The Harsh Truth About Victor Wembanyama

In 1997, the San Antonio Spurs were one of the worst teams in the entire NBA, finishing the season with just 20 wins and with a rookie head coach leading the way, their future was uncertain. Their two best players were an aging Dominic Wilkins just a year away. his final season in the NBA and their franchise player in David Robinson, who was sidelined by a season-ending injury that would persist for the rest of his career, the franchise was on a downward spiral with no end in sight, but he What they did have was one more opportunity. To correct the worst season in franchise history, the Spurs were given the third-best chance at the No. 1 overall pick in the 1997 draft, exactly what the organization needed to rejuvenate its roster, but based on previous evaluations to the draft, the gap between the potential first pick and the third pick was huge, get the third pick and settle for a small forward from Utah named Keith Van Horn or win the lottery and get the best NBA prospect in over a decade , a 4-year starter out of Wake Forest. the name of Tim Duncan and the day of the draft lottery the future of the Spurs franchise and the future of the NBA would change forever the second pick in the 1997 NBA draft goes to the Philadelphia 76ers and that means that The first pitch in the 1997 NBA draft goes to the San Antonio Spur.

Congratulations, look at this guy here, who is the first president, Peter Holt, and at this moment he was the happiest man in the world because he had just won the first overall pick in the '97 NBA draft. a foregone conclusion, but neither Peter nor anyone else at the time knew that the Spurs had just won the rights to one of the greatest players in the history of the game and this very moment was the beginning of one of the greatest dynasties in the history of the game. the NBA and now 26 years later, as luck would have it, the Spurs once again found themselves in the middle of another historic night because they now have the rights to the number one overall pick in the 2023 NBA draft and the prospect they plan to acquire is claimed . to be bigger and better than anything we've seen as we approach Draft Day, the hype surrounding Victor Webinyama grows as pundits and analysts claim he's the best prospect in the history of the sport, some They even claim that he is the best prospect in any sport that the franchise has ever made you believe has hit the basketball jackpot that will set them up for two decades of success and championships, but how good can a prospect be?

Fans are already talking about future championships for the Spurs since they've essentially landed. Victorious, but turning potential greatness into actual

victor

ies and championships is a task that very few players have been able to do. Today's video is sponsored by DraftKings, the playoffs are in full swing and even if your team is losing, DraftKings is here to make you a winner. Because DraftKings is bringing high-stakes action to all new customers, simply place a five-dollar bet on any sport and receive $150 in bonus bets. Try the same matched games from DraftKings, where you can combine multiple bets on the same game into one big bet for an even bigger payout, and if mobile sports betting isn't available in your state yet, you can still have fun with DraftKings daily. fantasy where they offer contests with cash prizes for almost every sport, just download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now new customers use promo code Jimmy highroller bet five dollars on any bet and get 150 in bonus bets instantly from the last 25 picks number one general in the draft.

Do you think you've won one Finals MVP, maybe four or five? How about one? There has been one No. 1 overall pick in the last 25 seasons that won a Finals MVP, but Finals MVPs are the hardest thing to win in all of basketball. So what about the regular season MVPs? How many of the last 25 first overall picks have won at least one of those 2? LeBron James and Derrick Rose that's it, but how about this? How many of the last 25 first overall picks do you think have won? a championship, they could be a role player for all I care, as long as they have a ring, that counts, but the answer is still only six.

Winning in the NBA is very, very difficult to achieve, but fans and experts are already putting this burden on a child. who hasn't even been drafted yet, but we've done it before there is hype and unrealistic expectations met with inevitable disappointment if it seems like yesterday Zion Williamson was being considered the best basketball prospect of the decade and yet , here we are four years later and Zion has played just 29 games over the last two seasons and has yet to play in a single playoff game as a big man, but at this point, far from the franchise altering the Force, he was excited about Ser, here is another player who was said to be a Generational Prospect coming to the NBA nicknamed The Fresh Prince since he was the successor of LeBron King James.

This is Ben Simmons, a player who was too afraid to shoot in a playoff game and he peaked in his second season in the league and we do it. This happens to young players much more often than you might think. DeAndre Aiden is a solid NBA player, far from a superstar, but now he could be a key piece on a championship-winning team. Would you believe that just three months before he was drafted he was labeled a dating anomalous moment when it always feels like the next guy is going to be the guy and then shortly after we forget about the unwarranted comparisons and We move on to the next guy, but to really understand how rare it is to draft a player who becomes an all-time great while staying healthy and loyal to the franchise that drafted him we have to look at the teams and players who actually did it.

