We’ve Never Seen An NBA Rookie Like This…

We’ve Never Seen An NBA Rookie Like This…

Standing at 74 with an 8 foot wingspan and has the mobility of a wing Victor wiama is in the middle of one of the greatest stretches we’ve ever seen in NBA history a 27p point triple double with 10 blocks the rare 5×5 game and in the month of February wiie recorded 47

Blocks which are more blocks than some entire franchises were able to record within that same time frame and speaking of February wimy finished last month averaging 21 points nearly 11 rebounds 4 and 1 half assists nearly 4 blocks two steals while having a true shooting of

59% the last time that we’ve seen anyone post up numbers like that within a 12 game span you have to go all the way back to David Robinson in 1994 then Hakeem elijuan in 1993 and then before that it was no one else yes in the month

Of February in the middle of his rookie season Victor wiama performed at levels that would rival alltime great stretches from alltime great players in the middle of their peaks and oh yeah just before I forget he’s doing this in his rookie season at the tender age of 20 years old

Which then forced me to ask the obvious question is Victor wiama having one of the greatest rookie seasons of all time and as I started to dig deep into the numbers I quickly came to the conclusion that obviously he is but also comparing wimy to other rookies is completely

Unfair because within the first 50 some games of his career wimy is already performing at levels that rival alltime great players now what exactly do I mean by this well for starters trying to figure out who had the greatest rookie season of all time is a very very steep

Task in large part because it is very irresponsible to just blindly compare numbers across the board to different players who play different positions who have different responsibilities and who play in different eras and because of this is very hard to gauge what’s more impactful when you’re comparing a power

Forward who is more leaning statistically in categories such as rebounding and blocks in contrast to a guard whose statistical profile profile may be more leaning towards assist and steals however what makes wimy so special is that you can actually do both throughout NBA history there have only

Been four players in their rookie season to average 20 points 10 rebounds and three blocks those players being David Robinson Alonzo Morning Shaquille O’Neal and Victor wiama and then if I want to say how many players in a rookie season were able to average 20 points three

Assists in a steal well there’s only a dozen players who’ve been able to accomplish that feat some of the more noteworthy Nam names being Donovan Mitchell Luca donic Alan Iverson Larry Bird Michael Jordan LeBron James and of course Victor wiama and for the people out there who are wondering what exactly

Is wmi’s statline for the season well during his rookie campaign so far he is averaging nearly 21 points 10 rebounds three assists three blocks and a steal and yes there is no other player in NBA history who’s been able to average that stat line during their rookie season now

To be fair to the field there are several other players during their rookie season who do come relatively close and that’s me being very generous certain players may not record as many rebounds and blocks but you could very well make the argument that they make up their production in their scoring

Ability or how many assists they record but even if I were that flexible with some of these numbers the players that come up are literally some of the greatest rookies the league has ever seen Magic Johnson AEM elijuan Alonzo Morning Shaquille O’Neal Tim Duncan Michael Jordan Larry Bird and David

Robinson and honestly even though they didn’t record Steals and blocks back in the day realistically speaking we could also claim that both Kareem and W Chamberlain would probably be on this list as well but even if we don’t add those two players on the list if we

Could take a step back and look at the players that I just named you can clearly see that these are not only some of the greatest rookie seasons in NBA history but also players who went on to have Hall of Fame careers most of which are considered to be top 30 players of

All time and out of all of these rookie Seasons the player who produced a statline that closely mimicked Victor wiama was David Robinson as D Rob averaged 24 points 12 rebounds four blocks to go along with two assists and nearly two steals but keep in mind that David Robinson committed four years to

College was drafted in 1987 but didn’t come into the NBA two years later because he did two years of service in the Navy so when it was finally David Robinson’s rookie season he was coming into the NBA at 24 years old while wimy was was a teenager for most of the

Season which is crazy but it doesn’t stop there because even if I were to open up the parameters to all players throughout NBA history regardless of what season that they were in this season wimy is the first player since MVP Shaq to have a season where he’s

Averaging at least 20 points 10 rebounds three assists and three blocks now yes Shaq leading the league in scoring averaging nearly 30 is a pretty wide margin in scoring discrepancy so as I continued my search the players that I was able to find that closely mimicked what Victor is doing this season was

1993 David Robinson 1979 Kareem Abdul Jabar and 1977 Bill Walton all three of these players for their respective seasons will not only be named as all stars but also make the all defensive team all NBA team and even get MVP consideration in particular Bill Walton finishing second in the MVP race so

Again when I say comparing wimy to other rookies honestly isn’t fa when his sheer production numbers stand up to alltime greats during some of their better years and what makes it even harder to believe is that the deeper I dug into the numbers the more footage I watch and

Just overall being more detailed with wimy it became abundantly clear that if any player in NBA history was looking this good no one would ever assume that they were a rookie I say this because during my research there was three things that stood out to me first was

His defense defensively speaking this is easily the best rookie that we’ve seen seen since Tim Duncan and more than likely wimy would join a very short list of players who had the ability to make an all League defensive team while in his rookie season the numbers that back

Up this sentiment are not only ridiculous as wimy leaves the league in blocks with over three a game he is easily one of the best Rim protectors in the NBA as well as he holds opponents to under 53% at The Rim when he’s contesting that is on par with Rudy

Gobear brick Lopez Anthony Davis and Jared Allen but what was really eye openening to me were the onoff numbers when wimy is on the floor the San Antonio Spurs have a defensive rating of 112.5 which will make the Spurs a top four defense in the NBA however when

