Victor Wembanyama on being the first-ever unanimous DPOY and the youngest player to win the award: “It feels great… The real struggle may have been getting to 65 games. But I am super proud to be the first unanimous.”
Not just the first unanimous DPOY, this is the first time that fewer than three players received a first place vote.
lol holy shit
I mentioned this in another thread, the next big one was Big Ben in 01-02, getting 116 first place votes, and 2nd place was KG with 2 votes
And Kobe and Mutombo each got a first place vote.
Imagine almost shutting out KG and Matumbo.
Prime Big Ben don’t play.
He had to contain prime Shaq. If that doesn’t scream goat defender, I don’t know what is.
Those bowling ball shoulders of his still haunt my wet dreams every now and then.
Bowling ball shoulders lmfao 😂 preciate the laugh
Imagine being the two dudes who didn’t vote for Ben Wallace that year.
Kobe getting a first place vote that year over Ben and KG is ridiculous lol wtf
I tried googling to see who it was, but couldn’t find anything.
crazy
Quantifying defense is so difficult. But you watch Wemby and suddenly it’s very easy. Lol
Voters: “It’s so subjective with so many nuances to it, it’s impossible to pick”
witnesses a stickly baguette man shut off the entirety of the paint and block 3pt shots from half a mile away
“Yea fairs he got it”
Just imagine there’s one of those car shop inflatable tube men in the paint at all times, but sometimes you can’t even see it. Every time you try a regular layup there’s an 80% chance of it getting swatted, so you have to try some stupid floater or jelly shot with no hope of going in.
Then, at the same time, at all literal times, there’s an elite defender from 3pt to post on your best big.
That’s Wembenyama
It’s like going against this
For Wemby, they may need to introduce a new stat called “Hell Nahs” where a player drives towards the paint, sees him, and just dribbles away.
Ngl people were already doing that when they saw Gobert. Tbf Wemby is even better than Gobert though
and also first time fewer than two players i assume 🤓
Technically correct, the best kind of correct.
Can you explain what you mean? I’m not understanding.
He’s saying that prior to this year, there’s always been at least 3 players who received a first place vote.
Ahh ok that makes way more sense thanks.
Doesn’t that just make this unanimous, as already stated?
Yeah that’s what never before unanimous means, we all knew that already. What’s up with throwing a random ass 3rd person in there when not even 2 players got first place votes, since it was unanimous?
wouldn’t it be the first time that fewer than two players received a first place vote, since it was unanimous? help me understand.
I was expecting some idiot sportswriter to do a protest vote to get their name out there, but there was really no justification for anyone else whatsoever.
I feel like this is one of those “Alien Records” we’ll be talking about 20-30 years later.
That’s not unanimous. That’s domination.
It never once occurred to me that Wemby had a mom lmao he seems like a figure that was just procured from space dust
Wonder how tall she is
pretty tall
Should have expected both his folks were athletes
That picture really shows how much muscle he has put on since coming into the league.
This is so unfair. Wemby would’ve been plenty tall if he just turned out to be the average of his parents. But instead he got a height boost ON TOP of that.
Meanwhile I would’ve been happy if I just got my dad’s 6’0” height
Nah fuck that shit - being “tall” is a mentality and one that you can have regardless of actual height.
Now go get what yours, King KWash - r/nba got you
What is the male equivalent of a 6’3 female. You gotta factor in gender differences instead of just assuming a kid will be the height in the middle of mom and dad. I’m assuming most of his height genetics come from his mom since despite being shorter than dad, she’s taller for her gender.
Average height for women worldwide is 5’3 and for men 5’7. Both his parents are a foot taller than the average, game was rigged from the start.
wait my boyfriend is taller than his dad…should i be reconsidering having children
Worst case scenario you get a volleyball player
Don’t run away from the grind
You being tall is more important than
R/redditsniper
boys get their height from their mother usually. so if you’re tall, or your father’s tall, he’ll be tall
Lookin like Dr Ellie Sattler and the brachiosaurus.
