What kind of grade do we think the San Antonio Spurs should get for drafting French forward sensation Victor Wembanyama with the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 NBA draft? It seems a fairly obvious slam dunk in the present, but with the benefit of hindsight, one can safely ignore the real concerns over injury and speed of development for such a long and gangly NBA prospect.
But Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley gave it a stab anyway, and arrived at a grade that you might expect given what we saw from Wemby in year one. “Expectations were fully amped for his first go-round in the Alamo City, but no one knew for sure how the French phenom would fare,” writes Buckley.
“Turns out, all the hype was warranted,” adds the B/R league analyst. “His first NBA season, which he spent alongside a … less-than-stellar supporting cast, felt like the first chapter of basketball’s final evolution.”
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“The hype train should have been more than Wembanyama could handle, if only because the expectations seemed impossible to reach,” suggests Buckley.
“Then again, extraterrestrials have their own definition of what’s possible, so maybe it shouldn’t have been surprising to see him live up to the buzz and then some.”