Wimy is off the floor the Spurs have a defensive rating of 120.1 which is a bottom four defense in the association that not only means that the Spurs literally go from one of the best to one of the worst defenses in the NBA depending on what type of playing

Time wimy is getting on a game to game basis but more importantly an eight-point swing in defensive efficiency Y is ridiculous and if you don’t believe the numbers tell the whole story when you just watch wimy play defensively he is very clearly one of the top five defenders in the NBA for

Someone who is 74 having the ability to laterally move the way that wimy does is practically unfair his ability to deflect and playing passing Lanes is really hard to get a pass off around him but his ability to erase and alter shots is what really separates him from

Everyone else there have been several times throughout the year where a ball handler believes that he has a quality look at the basket as he probes into the lane but that look that was perceived to be a quality one gets a race out of nowhere thanks to wm’s 8ot wingspan and

The True Value behind this isn’t necessarily the block rather than wimy forcing the rest of the league to reconsider what they believe to be a good look and this is not only happening around the basket but even on jump shots that span all the way to the three-point

Line wimy is able to pull off a closeout contest and even a block on shots that no one else in the NBA would be able to would to pull off but by far the most amazing thing to watch from this 7 fo4 defense of God is when you believe that

Wimy has somehow put himself out of defensive positioning by contesting a shot that he really shouldn’t be contesting he still somehow finds a way to not only get off a good contest but somehow still may even be able to record a block the second thing that I noticed

Is that wimy is actually improving see in the NBA Community we have this thing called the rookie wall where in the middle of the first year you normally see a young player start to progress around the month of February and March in large part because these young

Players are not accustomed to playing 82 games within a short amount of time but instead of regressing what we’re seeing from the 20-year-old is a leap that not only is clearing the rookie wall but a leap that is so impressive that we would normally start to see this level of

Improvement from a player in year three or four statistically speaking across the boards we can see increases in wm’s numbers in particular with his offensive game as he has seen a lot of maturity in the scoring aspect and leveraging the attention that he gets from the defense

To also turn into a better passer and playmaker in the beginning part of the Season practically nothing was effective for wimy outside of the restricted area which was extremely beneficial to the opposing team especially when the 19-year-old used to infamously float around the three-point line or settle

For long twos but now over the last 19 to 20 games he has matured immensely as a three-point shooter in particular on his pullup three-point shots which he’s converting those at a staggering 47% and no these are not a small sample size practically half of the three-pointers

That wmy has attempted over the past 20 games have been pullup three-point jumpers so yeah that’s ridiculous but the most maturation I’ve seen with wimy with his scoring ability has been his level of assertiveness to make his presence being felt in the paint and around the rim this not only results

Into easier looks for the now 20-year-old as well as getting to the free throw line but more importantly wi’s ability to leverage the attention that he receives from the opposing team to give his teammates better looks which then results into better offense is something that has really impressed me

And it’s not just passing out of the post he can drive to the basket while making the correct reads he magically now has a really good passing touch around the rim and every now and then we do see the occasional one-handed skip pass those small glimpses into a very

Much improved passer and playmaker is not only impressive but very scary because now a player who entered the NBA who seemed to have some type of ceiling offensively has already started to outgrow that ceiling within a matter of months but EAS easily the biggest takea away from looking deeper into Victor

Wamba’s rookie season is that he is looking this good this early on and he’s not even in a situation that is maximizing who he is as a player now what exactly do I mean by this well for starters in the beginning part of the Season Greg papovich took a very liberal

Approach on positionist basketball by allowing Jeremy soan to initiate a lot of the action in the half court sets and for those who aren’t aware Jeremy Sohan is a forward not a guard so allowing him to to initiate offense was certainly an experiment to say the least what makes

It even more disgusting is that it’s not like the Spurs didn’t have an adequate guard to put next to wimy in a starting lineup because they did and they’ve done so recently and the results have been unbelievable that guard being trade Jones and since the turn of the calendar

Year the Spurs have looked significantly better when Jones is on the floor with wimy and Sohan is actually playing the forward position with Zack Collins on the bench now you may be wondering how good do they look well when the Spurs run a lineup That features Kelvin

Johnson Devin Vel Trey Jones Jeremy soan and Victor wiama they have an offensive rating of 120 a defensive rating of 100 which produces a net rating of plus 20 out of all of the lineups in the NBA that have received over a 100 minutes that is the fourth best lineup in the

Association this year but the biggest reason why I say that wimy has not been maximized this year and what has been the most mind-blowing fact that I have found throughout all of my research is that Victor wiama is doing all of these things while being on a minute

Restriction wiama only has one game so far this year where he’s played over 36 minutes only 11 games where he’s played 32 minutes or more and for the entire season on average he only plays 29 minutes a game so yeah the game where he recorded a triple double with 10 blocks

He did that in about 30 minutes the five five game yeah about 30 minutes throughout the entire month of February when he recorded more blocks than some teams in the NBA yeah he did all of that while playing less than 30 minutes a game but more importantly all of the

Numbers when I was comparing him to other all-time greats some of which while at the peak of their powers yes all of those numbers are being recorded while Victor is playing 8 to 10 minutes fewer than his peers Victor wiama is special so special that if I just view

Him through the lens of being a rookie it would be severely doing a disservice to how great he has been early on this year because though this is his first season Victor wiama is already playing at levels that could easily put him in conversations with other all-time great players

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