By Tim MacMahon | ESPN, 2024-10-30 20:00:00
由生成式人工智能翻译,译文内容可能不准确或不完整,以原文为准。
八个月前 ,2月29日深夜,一段九秒的比赛片段展现了NBA中锋位置的未来景象。
俄克拉荷马雷霆队作客挑战圣安东尼奥马刺队,这场比赛是两位新秀内线之间的焦点对决:联盟中最耀眼的新星之二,维克托·文班亚马(Victor Wembanyama)和切特·霍姆格伦(Chet Holmgren)。
第四节还剩3分29秒,马刺队领先6分,这位7尺4寸的法国人飞身在篮下封盖了一记上篮,抢下篮板,将球传给控球后卫特雷·琼斯,然后在弗罗斯特银行中心球馆里小跑12步后再次接到回传。
他的20.5码的右脚踩在马刺队中场标志的黑色油漆区上,这位大个子毫不犹豫。他投出一记彩虹般的28英尺三分球。
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这既是一个启示,也是对全联盟五号位的展望。除了一个细节:马刺队甚至没有正式将他视为中锋,即使在放弃了让6尺11寸的扎克·科林斯与他一起首发的想法后,仍然将他列为前锋。
“他并不是真正的五号位,”马刺队主教练格雷格·波波维奇在本赛季早些时候谈到文班亚马的技能时说道,他的技能远超出了传统中锋的范畴。“他是场上唯一的大个子。”
文班亚马和霍姆格伦是现代内线原型的多面性、极致的例子:7尺长人,在防守端保护篮筐,在进攻端可以作为三分威胁拉开空间。他们在攻防两端都影响着篮球场上最有价值的区域——油漆区——作为精英盖帽手堵塞该区域,并仅仅通过站在距离篮筐25英尺以外就为队友打开了突破和空切的通道。
这两位球员将于周三再次交锋,届时雷霆队将主场迎战马刺队(美国东部时间晚上9:30,ESPN)。
“如果你能防守又能投篮,你几乎可以在任何地方的任何球场上打球,”霍姆格伦告诉ESPN。“在篮球场上,这两件事总是需要的,这也是我比赛基础的起点。”
密尔沃基雄鹿队中锋布鲁克·洛佩斯(Brook Lopez)在2018-19赛季投出了512个三分球,这是7尺长人有史以来最多的。他命中了其中的187个(36.5%),并赢得了“水花山”的绰号。 Benny Sieu/USA TODAY Sports 文班亚马和霍姆格伦 是大个子球员进化的极致延伸,但另一位大个子球员是其基础。
布鲁克·洛佩斯(Brook Lopez)在他NBA的前八个赛季中看起来并不像一位引领潮流者。他正在成为布鲁克林篮网队的历史得分王,但他拥有老派的进攻方式。正如你对一位7尺1寸、282磅的乐透秀所期望的那样,他大部分的得分都来自背身单打,尽管他的手感足够柔和,可以在挡拆后的中距离投篮中发挥作用。
洛佩斯的比赛风格在2016-17赛季发生了巨大的变化,这是他在联盟的第九个赛季,也是他在篮网队的最后一个赛季。篮网队聘请了肯尼·阿特金森(Kenny Atkinson)作为他们的新主教练,他坚持要求洛佩斯进行三分球投篮。
对于一位职业生涯至今三分球24投3中的中锋来说,这似乎是一个奇怪的要求,但阿特金森打算实施五外进攻体系,亚特兰大老鹰队在他担任迈克·布登霍尔泽教练组助教时曾成功地运用过这种体系。艾尔·霍福德在上个赛季为老鹰队效力时也对他的投篮方式做了类似的转变。
“[阿特金森]给了我很大的信心,让我在比赛中继续投篮,并建立起这种信任,”洛佩斯告诉ESPN。“从那时起,很明显,它随着时间的推移不断地滚雪球般地增长。”
那个赛季,洛佩斯投出了387个三分球,命中率达到了可观的34.6%。在重建中的篮网队将洛佩斯交易到洛杉矶湖人队后,他继续在外线开火。整个联盟都不太确定如何看待洛佩斯职业生涯中期的转型,这让密尔沃基雄鹿队能够以一份一年期的廉价合同签下他,这份合同的金额为联盟的双年特例。