His mom is 6’3”, his dad is 6’6
Wow shorter than I expected for his height ngl
I mean we all watch basketball, so 6’6”-7’ seems pretty normal.
A 6’3” woman is .001% of the population, worldwide .05% of men are 6’6” or taller. Wembanyama came from some pretty rare genetics.
Someone has to be a genetic anomaly at some point for a super athlete like Wemby to be produced.
I’m pretty sure Bill Russell’s parents were average height (heard it at some stage but can’t find a source now) and he ended up 6’10.
David Robinson would be a prime example of it with his late growth spurts shooting him from 5’9 to 7’1 and his parents are fairly average height.
Now Wemby’s parents were already both tall AND he was a genetic freak outlier.
Combine both and their athletic genes? Yea he was practically moulded by basketball divinity into the perfect basketball player physically.
You also have to look past parents. For instance, my mom was 5’4 at most and my dad is around 5’9, but they had two boys and and a girl all at 6ft and above.
But my mom had an uncle and a grandparent that were around 6’6, so the height came through her family, just didn’t necessarily show with her.
Thats absurd looking at the picture!
5’1
Somehow this is glaze but I rock with it
Victor’s parents are super cool, his mom was a professional bball player and later a youth coach, she was Vic’s first coach. His dad was a track n field athlete and there’s a funny interview where he explains that until a year or so before Vic was drafted, he hadn’t realised how generational his son was. He just thought that he was a great kid, very talented and that everybody around him was simply very supportive. He then tells how when all the media attention began to grow he asked his wife “is he that big of a deal?” Of course she knew. He was baffled lol
His mom looks like Laura Dern, I thought it was her sitting next to him for a second
I figured he came out of a Giraffe.
Shes an actress
Stay healthy pls
Flair doesn’t check out, let’s not jinx the man
Mind you Derrick rose was mvp (probably shouldn’t been 3rd in hindsight with more stats) and wembanyama is on the same track rn
wembanyama is on the same track rn
… for mvp 😭
No for 3rd
Rose also was crazy reckless with his moves
+1
He had a healthy season and still struggled to reach the bare minimum games with super closely monitored minutes.
He’s probably got it locked for the next 5 years if he’s healthy
Rest of his career if we’re being honest lol
Homer take maybe, but they’re gonna have to rename the award after him when all is said and done. What a treat to watch this guy play
Winning a Wemby has a ring to it
That would be awesome honestly
Wemby deserves all the accolades, but it gonna be really hard to take it away from Hakeem Olajuwon who is a near unanimously beloved player both on and off the court (for one, no one ever questioned why Houston took Hakeem over MJ, even in hindsight). Also, I doubt Wemby would even want to take that away from one of his mentors.
You couldve said this exact statement his rookie year and it wouldnt have been ridiculous either. 🥵
10 tbh
The Dwight Howard curse
Seriously. I wanna see voter fatigue even try and act like Wemby doesn’t deserve it one year lol, shit would be so stupid.
I just want this guy to have a healthy career
Buckle up people, barring injuries we are fucking pillaging the awards for the next 3 years.
10*
I dont trust voter fatigue if Cooper Flagg gets serious help or if the Lakers build a proper tram around Luka with their new ownership injecting proper money in the organization as a whole.
But fuck it we’ll do it live, 10.
As long as Pelinka is there, they won’t. New ownership can’t pull a Dodgers moment for the Lakers because of the cap
>New ownership can’t pull a Dodgers moment for the Lakers because of the cap
Well, they can have some aspirations for it
Touche
a big man’s impact is wayyyy too valuable on the NBA game for the defense that even his floor would be the best defensive player on the planet, it would require incredible voter fatigue to beat that, the question is more how many unanimous he will get, let that sink in
win some rings first
This quote is great ammo for the pro 65 game crowd. Imagine if we only had 50 games of Wemby a season.
literally last year
And still managed to lead the league in blocks by a large margin
If he’d only played 36 games he STILL would have won the Block Title last year..
if it means we get 15 years of him instead of 5 I’m all for him playing 50 games
I consider it great ammo for getting rid of the 65 game rule. He obviously deserved the award but a totally extraneous other requirement not related to the rule has been tacked on that almost made him not even eligible for it despite the fact he would have obviously been deserving.
