On Sunday evening, Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs hit the road to take on the Utah Jazz from Salt Lake City. The Spurs were coming off a narrow loss to the Los Angeles Lakers in which Wembanyama lit up the Crpyto.com Arena crowd but San Antonio was unable to get over the hump despite a near comeback attempt late in the game.
On Sunday evening in Utah, it took Wembanyama all of 62 seconds to make his enormous impact on the defensive side of the ball felt.
First, Wembanyama was matched up against Jazz forward John Collins, who of course is not the standard for perimeter ball-handling excellence in the NBA but is still a tough matchup at times due to his springy athleticism.
(Video via Rob Perez on X).
— Rob Perez (@WorldWideWob) February 26, 2024
Initially, Wembanyama shut off all of Collins' driving lanes to the basket, then lunged for a steal and missed. Against probably any other player in the entire NBA, Collins would have had an easy layup due to Wembanyama's failed gamble attempt. Instead, Wembanyama recovered with extraordinary quickness and blocked Collins' shot against the backboard.
The play was just one example of the unbelievable impact that Wembanyama makes on the defensive side of the ball, whereas the majority of the headlines surrounding the former number one overall pick focus on his offensive wizardry, which of course is equally as impressive.
Wembanyama has already established himself as one of the premier defenders in the NBA and looks like a lock to win the Rookie of the Year award when it's announced in April.
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