Victor Wembanyama: 2023 NBA Draft Scouting Report
While we know where Wembanyama is going on draft night, it's worth a reminder just what makes him generational and the best prospect I've ever scouted
Standing 7’4” in shoes with a reported 8’0” wingspan, we’ve never seen anything like Victor Wembanyama before. A surefire lock to go #1 overall, Wembanyama is the best prospect I’ve ever evaluated because of how dominant he is on both ends, the rare physical traits that unlock that dominance, and the intel about his competitiveness, work ethic, humility, and other intangibles that go into creating a winner.
It has felt like the 2023 NBA Draft starts at #2 for a long time. There is no surprise here that Wembanyama is going to head to San Antonio and join the Spurs organization. It’s a great fit for Wembanyama, for reasons that I talked about with Sam Vecenie on The Game Theory Podcast the night they won the draft lottery. The Spurs are a creative and stable franchise, one that is built to withstand external pressures, protect their best players, and not try to turn the unconventional Wembanyama into a conventional player.
Throughout the month following that draft lottery, we’ve all been closely in-tuned to the scuttlebutt around the NBA. Pre-draft trade possibilities, figuring out what the Charlotte Hornets and Portland Trail Blazers do at #2 and #3 respectively, late risers in the draft cycle, post-combine measurement analysis… the draft cycle ramps up over the final month and there are news and rumbling every day.
Nothing during that time has pertained to Wembanyama. He’s been so iron clad as the number one pick that, for the last month, his impact and his dominance has been pushed to the back burner.
It’s time to bring that up again. As my last full-length scouting report of this draft cycle, I spend some time diving into what makes Victor Wembanyama not just a great prospect, but the best prospect I have ever evaluated.
Offense
What we’ve seen over the last few months is the major development of Wembanyama’s offensive game as a primary option, shooter from distance, and polished scorer across many levels. I’ve described this season as one where Wembanyama needs to “explore the space” of being a number-one option and figure out just how and where he’s most comfortable. After looking at the tape, it’s actually hard to find an area where he’s uncomfortable.
Transition is where Wembanyama has a marginal advantage over anybody else. He’s so fluid with the ball in his hands, and his lockdown defensive prowess causes leakouts that he can take advantage of. Ground coverage is elite, and he covers ground quickly in a multitude of ways in the open floor.
Of course, with his size advantage comes monstrous finishing around the rim — the one part of his game that is probably impossible to take away. With the right pick-and-roll partner, Wemby will have the most impactful roll gravity in the NBA. His catch radius for lobs is absurd, his touch notable when he needs to use it, and the multitude of rim-rattling flushes is enough to force taggers to come down on him.
Wembanyama is a great catch-and-finish prospect in the dunker spot, too. He is poised and strong through contact, covers ground along the baseline, has both touch and power, and is always a threat to bring gravity with him, placing his defender in a lose-lose situation once rim pressure is applied by a driver. He’s shooting 71.8% at the rim this season.
Look for the Spurs to surround him with great spacing to unlock that on the offensive end. Wembanyama doesn’t need to be labeled as a 4 or a 5 to have impact on either end, and the roster construction around him should maximize fluidity as much as possible. Other frontcourt partners who can shoot will allow Wembanyama to roll to the basket and slam home lobs as a roller.
When he catches the ball with his back to the basket, Wemby is a terrific low post scorer. He uses quick spins or fadeaways when he needs them, but his hook shot is solid and his long arms allow him to slam several drop-step flushes.
Wembanyama probably isn’t going to be easy to guard one-on-one down low. He’ll command extra attention. There are flashes of solid reads and playmaking that Vic can engage in when double teams come. Decisive ones can thwart him a bit, and he needs strength to handle that pressure. I don’t expect the post-up to be the most frequently utilized portion of his game because of how much easier it is to double-team him with his back to the basket than when he’s facing the hoop and can see the trap coming. One-on-one, he’s just as dominant as any great prospect I’ve ever evaluated in that area.
As a face-up driver, Wembanyama surprises first with his handle. Because he’s huge, it won’t ever be tight in the sense that he can navigate through traffic and use a dizzying array of quick-twitch moves. Instead, he has great control over the ball for his size in a way that allows him to maneuver around on-ball defenders and create space for the functional moves he’ll get into.
His feel for when to engage in a spin move is really high — and that ground coverage is nuts. He does a nice job of playing on different levels, dropping both his shoulders and his hips to move past someone. That alone is rare for a guy of his size; I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen a seven-footer move that way off the bounce.
I think Wemby is a smart passer, he just has physical limitations that prevent him from making a ton of quick reads as a playmaker on the move. Someone who is that tall takes fewer strides to move along the perimeter, meaning there’s not as many bounces that it takes to get from Point A to Point B. Live-dribble passing is as much about having the ability to quickly pick up the dribble and fire a dart to an open teammate as it is the vision to know when to do it. Wembanyama has decent vision, but the ball takes so damn long to get from the floor back to his hand that live-dribble passing avenues could be limited.
That may not handicap him, though. More than anything, Wembanyama has become a laughable self-creator on offense. He’s unstoppable in so many disciplines as a one-on-one scorer. His long strides allow him to get rim pressure from spins at the free throw line. His turnaround jumper is unguardable thanks to his heightened release and already-mesmerizing size. He has great shooting touch, uses the glass effectively, and counter move after counter move.
Perhaps most jarring is the creativity that Wembanyama seems to have in getting to these shots. It’s not just that 7’4” guys aren’t supposed to have this polish or footwork in getting into so many mid-range jumpers. Teenagers aren’t supposed to have this. Paolo Banchero was the only prospect last year I could think of who was this pristine with his one-on-one scoring arsenal.