密尔沃基刚刚聘请了布登霍尔泽,他认为洛佩斯可以与冉冉升起的新星扬尼斯·阿德托昆博一起,成为五外体系的理想人选。“水花山”,这个迪士尼爱好者洛佩斯获得的绰号,在密尔沃基取得了巨大的成功。雄鹿队的胜场增加了16场,跃升至60胜,成为东部联盟的头号种子。
大约340英里外,在明尼阿波利斯,一位16岁的霍姆格伦正在发展他自己的比赛。在大西洋彼岸,在巴黎郊区,一位14岁的文班亚马也在做着同样的事情。
在2018-19赛季,洛佩斯投出了512个三分球,这是7尺长人有史以来最多的,他命中了其中的187个(36.5%)。洛佩斯经常在进攻回合中站在三分线外几英尺的地方,将对方的大个子拉离油漆区,或者迫使对方教练做出艰难的 matchups 抉择。洛佩斯学会了即使连续几个回合没有触球也能影响比赛。
洛佩斯也是联盟顶级防守的支柱。雄鹿队通常在挡拆中采用“蹲坑”防守,尽可能地让洛佩斯留在篮筐附近。他送出了179次盖帽——这仍然是NBA历史上唯一一个球员在一个赛季中至少有175个三分球命中和175次盖帽的赛季。
“它们是改变比赛的两种截然不同的方式,对吧?”洛佩斯说。“当你堵塞油漆区时,你几乎参与了每一个回合。你总是在那里。每个人都能看到你在篮筐旁边。你总是在撞击某人,总是参与其中,但在另一端,只是站在那里观看,这很有趣。
“你只需要保持这种信任。对我来说,这可能是一开始的事情之一,就像,‘哇,我应该一直站在这里。’但它一直有效。”
从那时起,洛佩斯一直是雄鹿队成功的关键因素,他签下了两份长期合同留在密尔沃基,并帮助酿酒之城赢得了50年来的第一个NBA总冠军。他在雄鹿队效力期间,一半的投篮都来自三分线外。
洛佩斯在他效力雄鹿队的早期是一个异类。现在,他有很多同伴了。在上个赛季至少盖帽100次的12名球员中,有一半人也至少命中了100个三分球:文班亚马、霍姆格伦、洛佩斯、波士顿的克里斯塔普斯·波尔津吉斯、印第安纳的迈尔斯·特纳和孟菲斯的贾伦·杰克逊,名单上唯一的四号位球员。
十年前,中锋有这样的表现感觉像是一个异想天开的想法。现在,在考察大个子球员时,球队会试图预测7尺长人是否能够发展成为有能力的“空间型五号位”。这甚至适用于像达拉斯独行侠队的二年级球员德里克·莱弗利二世这样的顶级空接终结者,或者像孟菲斯灰熊队新秀扎克·埃迪这样的低位霸凌者,他们两人都将三分球投篮纳入了他们每天训练后的例行练习中。
“你总会有工作。这是一件大事,”特纳告诉ESPN,他指的是拥有三分射程的篮筐保护者。上个赛季,他为东部决赛球队步行者队命中了职业生涯最高的116个三分球,同时送出了144次盖帽,这是他连续第七个赛季盖帽过百。
“我认为,随着你的职业生涯越来越长,或者在你的职业生涯后期,当你失去一点运动能力时,你仍然有能力投篮和抖动手腕。我认为,最重要的是,大个子球员进入联盟,看着像我这样的人,看着布鲁克·洛佩斯这样的人,知道这是可能的,这很好。”
切特·霍姆格伦和俄克拉荷马雷霆队以3胜0负开局,而维克托·文班亚马和圣安东尼奥马刺队则以1胜2负开局。 AP Photo/Darren Abate 空间型 、盖帽型中锋的原型正在达到新的高度,因为文班亚马和霍姆格伦的体型和技能如此独特。
从防守端开始,他们立即确立了自己作为主导力量的地位。
“我对他的第一印象,也是真正让我眼前一亮的,我现在可能会认为这是理所当然的,就是他扑向球的速度,”雷霆队主教练马克·戴格诺特谈到霍姆格伦时说。“有些球你认为他够不到,然后他就像一只螳螂一样。他不知从哪里就出现在球的上面。”
霍姆格伦在空间中的防守足够好,可以让戴格诺特采用各种各样的防守策略,上个赛季他送出了190次盖帽。这在联盟中排名第二,仅次于文班亚马的254次盖帽,这是八年来所有球员中最多的。
但真正将霍姆格伦和文班亚马与其他盖帽型中锋区分开来的是他们多样化的进攻潜力,即使是像洛佩斯和特纳这样擅长远距离投篮的球员也是如此。
“伙计,他们是自然界的怪胎,”特纳说。“他们非常非常有天赋。我看着像文班这样的人,他就像一个高个子后卫。是大个子球员想成为后卫,你明白我的意思吗?”
