That at least prevents the Spurs from getting a fast break possession. Not saying I think this should happen but I’d be open to being convinced about it if enough people thought it was justified.
He just had a similar block where he just abused the backboard
Man. Cade had that ball on its way up over the top of the square and Wemby still blocked it.
dude the announcer said “look at that, that’s above the cylinder” i was like THATS ABOVE THE SQUARE ON THE BACKBOARD!
Almost seems unfair. Dude is from a different planet. Pretty incredible to watch.
Gotta hand it to Cade for just getting back on D after that instead of complaining that it was goaltending like so many others would.
Between these two, the future of the NBA looks bright.
When Wemby wins MVP it’s going to be based on slightly different criteria because his defensive impact on the game is so incredible that he just needs good offense to be MVP level as opposed to great offense.
The last guy to win MVP as the undisputed best defender in the league was probably Hakeem.
Lol, it’s been like 30 years since we had this.
Giannis won DPOY and MVP in 2020, no?
AD was arguably of a similar level. So not undisputed.
Then Wemby isn’t undisputed either… AD is arguably of a similar level.
If Wemby makes 65 games, he’s by an insane margin the best defender itl right now.
he was the best HELP defender in the league so a bit different than Hakeem is what I’d say
Also his offense is beyond just being good. I think it’s subtly elite he isn’t a top 5 offensive player process or results wise but he has so many ways to help the offense that it would have to be a horrible Wemby game offensively all around for it to not generate solid or better offense.
Him being a big is a cheat code since outside of year stretches of bad luck you’re more than likely to find at least one capable perimeter shot creator to pair him with. So he fits in with any honed offensive talent easily with his off ball movement and how varied it can be to go along with his on ball skills.
Literally strains his chin as if he yawned too hard as his head easily grazes the net. The fuck do you do to that?
711 should sponsor Wemby
just the thumbnail of this video alone is unbelievable. His fucking wrist is above the box.
He had several big blocks this game.
It’s just year 3 man
They gotta put some new rules in for Wemby lmao its just not fair
360 no scope blocks
That’s crazy. Wemby so good at blocking, he can plan to block a shot onto the back board so his team gets a chance to claim possession like its a defensive rebound
Spurs with their fucking intergalactic drafting
Wamba wamba is a problem
In this Vince Carter mixtape Craig Sager talks about Vince touching the top of the backboard during warmups - https://youtu.be/ig5fN6XVq-4
Wemby nearly took the ball off the top of the backboard during a game.
His 21 points 17 rebounds and 6 blocks don’t begin to convey his impact on the game.
He’s so often putting up numbers where you’re like “wow this guy is legit”, but if you’re watching the games, you’re like “WTF, his defensive impact on games is ridiculous”.
“Unreal block” he is a foot taller than everyone man
Think about the average person vs nba player that’s the difference between nba players and wemby
Don’t know how this changes anything
Also, Yao, Boban, Shawn Bradley, Manute Bol, Gheorghe Mureșan have all existed and are as tall or taller than Wemby.
His height is incredible but it’s his speed, agility and coordination at his height that’s unprecedented.