The end of those clips is where the insanity kicks in. He’s trying things that nobody else has before, and kind of getting away with it. He’s making floaters from the 3-point line! He’s got cojones and is willing to try new things out just to see how they work. The scary part: they work more than they fail.
Wemby has started to stretch defenses out behind the 3-point arc with more consistency. He takes difficult ones, but his spot-up mechanics are super consistent and he’s a monster out of the pick-and-pop. There’s even movement comfort on his end, aligning his hips while he rises into a shot. It’s actually absurd to watch.
Wembanyama made 27.5% of his 3-point attempts this year. That’s a low mark, and one that has raised obvious skepticism about his overall impact there. It looks remarkable when the shot goes in, but the value is ultimately what matters, and at the moment he’s not a valuable floor-spacer.
The key word is ‘at the moment’. Wembanyama has to be guarded like a shooter because he approaches the game like a shooter. He takes them on good volume, he is excellent with time, and the mechanics are too smooth to not believe in. As a teenager, those are the points we should be more concerned with than the difference between shooting 27% and 30% from deep. He may never be a 40% or elite shooting guy, but with his inside-the-arc game, he doesn’t need to be. He just needs to be consistent enough that teams cannot dare him to shoot and opt for that over everything else he does inside the arc.
We talk a lot about the year-over-year growth of prospects. This class has quite a few who have improved a great deal these last 12 months. Bilal Coulibaly, Leonard Miller, Kobe Bufkin, Taylor Hendricks… there are a lot of guys who fit the bill. But Wembanyama almost never gets mentioned in the conversation — a gross mistake considering he’s gone from averaging 9.4 points and 5.4 rebounds to averaging 21.6 points, 10.4 boards, 2.4 assists, and 3.0 blocks in just one year.
Defense
Wembanyama’s physical profile is the main feature of his game. Defensively he locks down the lane and alters shots everywhere — on the perimeter, at the hoop, or in transition. Opponents play fearful of Victor coming out of nowhere and swatting their jumper, stuffing their pull-up attempts, and are unaware of his insane ground coverage on closeouts. With his size and movement ability, Wembanyama’s defensive ceiling has always been incredibly high. He changes the geometry of the court and forces the most difficult shots to be taken.
He's got great length, instincts, and even some verticality to protect the rim. He leads the French league in blocks by a wide margin, and his impact should only grow in the NBA, where ball screens are a greater emphasis of attack. He has great awareness of when to help at the rim, unreal ground coverage to get there from farther away, and he erases rim attempts in transition.
The verticality is a huge deal with Wembanyama as a rim challenger. His standing reach alone makes it nearly impossible to score over him. Most guys will want to use their insane arms to swat at balls. Vic is disciplined enough to let them shoot into his hands. He avoids committing fouls that way and swallows up interior attempts.
With his size and mobility, Wembanyama projects to be an absolutely elite pick-and-roll defender. Rim protection capability is a huge part of playing ball screens as a big, but it’s also about angles, ground coverage, and scheme versatility. Victor checks all those boxes.
He challenges and discourages shots within every type of scheme known to mankind, all unlocked by that dreadful combination of length and mobility. He can play in Drop to protect the rim while also getting out to get a hand up on pull-up jumpers in the mid-range. It’s gotten to the point where guards don’t even want to try it, and if they’re open, they’ll take high-arching runners. Wemby is in their head, and his shot deterrence is special.
He can play at the level and challenge pull-ups in the same fashion. The poor souls who have tried him have been embarrassed on their attempts. He can recover to the rim quickly, and his length allows him to get rear-view contests on dunk or layup attempts from other big men. His timing is sensational.
When he’s forced to switch, Wembanyama more than holds his own. His length allows him to play off and dare jump shots, then erase them when the shooter rises up. He has fluid enough hips to funnel guys into dead spots and then swat at the ball from there. Nobody gets a clear attack to the rim around him without fear of that rear-view contest.
The Spurs may not want to switch by design a ton. Wemby is most impactful near the rim, and switching him atop the key draws him away a bit. But it is nice to know that he’s really effective here, and if paired in lineups with another big or weak-side rim protector, switching becomes a much more viable option.
The ground coverage on closeouts at the tail end of the clips above is absolutely outrageous. Play Wemby at the 4 and he can use all those mechanisms in space to his advantage. He’s not quite fast enough to erase pick-and-pop 5s before they rise up, but to go from the block to the corner on a kickout and get his paws on the shot is something special.
Good luck scoring on Wembanyama in the post, too. He just walls up and makes it impossible to shoot over. He’s got functional strength in ways that are really underrated, making it difficult for opponents to really bury him pre-catch.
He’s just so damn dominant. Versatile, smart, quick, fluid, long, and unable to be beat by any one type of player. It’ll take really smart, high-IQ schemes and players to neutralize what Wembanyama brings to a team’s defense.
Overall Analysis
I get that injury concerns do exist for guys of his size. But Wemby and his camp have been ultra careful to properly train him for injury prevention and maximum flexibility. A huge part of drafting Wembanyama is bringing in the team he’s already comfortable with that can help him keep developing his once-in-a-lifetime frame.
Whatever happens in the future with his pro career, do not let revisionist history creep in. With all the information we have right now and the dominance that Victor has displayed in a tough professional league, there is no question that he should be the top pick in this draft — and likely in any draft class over the last twenty years. We use the word ‘generational’ a little too much in draft circles.
Make no mistake: Victor Wembanyama is generational.
A draft “night cap”.. doesn’t matter how many times I’ve watching these, i still can’t believe what I’m seeing. Thanks for doing this write up Coach.