SAN ANTONIO — Chris Paul had seen it all — or so he thought. Not even a week into training camp with his new team, the 39-year-old witnessed something new.
With the San Antonio Spurs running 5-on-5, Paul’s teammate, a 20-year-old with the innovation to match his skill set, sank a shot that looked fake.
Victor Wembanyama had dribbled across the halfcourt line with Nathan Mensah backing up on defense. Mensah, an end-of-the-roster hopeful, had wedged himself into a helpless situation. Get in Wembanyama’s face, and he could end up on a poster. Stay back, and the big man could pull up for 3.
Mensah committed to the latter, drifting inside the arc. Wembanyama had space.
Uh oh.
The French phenom picked up the basketball still far out from the 3-point line and took two legal steps before releasing a one-legged long ball that would have looked like a floater if it weren’t so far from the paint. Some people present released a little howl when the shot banged in, but most in San Antonio have grown accustomed to the first rule of being around Wembanyama: expect the unexpected. On any given day, he could do something they had never seen.
After all, for the Wembanyama diehards, the 25-foot floater was barely novel. He pulled off the same one-legged, 3-point runner in FIBA play a couple of years ago and did it again at Memphis last season. But that one rattled around the rim and ricocheted off the backboard before finally falling into the hole.
The one this week was crisp, grazing the back rim and falling through the net. And one person who has yet to learn the Wembanyama rules couldn’t put it out of his mind.
“I just remember looking up and saying, ‘Oh s—, that was a tough shot,’” Paul told reporters, chuckling with the disbelief of a David Blaine audience member.
The Spurs, who opened their preseason Monday, a game in which neither Wembanyama nor Paul played, are now hoping to create some magic of their own. After a summer of adding veteran talent, such as Paul and Harrison Barnes, the goal is to compete. The NBA’s once-darling franchise has not been to the postseason since 2019. Its greatest chance of returning comes in Wembanyama, who entered the All-NBA conversation as a rookie and will go into another gear at some point.
Could it happen now?
Each one of Wembanyama’s games as a rookie, even if most of them ended in defeat, included at least a couple of never-seen-before moments: a behind-the-back whoopsie-daisy as he Eurostepped past a couple of defenders, or a two-step finish where he picked up his dribble at the 3-point arc, or a block when he wasn’t even looking at the shooter but sensed an opponent must have been beside him.
He’s still wowing vets inside the Spurs’ practice facility.
Just the other day, he and 21-year-old forward Jeremy Sochan pulled off a double-lob during 5-on-5. Sochan tossed an alley-oop to Wembanyama, who didn’t feel he had the finish. In mid-air, he lofted it back to the 6-foot-8 forward. Sochan slammed the oop.
That one was new. What else is on the way?
One concept became clear near the end of Wembanyama’s first season, when one of 25 points or five blocks or 15 boards was a given each time he played: One day, he will enter a territory that few approach, where he is so dominant, a unique scorer, facilitator and a top-flight defense unto himself, that his presence alone guarantees the Spurs 35 or 40 wins. Could today be that day? If so, even inside a conference with 13 teams that could reasonably convince themselves they’re play-in caliber, San Antonio will shimmy up from the bottom.
The Spurs want to win. Gone, they hope, are the days of 60-loss campaigns, as they’ve churned out during each of the past two seasons — though, in some ways, crumbling to the bottom of the Western Conference in 2023-24 was a choice.
San Antonio riddled Wembanyama’s initial season with experimentation.
It tried a Sochan, a young, switchable forward, at point guard, much to the dislike of the win-tonight critics, for a long portion of the year. Wembanyama started alongside Zach Collins, moving the up-and-comer to the 4, for the first quarter of the schedule, too. But Wembanyama is more of a center than a power forward, which showed once again during this summer’s Olympics, when he displaced Gobert from Team France’s starting lineup while helping the squad to the gold medal game.
The Spurs wanted to see what they had. Now, they know.
Embrace the more intuitive lineups, and maybe an underwhelming 2023-24 group loses closer to 50 games than 60. When Wembanyama ran alongside a competent point guard, San Antonio excelled. The Spurs outscored opponents by 5.2 points per 100 possessions when he and Tre Jones shared the floor last season, according to Cleaning the Glass. Add the sharpshooting Devin Vassell to the fray, and they were plus-10.2.
Don’t take that as a sign that San Antonio has to lean into the Jones-Wembanyama duo. Instead, it’s an indication of what a Wembanyama-led team can do with a point guard who never turns it over and with shooters around him.
These Spurs have those.
Jones is still around, ready to come off the bench. And Paul, with a 40th birthday not far into the distance, may no longer be the prime version of himself, but few understand how to manipulate a defense like him. Another guard, Stephon Castle, the No. 4 pick in June’s draft, enters the mix, too.
The Spurs have facilitators where they once did not. Former starters, such as Keldon Johnson, a 24-year-old who averaged 22 points only a couple of seasons ago, appear bound for the reserves. Vassell is hurt, but they expect him back not long into the season. Barnes is another knockdown shooter.
They are banking on internal development, not just with Wembanyama.
Take Sochan, for example. No, he did not prove to be a point guard during his time leading San Antonio’s offense last season, his second as a pro, but assuming that role has helped players of his ilk before.
The idealized version of Sochan is a menace capable of guarding all sizes, screening anyone, cutting anywhere and keeping the ball moving. He won’t run an offense, but no longer is that San Antonio’s need.
Toronto Raptors everything-man Bruce Brown isn’t a point guard, but ask him about how coming up as one helped his secondary facilitating, the most important part of his game today. Few wings play Brown’s style, setting disruptive screens, receiving passes while rolling to the basket and creating for others from there. He may not evolve that way if he doesn’t enter the league with a different perspective.
The same could be said for former Spurs pass-first big man and cappuccino aficionado Boris Diaw, who was an oversized point guard as a youngster.
In the East, where teams will let brisk winds knock them over if it means a chance at the upcoming No. 1 pick, a sheer desire to sneak into the postseason could be enough to get there. But that’s not the case in the Spurs’ conference. Point anywhere above the Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz, and you will land on a team that wants to compete into April.
Whichever direction the Spurs head could depend on how they start.
If San Antonio is sitting at 8-19 a third of the way into the season, it could veer in the direction of Cooper Flagg. But the Spurs may be too good for that now. They are without those flimsy imperfections that stood out so much last season, including some of the emergency contributors who struggled and will no longer play when everyone is healthy. The rotation is stacked with proficient players.
But maybe none of that will even matter.
Generational players have made “the leap” in Year 2 or 3. For only a handful of them does that leap mean a guarantee of 35-plus wins. Wembanyama is on track to become one of those guys.
Only one question remains: Can he do it now?
(Top photo: Scott Wachter/USA TODAY Sports)