这些是罕见的大个子球员,拥有深厚的“武器库”。在NBA历史上,从来没有人在一个赛季中至少有100个三分球命中、150次盖帽和200次助攻,直到霍姆格伦和文班亚马在新秀赛季都做到了这一点。他们也是联盟中仅有的至少有125次扣篮和三分球命中的球员。
“说实话,看到这些很酷,因为他们已经可以做很多事情了,而他们的职业生涯才刚刚开始,”洛佩斯说。“没有什么事是他们做不到的。他们的控球很好。他们的移动很棒。看到他们现在正在做的事情已经非常特别了。所以,只要想想他们所有的潜力,看到能够做所有这些事情的中锋真是令人兴奋。”
由于他们多才多艺的技能和瘦削的体型,当霍姆格伦和文班亚马进入联盟时,人们对他们能否——或者是否应该——打中锋存在疑问。虽然文班亚马以大前锋的身份开始了他的职业生涯,但霍姆格伦在新秀赛季完全担任中锋,效力于成为NBA历史上最年轻的头号种子的俄克拉荷马城队。
在2022-23赛季,当霍姆格伦因脚伤缺席比赛时,雷霆队尝试了让7尺、190磅的阿列克谢·波库舍夫斯基打中锋的阵容,为他们珍贵的乐透秀推迟的新秀赛季做准备。俄克拉荷马城确定,让霍姆格伦打中锋的进攻优势超过了篮板球方面的挑战。
“这一切都是为了让其他球队陷入两难境地,如果他们想带走一些东西,他们就会放弃其他东西,”霍姆格伦在上赛季末说道,当时他场均得到16.5分,投篮命中率为53%,三分球命中率为37%。“如果你是单一维度的,那么他们可以把它带走,然后说,‘用其他方法击败我们’,而没有其他有效的方法。……所以,只要弄清楚如何应对任何事情,任何抛向你的东西。”
今年夏天,俄克拉荷马城对一位更强壮的7尺长人进行了重大投资,与以赛亚·哈尔滕施泰因签下了一份三年8700万美元的合同。霍姆格伦的外线技能使得两位大个子球员一起上场成为一个可行的选择,尽管关于轮换阵容如何与这对7尺搭档配合的探索过程目前处于暂停状态,因为哈尔滕施泰因正在从左手骨折中恢复,这将使他至少缺席本赛季的第一个月。
与此同时,在雷霆队赛季揭幕战的胜利中,霍姆格伦在与三届MVP尼古拉·约基奇的对位中表现出色。他在胜利中得到25分、14个篮板、5次助攻和4次盖帽(尽管他的5次三分球尝试全部偏出)。在雷霆队3胜0负的开局中,他场均得到23.7分、13.0个篮板、3.0次助攻和联盟领先的4.0次盖帽。
文班亚马没有像俄克拉荷马城的谢伊·吉尔杰斯-亚历山大这样的超级明星后卫一起打球的优势,他在新秀赛季场均得到21.4分,但效率远不及霍姆格伦。文班亚马的投篮命中率只有46.5%,三分球命中率为32.5%,同时犯下了联盟第三多的失误。
低效率很大程度上是因为马刺队愿意让他们的神童进行尝试,并拓展他比赛的极限。他夏天的一部分时间与三届最佳第六人贾马尔·克劳福德一起训练,克劳福德以其晃断脚踝的控球能力而闻名,以继续发展他的运球技巧。马刺队还在自由球员市场上招募了老将控球后卫克里斯·保罗,他在历史助攻榜上排名第三,部分原因是为了确保文班亚马能在应该的位置上接到球。圣安东尼奥不想限制文班亚马,也不想给他贴上位置标签。
“我真的不认为比赛会发展成一个基于位置的比赛,”文班亚马本月说道。“就像我们现在看到的那样,你有时会看到约基奇打控球后卫。所以,我认为球队会越来越清楚什么是发挥球员优势的[最佳]方式。老实说,我不知道事情会如何发展。
“但我希望,我们能看到各种各样的球员涌现,当然,像这样的原型也会越来越多。”
在周六战胜休斯顿火箭队的比赛中,文班亚马得到29分,在比赛开始的几分钟里,他接球时站在半场线外几步远的地方,由狄龙·布鲁克斯防守他。朱利安·尚帕尼设置了一个掩护,迫使对手换防,给了文班亚马一点喘息的空间。
文班亚马向左运了一步球,然后漫不经心地从标志处投出一记29英尺的远投。休斯顿控球后卫弗雷德·范弗利特,身高比他矮14英寸,根本没有希望干扰这记投篮。
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ESPN的迈克尔·C·莱特(Michael C. Wright)对本文有贡献。
点击查看原文:Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren represent a new archetype
Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren represent a new archetype
EIGHT MONTHS AGO, late in the evening on Feb. 29, a nine-second sequence played out in what could have been considered a glimpse into the future of the center position in the NBA.