It’s like when congress adds on funding for an interest group onto a critical law that needs to be passed. If you want players to play more games have a separate rule that focuses on that. Don’t just randomly have it target awards.
especially because one of the games was because he made it to and played in the nba cup title game which is sort of a technicality that counts in some ways (towards games played for awards) but not in other ways (record, stats)
so the rule would have basically been saying, if he didnt make it to the nba cup title game, he wouldnt have deserved this award
this assumes that without the 65 game rule, wemby would arbitrarily only play 50 games a season
when in reality, the amount of games a player plays in is typically just determined by their health
This quote makes it seem like he rested for load management too and wasn’t resting purely because he was actually injured.
At his height I’m more than not willing to be it’s going to happen soon
imagine if he played like 63 games. all the voters want to vote for him, but nba said nope not eligible
NBA needs to drop their search for an American star and just give Wemby the keys. What an exciting future for this young man
In all honesty, media has really embraced Wemby this year! From touting him as an MvP candidate early when he hadn’t yet started hitting the stride to amplifying his comments. As a Spurs fan, it’s a very pleasant change compared to the past when Spurs were just a footnote
dpoy award about to be renamed after wemby if he stays healthy
The Victor Wembanyama Wembanyama of the Year Award
Good to see and well deserved. I really thought there was gonna be that one voter who voted for Chet.
With cautious minute restrictions the guy should be a lock every single year
hey mom
Always irks me when the quote in the title isn’t the actual direct quote
Should have won DPOY rookie year also!
This is why the 65 game rule is good, Wemby has publicly said he would have played fewer games if he didn’t have to hit that minimum
He said he was actively playing through pain and injury to do so. No one should have to choose between health and money, not even millionaire athletes.
Athletes choose that every day, especially in other sports like football and boxing.
When you’re talking about a difference between making “only” something like \(55-60 million a year instead of \)65-70 million a year, sorry, I’m not going to pity that person for making that much less money.
The game is for the fans, and I feel way worse for the fans who spend their hard earned money for an expensive ticket only to find put that superstar players are resting themselves for that game than I do for the guy who “only” would make \(1 million a week instead of \)1.2 million a week because he missed a couple of all-nba teams.
If we want to break down the actual economics the league is for the advertisers and they want more prime ad space. The players aren’t innocent in this scenario but they’re also not completely guilty either. I dont care how rich or poor someone is, a situation should not exist where someone risks their health for money.
And dont even try to deflect with there are poorer people with worse jobs for less play, we wouldn’t even bring them up if athletes and other high profile figures didnt make it a topic of concern. Sports is one of the best topics to get people to discuss labour rights because even if they’re multimillionaires athletes are still laborers. And if they can do that to people who have a decent amount of money and a platform imagine what they can do to people who have none of that.
I dont care how rich or poor someone is, a situation should not exist where someone risks their health for money.
News flash: that’s literally what professional sports are. Pro athletes push their bodies to the absolute limits every day and risk injuries for money. If you don’t like the nature of that, you simply shouldn’t be watching pro sports. And if the athletes don’t like it, hey, they’re free to choose another career path. Nobody is making them risk their health for money.
And dont even try to deflect with there are poorer people with worse jobs for less play, we wouldn’t even bring them up if athletes and other high profile figures didnt make it a topic of concern.
This is ludicrous. Sports are not the only reason, or the main reason that some people care about labor rights. That entire paragraph is simply preposterous.
Voter fatigue for him will be winning the award without it being unanimous.
Sacre bleu, it’s amazing what this mfer does in 30 mins per game.
The most likable player out there. I love this kid and wish him continued success.
He is so earnest
Between him and Shai, I enjoy how the new faces of the league have this humble confidence.
