LeBron James has seen just about everything during his 23-year NBA career, but even he admits there’s something completely different about Victor Wembanyama.
The 22-year-old is doing some never-before-seen stuff in his first-ever NBA playoffs and LeBron is in awe.
“He’s not the first guy in our league that’s been tall,” James said speaking on the latest episode of his Mind the Game podcast. “He’s not the first guy in our league that had length or been tall, he’s not, so we can nip that in the bud right now guys. And yes, it is a factor because his length, his size, the way he’s able to cover a lot of ground, especially defensively.
“But when we talk about what he’s able to do offensively. His ability to put the ball on the ground, we’ve seen him iso-ing multiple Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert multiple times on the perimeter. Hitting him with snatch-backs, spins, up-and-unders, dream shakes, fadeaways. We’ve seen him cross-dribble, step-back out of the corner for 3. His ability to catch and his coordination, which sometimes looks uncoordinated, but it’s because of his length. His ability to catch the ball with his back towards the basket, or half his body, and be able to find the rim before he even lands, that is coordination that we’ve never seen before and it’s not just because he’s tall. It’s because he has the ability to do things that we haven’t seen in our league like, ever.”
James made it clear that Wembanyama’s dominance is rooted just as much in intelligence and mentality as it is physical gifts.
“But his IQ, you can tell by the way he talks, you can tell by his demeanor he knows the game,” James continued. “He was taught the game the right way and San Antonio continues to get lucky as f— with these generational-talented, IQ, smart, but keep the main thing the main thing. David Robinson, Tim Duncan and now Wemby. Guys who just have this dead serious mentality. They have these horse blinders on and they’re like the mission is the mission and that’s all that matters. It’s pretty remarkable to see.”
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