An underrated Wemby stat, he has won his minutes on the court in every single game since February 1st for a streak of now 42 games, more than half a season, and has kept this streak alive through 12 playoff games.

The Spurs’s battle is about whether or not they can survive when he hits the bench. Even in a game 3 loss he was heavily criticized for, Wemby was +4 in a game the team lost by 15 points. Even in a 21 point blowout win, the non-Wemby lineups were -8.

For all the talk about his offensive consistency(despite his worst offensive game in this series being 21 points and 6 assists on 62%TS), I’m not sure there’s anything more consistent than guaranteeing your team victory in the minutes you’re on the court.

In many ways, especially when you remember that even in his worst showing he’s arguably the best defender ever every night, you could say he’s been the most consistent player in the NBA.

Note: removing games with under 15min played, the concussion and ejection game. I think this is pretty reasonable considering the small sample lol

Source

Edit: I was wrong! There is ONE game where Wemby had a negative +/-, and it was to the Knicks of all-teams on March 1st!

This is very intriguing for Knicks fans should these two teams meet, and reduces Wemby’s stretch to 30 games

Alex_O7

85 | 5 hours ago

Crazy thing to believe is that just earlier in the season we had Jokic, which felt like the GOAT +/- monster for several reasons (including majorly his greatness) and i couldn’t believe someone could match that. Fast forward 6 months and now we have Wemby which at just 22 is doing… even better than Jokic!

RealPrinceJay |

43 | 5 hours ago

Since you reference 2026 Jokic, the longest consecutive positive strength for Jokic I could find is 16 games this year

2016 Curry peaked around 35 games I believe, but that’s if you count a +0 game and they were all in the regular season

Alex_O7

6 | 5 hours ago

I guess Jokic had that in the 1st half of the season. Also I think Jokic numbers are worsened by his team never being a 60W team, eg never really being successful. And his on-off are the ones that really elevates him (also for Wemby tbh).

RealPrinceJay |

2 | 5 hours ago

Yeah Jokic is an on-off monster, whereas I think this stat is essentially showing a remarkable consistency of on-off, and I hypothesize that this consistency is a product of playstyle

People hyper-focus on offense when discussing the consistency of a player, but Wemby’s defense is consistently giving him elite impact on a game no matter what.

Across a season Jokic is an on-off machine, but he’s more prone to holistically “bad” nights because if the offense isn’t going then there’s nothing else. Wemby can shit the bed on offense, and still dominate a game.

I think we saw this very clearly in how both played Minnesota. Jokic had some nights where his offense was really bad, and so he just got fried overall. Wemby shot like shit in game 1, but he still had 12 blocks leading to a +5 despite the loss

Alex_O7

5 | 4 hours ago

I think this year post injury Jokic is a completely different beast than “Jokic” or “MVP Jokic” or “GOAT +/- on-off Jokic”… so I won’t really count this series against him, as much as he was overall “ok-ish” (not great, not goat-level) also the past 2 and half months, but his numbers were already great because he was going on All Time Great level before that injury.

Also, rather than looking at impact on both ends, I think Jokic success also rely heavily on teammates ability to knock down shots. Like Steve Nash, a great playmaker impact is really linked with teammates success too. That’s why Joker got that 2nd MVP, he played with guys that in 2 years were either out of the league or at the end of benches and still carrying those dudes to the playoffs. That’s elite shit to do.

RealPrinceJay |

2 | 4 hours ago

I agree, post injury he wasn’t quite the same.

I’m not holding the Minny series against him, just using it as an example to highlight the difference in their playstyles and how Wemby’s may result in greater consistency enabling streaks like this

The passing is also a great point. Great passers can supercharge an offense, but you’re right that there is a built in dependency to their game. They can elevate you, but if everyone goes ghost then your impact is being harmed.

While Wemby obviously wants his perimeter guys to do their job, no one on his team can really eliminate or severely diminish the impact he has on that end

LardHop | Lakers

3 | 3 hours ago

And his offense is nowhere near polished too. This is just mostly just defense. Scary times ahead.

Jmontavs | Knicks

47 | 5 hours ago

Wemby was a -15 against the Knicks on march 1st

Doctor-Bagels | Spurs

46 | 5 hours ago

We must exclude the fluke games from the study obviously /s

Jmontavs | Knicks

8 | 4 hours ago

Honestly a fair assessment that it was more a fluke lol

Uncle_Freddy | SAS

7 | 4 hours ago

A near 40 point L probably isn’t a true litmus of how close the Knicks and the Spurs are, but the Knicks are one of the toughest matchups for the Spurs for sure, and they’re playing even better now in the playoffs

Jmontavs | Knicks

2 | 4 hours ago

I don’t really hold a lot of weight into regular season matchups but there deff are lessons the teams can take from them…Wemby looks like he’s on a mission right now he’s so scary lol

RealPrinceJay |

16 | 4 hours ago

Oi, I missed that one. That’s very intriguing for all Knicks fans haha

I’ve edited the OP

WEMBY_F4N | Spurs

30 | 5 hours ago

This is the clear best player in the world. Hopefully his team continues to show up around him but that first part is clear no matter what

Slow-Woodpecker5905

24 | 5 hours ago

Wemby sits for 2 minutes and the Spurs turn into a pickup team at LA Fitness

elmoo2210

30 | 5 hours ago

Wemby sits a ton and was out for injury during the regular season and they still managed the 2 seed just 2 games back from the reigning champs with a b2b mvp. Pretty good for some LAF bros.

