Victor Wembanyama is seven-foot-four, and in the final minutes of the Spurs’ preseason finale against the Sacramento Kings, he used that frame to do something no seven-footer is supposed to do: push the ball the length of the floor by himself, bounce it off the glass, and catch his own lob for the finish.
Per Yahoo Sports’ recap of San Antonio’s 126-97 win at Frost Bank Center, Wembanyama forced a miss on the other end, then went coast-to-coast and threw the ball off the backboard to himself to complete the dunk. That’s Wembanyama’s self-alley-oop against the Kings in its entirety: a 7-foot-4 center handling like a guard, finishing a play no Kings defender was even in position to foul, because no roster built to defend him currently exists.
Nobody got called for a foul because nobody was close enough to commit one.
That’s not a Sacramento problem specifically. It’s a scouting problem the whole league is carrying into the regular season. The league has spent the better part of a year treating Wembanyama as a frontcourt covering problem — someone to wall off at the rim, someone whose absurd defensive numbers already make finishing over him close to pointless. Teams have started building answers for that version of him.
The version that brings the ball up himself, beats the catch-up defender off the dribble, and finishes like a point guard is the one nobody on the floor Friday looked built for. The box score backs up what the clip already sold: 14 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 blocks in just 17 minutes, in a preseason finale that didn’t need him for a second more than that.
I’ve watched the replay enough times to lose count, and I still can’t find the frame where a stop was ever possible.
ESPN’s Adam Schefter posted the clip with the caption “Wemby playing a video game,” which is funnier for being understated. Manufacturing your own alley-oop off the backboard, at that size, required a move nobody coded for, because nobody expected a player this big to need it.
https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/2111261478305358217
The clip has circulated all weekend as pure highlight, and it is one. It’s also a preview: the San Antonio Spurs open the regular season against the Oklahoma City Thunder, the team San Antonio beat in a seven-game Western Conference Finals last season.
The easy dismissal here is that this was garbage time in a 29-point blowout against a team with nothing to play for. Fair, as far as it goes. But the possession wasn’t a product of Sacramento’s effort level — it’s a possession no defense, lottery team or contender, currently has a built-in answer for, because nobody roster-builds around a point guard trapped in a seven-footer’s body.
The league has the highlight. It still doesn’t have the counter.