The Oklahoma City Thunder were in town to face the San Antonio Spurs, a marquee matchup between the rookie big men: two of the game’s brightest young stars, Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren.
With 3:29 left in the fourth quarter and the Spurs up six, the 7-foot-4 Frenchman swooped in to contest a layup at the rim, ripped down the rebound, tossed an outlet pass to point guard Tre Jones and trotted 12 strides up the Frost Bank Center floor before getting the ball back.
His size 20½ right foot standing on the black paint of the Spurs’ midcourt logo, the big man didn’t hesitate. He launched a rainbow, 28-foot trey.
Swish.
It was a revelation as much as a vision for 5s across the league. Except for one detail: The Spurs didn’t even officially consider him a center, listing him as a forward even after scrapping the idea of starting the 6-foot-11 Zach Collins alongside him.
“He’s not really a 5,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said earlier in the season, referring to Wembanyama’s skill set, which stretches far beyond the prototypical center’s. “He’s the one big guy out there.”
Wembanyama and Holmgren are multifaceted, extreme examples of a modern big-man archetype: 7-footers who protect the rim on defense and can space the floor as 3-point threats offensively. They impact the most valuable real estate in basketball – the paint – on both ends of the floor, clogging that territory as elite shot blockers and opening driving and cutting lanes for teammates simply by standing 25-plus feet from the hoop.
These two face off again on Wednesday as the Thunder host the Spurs (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN).
“If you can play defense and shoot the ball, you can pretty much play on any court anywhere,” Holmgren told ESPN. “Those are two things that are always needed on the basketball court, and that’s kind of where the foundation of my game started.”
Milwaukee Bucks center Brook Lopez shot 512 3s in the 2018-19 season, the most ever by a 7-footer. He made 187 (36.5%) and earned the nickname “Splash Mountain.” Benny Sieu/USA TODAY SportsWEMBANYAMA AND HOLMGREN are the extreme extension of the big-man evolution, but a different big man serves as its foundation.
Brook Lopez didn’t look like a trendsetter during his first eight seasons in the NBA. He was in the process of becoming the Brooklyn Nets’ all-time leading scorer, but he had an old-school offensive game. He did most of his damage as a back-to-the-basket scorer, as you’d expect from a 7-foot-1, 282-pound lottery pick, although he had a soft enough touch to be an effective midrange option on pick-and-pops.
Lopez’s game changed drastically in 2016-17, his ninth season in the league and last in Brooklyn. The Nets had hired Kenny Atkinson as their new head coach, and he insisted on Lopez shooting from 3-point range.
It might have seemed like an odd request of a center who had gone 3-of-24 from beyond the arc in his career to that point, but Atkinson intended to implement the five-out offensive scheme the Atlanta Hawks had successfully utilized while he was an assistant on Mike Budenholzer’s coaching staff. Al Horford had made a similar shift in his shot diet the previous season for the Hawks.
“[Atkinson] gave me great confidence to just keep shooting it in-game and work up that trust,” Lopez told ESPN. “And from there, obviously it just kept snowballing and ballooning over time.”