If we're talking about transcendent players who led the team that drafted them to multiple championships then that list only includes seven players who were drafted in the modern NBA, over 3,000 players drafted since 1980 and seven of them became stalwart talents that altered the franchise. These players here are icons, legends in their franchise and in the game, and only now appear about once every decade, if Victor is as good as advertised he could one day be added to this list, but the road to get there is a long one. and it is full of players who fell short, but in the NBA even the Stars Superstars and once in a generation of talents fight to win the ultimate prize Luka Doncic has been a phenomenon since he entered the NBA, surpassing all the expectations prior to the draft and yet, five seasons have passed into his journey to the NBA and he has yet to see the Finals and even missed the playoffs in This last season, Kevin Durant is one of the greatest players to ever touch a basketball, but even he had to leave the team that drafted him to join a giant team to win a championship.

James Harden Russell West Chris Paul Damian Lillard Joelle embiid the list The number of all-time great players who have yet to win a title or achieve real playoff success is enormous, making expectations for Wimbinyama even higher. more disconcerting to think that a 19-year-old can come to a struggling franchise and change everything. It's not realistic and worse, it may not even be fair to the young person. Ironically, the best trade directly caused by a rookie in modern NBA history was Tim Duncan's trade after the Spurs drafted Duncan; His win total jumped from 20 wins in 1997 to 56 in 1998. A jump of 36 wins in Timmy's first season with the team and a championship in his second season, this is by far the biggest dream that a team ever seen simply by adding a rookie to your roster.

Larry Bird was another player who immediately altered the franchise. for the Celtics, but that was almost half a century ago. LeBron couldn't do it. KD couldn't do it. It took Steph and Michael years to achieve it, and yet somehow we not only want, but expect this 19-year-old to do it. Do it, I really think some fans don't understand the pressure they are putting on women. Yum, he could be an incredible generational great without injuries and expecting this level of excellence from him could still be too much over the last 25 seasons. The average MVP finishes the season with a total win share of 15.2 during that same time frame the average All-Star has a total win share of 10 and among the 450 active players in a given season, the wind share total average in a single season league-wide there are only two in the last 25 years among the number one overall picks in their rookie season, the average total wind share is 4.2, that number jumps to 5.7 in his second season and then reaches 7.9 in his third season, but in season 4 many of these once prodigies begin to lose minutes, are left out of the rotation, do not adapt their game and their skills to the NBA and the win average drops to 6.7 and by season 5, when we as fans have made up our minds about these players, the average win total drops to just 5.9, about the same as the average starter in the NBA.

This is the career of an average number one overall pick in the NBA. We look at number one players overall as the guys who had great careers. Kyrie, Anthony Davis and LeBron, but we forget that much more often these number one overall picks turn out to be players like Markel Fultz, Andrea Barniani and Kwame Brown, but even for the game-changing prospects who are ready for the League the day they put on an NBA jersey. The result is still rarely a championship or hardware or real impact over the last 25 years, the players who had the biggest impact in their rookie season were Chris Paul Benson and Blake Griffin, followed by the next 12 best rookies of the last 25 seasons you are watching. the best rookie seasons of this century and yet only half of them were the best player on their team at the end of their first season in the league, but I want everyone to guess how many of these players made the playoffs. in his rookie season he got his answer two, meaning that of the top 15 rookies who have entered the league over the last 25 seasons, none of them took their team to the playoffs and among these same 15 Sensations rookies in their third season.

In the league only four of them managed to take their team to the playoffs as the best player on the team. It's very difficult to win in the NBA, but as some kind of gambling addict, we NBA fans like to count the wins and ignore the losses. Somehow, the countless mistakes we've made are outweighed by the one or two we got right: Victor Wembanyama, the most hyped NBA prospect of all time. Well, I'm not sure some experts who have been around much longer than me would want to. I say this, but if my memory serves me right, I can remember 17-year-old LeBron James attracting so much attention that he got an Ohio high school basketball game on national television long before social media. people like LeBron James, Patrick Ewing and Kareem showed up.

Abdul-Jabbar were household names before they even put on an NBA jersey. I don't know if the Yama women are at that level of enthusiasm right now, but she is getting there and with that amount of enthusiasm comes overwhelming pressure to perform, it's easy to do. sit back and watch this kid play, see his incredible tools in action, seven feet five inches tall, eight foot wingspan, with a silky smooth jump shot and world class defensive instincts, and one can only assume that will find immediate or even eventual success in the form of championships and cultural impact in the NBA, coaches and scouts who have been in the game for decades and have seen every prospect rise through the ranks over the years say that Victor Wembanyama is better than all of them; it would take an era-defining talent to enter. the NBA and transform a franchise into a dynasty, but if Victor is all we think, he may be the next player to do it overseas.