Tesgoul | Spurs

14 | 5 hours ago

Against the Thunder, yes. But our bench was wrecking havoc in the regular season. Keldon didn’t win 6MOTY randomly, he is just unfortunately unplayable in the playoff

x_TDeck_x | Spurs

4 | 5 hours ago

12-6 without Wemby this year

RealPrinceJay |

5 | 5 hours ago

To be fair, in this series, Kornet matches up really poorly with the Thunder. He’s just too slow

Kornet is strong throughout a regular season and a nice choice against guys like Gobert, but they need an alternative against mobile perimeter teams like OKC

gymhelppls

12 | 5 hours ago

This definitely isn’t true. Wemby definitely had a negative +/- when the Knicks beat the Spurs by 30 in March.

No_Stranger1485

5 | 3 hours ago

Wemby was disaster in afternoon games…

Even Musse from Hornets outplayed him..

And also Zion outplayed him..

Anddddddd NYK played Wemby in noon game and the other on his grand mother death day.

So, nothing to see here, TBH

deemerritt | Hornets

3 | 4 hours ago

January hornets were absolute demons

nbxcv | Spurs

3 | 3 hours ago

When you factor in defense he had a truly Monstar level season. Unfortunately the league gets to conveniently forget defense exists when it’s time to set up a playoff narrative with awards. Fortunately the “he’s not ready offensively” takes can stop now that he’s averaging more points than SGA while taking a break from being the best defender in the world. MVP and DPOY are his next year if he stays healthy.

GuyWithNoSwagger | Bulls

3 | 4 hours ago

If SGA ever touches another MVP this league is dead

mojoback_ohbehave | Cavaliers

-3 | 3 hours ago

If Shai has another historic season and OKC is the 1 seed again. He should win it again, unless someone else tops that. Which is going to be tough to do.

ArrowInBlack | Knicks

1 | 43 minutes ago

Yea that’s not happening with the way wemby is progressing

-motts- | West

2 | 4 hours ago

Not mvp though

FunSoup4

2 | an hour ago

Single game plus minus is notoriously wonky and noise ridden so this is quite impressive

RealPrinceJay |

1 | an hour ago

Yeah this a big part of why I find it so intriguing. It’s so easy to even play a very good game and end up with a negative. Teammates shot like shit, opponents shot you out of the gym, etc.

To be able to achieve this over such a long span feels like an anomaly, but you see it playing out on the court every night even in the playoffs against the best team in the league

Unfortunately statmuse can’t query this, but the longest streak I’ve found is 2016 Curry that lasted for 35 games if you give him a +0 that he had in the middle, and was all in the regular season

Farplaner

1 | 15 minutes ago

Time for him to play the whole game for the rest of the playoffs

TTPMGP | 76ers

0 | 4 hours ago

I’d hope so. It’s like an adult playing against children height wise lol.

p_pio

-5 | 5 hours ago

Removing ejection game isn’t reasonable at all.

He was punished for his own “play”. Which he did because he was frustrated. Which was, among others, combined with his playing being restricted in that game, resulting in negative +/-.

So it wasn’t random, or unrelated occurance.

RealPrinceJay |

9 | 5 hours ago

Hm, I maintained this methodology because Ben Taylor did earlier in the playoffs. I simply updated his stat

I don’t think this is an unfair perspective though, I see where you’re coming from

preddevils6 | Grizzlies

-11 | 5 hours ago

This is a misleading stat. He has a positive plus minus, but that includes some shit time too. In game 3 he started +15 and was -11 the rest of the game in a loss. Thats not winning every minute you’re on the court as you stated.

You also can’t say every single game and remove the games where he played small minutes or got injured.

RealPrinceJay |

7 | 5 hours ago

It’s not misleading, I simply misspoke. He always wins the minutes he is on the court, not every individual minute of course

I edited the text, that’s a good catch

TheWorldIsGrapes | Timberwolves

-1 | 5 hours ago

Lol it can still be misleading if you misspoke 😂

RealPrinceJay |

5 | 5 hours ago

I’m saying the stat isn’t misleading, my description was flawed in that one sentence I agree

preddevils6 | Grizzlies

-6 | 5 hours ago

“It’s not misleading, I simply misspoke.”

RealPrinceJay |

5 | 5 hours ago

Correct, the stat is not misleading

My description was

If a player averages 30ppg, and I incorrectly say that this guarantees the play scores at least 30 in every game, that doesn’t make points per game a misleading stat, it means my description was misleading and incorrect

Wemby has won his minutes in every game since February 1st, a now 42 game streak of positive +/-