Lopez launched 387 3s that season, making a respectable 34.6% of them. He continued firing away after the rebuilding Nets traded Lopez to the Los Angeles Lakers. The league as a whole wasn’t quite sure what to make of Lopez’s midcareer transformation, allowing the Milwaukee Bucks to sign him to a one-year bargain deal for the league’s biannual exception.
Milwaukee had just hired Budenholzer, who figured Lopez could be an ideal fit in the five-out system alongside blossoming superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo. “Splash Mountain,” the nickname bestowed on the Disney-loving Lopez, was a smashing success in Milwaukee. The Bucks made a 16-win improvement to leap to 60 wins and the top seed in the Eastern Conference.
Some 340 miles away, in Minneapolis, a 16-year-old Holmgren was developing his own game. And across the Atlantic, in the outskirts of Paris, a 14-year-old Wembanyama was doing the same.
Lopez launched 512 3s in that 2018-19 season, the most ever by a 7-footer, making 187 (36.5%). Lopez often spent offensive possessions stationed several feet above the 3-point line, pulling the opposing big man far from the paint or forcing the other team’s coach to make difficult matchup decisions. Lopez learned to embrace impacting games even when he didn’t touch the ball for several possessions in a row.
Lopez also served as a dominant anchor of the league’s top-rated defense. The Bucks typically played “drop” coverage in pick-and-rolls, keeping Lopez around the rim as much as possible. He swatted 179 shots – still the only season in NBA history that a player had at least 175 made 3s and 175 blocked shots.
“They’re contrasting ways of changing the game, right?” Lopez said. "When you’re clogging the paint, you’re almost in every single play. You’re always right there. Everyone can see you right by the basket. You’re hitting someone, always a part of something, but on the opposite end, it’s interesting to just stand there and watch.
“You just got to keep that trust. For me, that was probably one of the things at the beginning where it was like, ‘Whoa, I’m just supposed to keep standing here.’ But it kept working.”
Lopez has been a critical component of the Bucks’ success since then, signing a pair of long-term deals to stay in Milwaukee and helping to bring Brew City its first NBA championship in 50 years. Half of his field goal attempts in a Bucks uniform have come from beyond the arc.
Lopez was an anomaly early in his Milwaukee tenure. He has plenty of company now. Of the 12 players who blocked at least 100 shots last season, half of them also made at least 100 3s: Wembanyama, Holmgren, Lopez, Boston’s Kristaps Porzingis, Indiana’s Myles Turner and Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr., the lone power forward on the list.
A decade ago, such production from centers felt like a foreign idea. Now, when scouting big men, teams attempt to project whether 7-footers can develop into capable “stretch 5s.” That applies even to a premier lob finisher such as Dallas Mavericks sophomore Dereck Lively II or a post-up bully such as Memphis Grizzlies rookie Zach Edey, both of whom incorporate 3-point shooting into their daily post-practice routines.
“You’ll always have a job. That’s a big thing,” Turner told ESPN, referring to rim protectors who possess 3-point range. He made a career-high 116 3s last season while blocking 144 shots, his seventh straight 100-block season, for the East finalist Pacers.
“I think that as you go more and more in your career or later in your career, when you lose a little bit of your athletic ability, you still have the ability to shoot the ball and flick the wrist. I think that more than anything, bigs coming in and watching, seeing guys like myself, seeing the Brook Lopezes, it’s just good coming to the league knowing that it’s possible.”
Chet Holmgren and the Oklahoma City Thunder are off to a 3-0 start while Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs are 1-2. AP Photo/Darren AbateTHE FLOOR-SPACING, shot-swatting center archetype is reaching new heights because Wembanyama and Holmgren are so uniquely skilled for their size.
Start on the defensive end, where they immediately established themselves as dominant forces.
“The first impression I had of him that really jumped out, I’d probably take it for granted now, is his closing speed on balls,” Thunder coach Mark Daigneault said of Holmgren. “There’s plays that you don’t think he can get to, and then it’s like he’s a praying mantis. He is just on top of the ball out of nowhere.”
Holmgren, who defends well enough in space to allow Daigneault to employ a wide variety of coverage schemes, blocked 190 shots last season. That ranked a distant second in the league behind Wembanyama, who had 254 blocks, the most by any player in eight seasons.