It’s amazing that we’re at a point where it’s normalized for players to struggle to get to 65.
Over under 4.5 career DPOY for Wemby?
He’ll probably win it for the next 10 years barring injury.
Wow. That’s a surprise. What an upset. No one saw it coming.
The Alien 👽! This guy is only going to get better.
I hear you brother -going to work is the hardest part of my day too.
It’s harder than u think in the privileged nba . Ask embiiib , AD, Simmon, kyrie, Zion Ja, Edey , and numerous others
That’s crazy. Unanimous is a different level of dominance.
His parents earned that reward.
Question, where are u watching? Just peacock? It says it’s available on nbc on the app but it’s not showing
Really happy some dickhead didn’t vote for someone else, he really was the DPOY with no debate
I’ve never seen his parents. I thought maybe he was hatched from an interstellar egg.
Well deserved
Fuckin guy is only 22! Its his league now.
Playing defense in the nba is super easy to me, because everyone else is a short earthling, the hardest part was getting the spurs to play me 65 games without giving away im an alien
Please stand up, Mom.
He legit the only I can see touching Hakeem’s block record. Teams are terrified to drive on him.
The wemby nope is the best proof for his DPOY case
Had no idea his mom was white
Hope voter fatigue doesn’t set in too soon. Jokic, LeBron and Rudy all went through this
What climbing mountains at night does to a MFer.
Class act (mom made sure)
There have been other guys on his level (Ben Wallace for example) that should have been unanimous, but it’s still a very impressive accomplishment.
Easily the most deserved DPOY since Ben Wallace too! But Lakers in 5!!!! (assuming we get Luca back round 2 or Kennard just finalizes his metamorphosis into playoff Curry lol)
Yes but are we the real MVPs?
Is that Wembanmama?
Imagine an NFL player complaining about how hard it is to play 13 full games and get to half time in week 14-15. He’d be eviscerated.
I’m truly shocked that he won given his size and stature but good for him
Everyone always saying stuff prefacing it “if he’s healthy” and all that stuff lol. Truth is he’s in year 3 and self admits to struggling to play games. Does anyone actually believe he’s gonna have a long enough career for this
Saw it myself with Sampson and Yao these guys don’t last
He played 72 his rookie year and 65 this year, and he absolutely could have played 70+ this year. We sat him a bunch of games he easily could have played in for the sake of caution. He missed at least 5-6 games for “rest.” His only serious injury thus far wasn’t even related to his knees, legs or feet.
This jab was pretty jokingly at the Spurs for being hyper careful with him.
Yao was 2 inches taller, nearly 100 pounds heavier, and played almost year round in an era with significantly worse sports medicine. Sampson played in the goddamn 1980s.
Wemby with his own self-work, modern sports medicine, and the work of the Spurs, will have a healthy career.
He also didn’t suffer any physical injury before the blood clot last year. It’s almost like people want him to get hurt and are manifesting it by saying this stuff lol
Yao and Sampson didn’t have modern health and modern tech.
We just saw Embiid go through similar things too
They also dont try to move like wemby is right now.
Serious question because I don’t know: how much has sports medicine improved since Yao Ming was in the league 20 years ago?
Think you’re reading to much into the comment. A lot of stars were close to missing the 65 game threshold, Jokic got it on the last game of the season.
Think he’s saying he was tougher to ensure he got the 65 games than getting unanimous DPOY.
Salty ass, the whole point of putting him on a minutes restriction is to avoid that exact situation
You are comparing this from the past. Med tech has evolved and Wemby being tall is almost normal compared to boban’s body structure.. Include also his work ethics plus the spurs med team monitoring him. For sure he can last long in the league. You guys keep on comparing him from past players yet you cant even comprehend that from the start he was already preparing for this.
I’m sure your concerns are in no way related to you being an unabashed hater right?
Can’t say anything negative about Wemby without being branded as a hater lol
To be honest this isn’t even negative either it’s just a fact tall guys are injury prone
We can see your comment history, pal