He has the best +/- of any starter. Going against the Nuggets is hard work and the Spurs have a bad starting lineup (compounded by the fact that they do not actually put their best players in the starting lineup).

And while his FT% was good, he hardly got to the line at all.

This is straight up not true.

The box score, impact stats, and the eye test all agree that “point Sochan” is one of the worst players in the NBA. How long does this have to continue? If he must get reps at point for some reason can he at least only do it against bench players?

For real, there are some absolutely insane athletes in random European leagues. Look up Yves Pons highlights.

Outside of game management, player development, and defensive schemes, coaches determine lineups which has a huge impact on team victory. This is especially true in basketball, since many players thrive only in a specific role that might not be the one they were drafted for and some player combinations can have strongly negative (or positive) compounding effects. IIRC people did studies on this and while most coaches had very little impact, the very best and very worst could lead to very significant swings in wins per year (Popovich and Phil Jackson had superstar level impact during their peaks).

I know this is kind of funny to say after the Mobley game, and Jokic is Jokic, but I think Chet struggles a bit defending height.

LeBron had a negative +/-, also lost his game, and was both less efficient and less productive per minute during his debut game. I do not think Wemby will be the GOAT but this seems like an overreaction to a single game where he somehow had three offensive fouls in like a minute.

Yeah honestly Pop should be fine switching him to center for matchups like this where there’s no nonshooter to help off. He played center pretty much all year in Europe and defended quite a few big seven footers effectively. Zach Collins is food defensively outside of rebounds so you’re not really losing much there, and Wemby also rebounds a lot better when he’s actually near the basket (led his league in rebounds in Europe).

Literally anyone can get past Bol Bol by just not moving in a straight line.

41 game season would be better even if they weren’t literally invincible, it would be more exciting and there would be no need for back to backs etc. And basketball is really deterministic, it’s barely less deterministic than the NFL, there’s no need to play almost 5x more games.

He is best defended by guys like Draymond who can keep up with him, put him off balance, deny the ball, prevent him from getting to the rim, and have good defensive instincts so they’re not overhelping and leaving other guys open. Big seven footers are usually just too slow for him, and he can generally still shoot over them due to his height and wingspan (even Porzingis is a couple of inches shorter in reality, and has much shorter arms).

A lot of D12’s value came from his rebounding (both defensive and offensive), not just his rim protection. And frankly, I think Wembanyama should be aiming higher than D12. He very clearly has the tools to be the best defender the NBA has ever seen. It would be a waste for him not to maximize his gifts because he wants to play suboptimally, even if playing that way is more visually impressive and occasionally necessary in the playoffs.

I agree he doesn’t have to play like Stockton or Lowry to be the best defender in the league… but IMO he does have to rebound unless he’s playing next to an elite defensive rebounding center like JJJ was (which he isn’t this year). I also think he needs to get better at maintaining control of the ball after a block in order to maximize the value of his blocks; blocks out on the perimeter are already usually less valuable than blocks at the rim because perimeter shots are much less likely to go in in the first place. He also really needs to control his own turnovers so teams don’t get as many transition opportunities against him.

Maybe this seems nitpicky to you, but if you he really wants to be the best defender in the league, these are things he needs to improve on, because they have a significant impact on the overall value of his otherworldly eFG defense. There are going to be a lot of games this year where he is playing lockdown defense, the Spurs seem to be shooting well, but somehow the game is still close, and it’ll be because they’re not controlling the rebounding and turnover game.

I’m not sure Steph is still there though he was at one point… Luka is a controversial one because his box score stats don’t seem to translate to point differential most of the time (though last year was easily his best year on that front). Embiid won the MVP last year, I don’t think ranking him top three is that controversial. At least if we’re talking regular season.

He never has. He had two seasons barely above average (37+%) but he’s a career 33% three point shooter. That’s about the league median, but not the league average (partly because average is always above median, partly because good three point shooters shoot the majority of threes).

Embiid is only okay from three (he’s below league average), and Giannis is terrible from three. Those are often recognized as two of the top three players in the league. You don’t exactly have to dig deep to find players without good three point shooting who have carved out long / solid / valuable careers.

Wemby is decent on the perimeter for his size, but any decent guard is absolutely cooking him if he’s ur best perimeter defender.

Are Klay and Curry no longer decent guards? Because they were not cooking him.

I’m not saying he should be taking charges right now, I’m saying he’s not contributing to turnovers that way. He also doesn’t get as many steals as you’d think (though based on the preseason that might be changing) or draw other kinds of offensive fouls. I’m bringing this up because turnovers are super valuable defensive events and he just doesn’t generate as many of them as the very best defensive players do, yet anyway.

I’m pretty sure someone computed at one point that after around 108 mph ligaments would just snap.

He’s one of the only examples there is of a prospect with generational levels of pre-draft statistical production coming into the league and completely flaming out for non-injury reasons. There’s definitely a non basketball related story there.

Probably not. On eFG% defense alone it wouldn’t surprise me if he’s best in the league day one, but I think he’ll be in suboptimal defensive position a lot (out on the perimeter giving up looks at the rim), the Spurs are looking like a really bad defensive rebounding team partly because of him doing that and leaking out (he was a much better rebounder in Europe so I hope Pop is willing to change this), and while he clearly forces turnovers sometimes, his blocks are often into the stands and not the arms of a teammate, and I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him take a charge.

Basically, I think on tools and what most people think when they think “defense” he’ll be right there, but it’s his rookie year and I don’t think he’ll do all the little things that the very best defenders in the league do.