But it’s their diverse offensive potential that really separates Holmgren and Wembanyama from other shot-blocking centers, even those such as Lopez and Turner, who are comfortable shooting from long range.
“Man, they’re freaks of nature,” Turner said. “They’re very, very talented. I look at someone like Wemby, he’s just a tall guard. It’s bigs that want to be guards, you know what I mean?”
These are the rare big men equipped with deep “bags.” Nobody in NBA history ever had at least 100 made 3s, 150 blocks and 200 assists in a season until Holmgren and Wembanyama both did so as rookies. They were also the only players in the league with at least 125 dunks and 3s.
“It’s cool to see honestly, because there’s just so much they can do already and they’re just getting started in their careers,” Lopez said. “There’s not really anything they can’t do. They handle the ball so well. They move great. To see already what they’re doing is pretty special. So just to think about all the potential they have, it’s exciting to see centers who are capable of doing all those things.”
There were questions about whether Holmgren and Wembanyama could – or should – play center as they entered the league, because of their versatile skill sets and skinny frames. While Wembanyama opened his career at power forward, Holmgren played solely center as a rookie for an Oklahoma City team that became the youngest No. 1 seed in NBA history.
The Thunder experimented with lineups featuring 7-foot, 190-pounder Aleksej Pokusevski at center during the 2022-23 season, when Holmgren sat out with a foot injury, in preparation for their prized lottery pick’s delayed rookie year. Oklahoma City determined that the offensive benefits of having Holmgren play center outweighed the rebounding challenges.
“It’s all about putting other teams in a dilemma where if they want to take something away, they’re giving up something else,” Holmgren said late last season, when he averaged 16.5 points while shooting 53% from the floor and 37% from 3-point range. “If you’re too one-dimensional, then they can just take that away and say, ‘Beat us doing something else,’ and there’s nothing else that’s effective with it. … So just kind of figuring out how to counter whatever, whatever’s thrown at you.”
Oklahoma City made a significant investment in a bulkier 7-footer this summer, signing Isaiah Hartenstein to a three-year, $87 million deal. Holmgren’s perimeter skills make playing the two big men together a plausible option, although the discovery process on how the rotation will work with the 7-foot tandem is on hold while Hartenstein recovers from a broken left hand that will sideline him for at least the first month of the season.
In the meantime, Holmgren more than held his own against three-time MVP Nikola Jokic in the Thunder’s season-opening win. He had 25 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists and 4 blocks in the victory (despite missing all five of his 3-point attempts). He has averaged 23.7 points, 13.0 rebounds, 3.0 assists and a league-leading 4.0 blocks during the Thunder’s 3-0 start.
Wembanyama, who doesn’t have the luxury of playing with a superstar guard such as Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, averaged 21.4 points as a rookie but wasn’t nearly as efficient as Holmgren. Wembanyama shot only 46.5% from the floor and 32.5% from 3-point range while committing the third-most turnovers in the league.
The inefficiency was in large part due to the Spurs’ willingness to allow their prodigy to experiment and expand the limits of his game. He spent some of his summer working out with Jamal Crawford, the three-time Sixth Man of the Year who was known for his ankle-breaking ballhandling ability, to continue evolving his dribbling skills. The Spurs also recruited Chris Paul, the veteran point guard who ranks third on the all-time assists list, in free agency in part to make sure Wembanyama gets the ball in the spots he should. San Antonio doesn’t want to put limits, or positional labels, on Wembanyama.
“I don’t see the game really evolving into a position-based game,” Wembanyama said this month. "Just as we see now, you have Jokic playing point guard sometimes. So, I think teams are going to figure out more and more what’s the [best] way to use a player to his strengths. Honestly, I don’t know how it’s going to go.
“But hopefully, we can see a big variety of players emerging and of course, the prototypes like these are going to happen more and more.”
In the opening minutes of his 29-point performance in Saturday’s win over the Houston Rockets, Wembanyama got the ball a couple of steps over half court as Dillon Brooks guarded him. Julian Champagnie set a screen to force a switch, giving Wembanyama a bit of breathing room.
Wembanyama took one dribble to his left and casually let a 29-footer fly from the logo. Houston point guard Fred VanVleet, who was at a 14-inch height disadvantage, had no hope of contesting the shot.
Swish.
ESPN’s Michael C. Wright contributed to this story.
By Tim MacMahon | ESPN, via ESPN