Victor Wembanyama isn’t a top-five center in the NBA? Check that; he isn’t even a center to begin with, according to Patrick Beverley , whose basketball takes, as we’ve recently discovered, can be as oddball as his playstyle on the court.
The top five with one notable omission
Asked about his top five centers, the former NBA guard named Nikola Jokic , Joel Embiid, Anthony Davis , Bam Adebayo, and … not Wembanyama but Ivica Zubac. Beverley played two-and-a-half seasons with Zubac for the Los Angeles Clippers, a team that was supposed to be a perennial title contender. And while that never happened, the then-L.A. guard apparently liked what he saw from the team’s young center.
As serviceable Ivica has been for the Clippers over the years, as evidenced by his $58.3 million contract extension that he was awarded this week, all it took was a month into the 2023 season for many to conclude the Wembanyama had moved into the conversation as one of the best big men in the association.
Netting 21.4 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists, and a league-leading 3.6 blocks per game (254 total blocks, No. 1 in the NBA and the most ever for a rookie), the Frenchman assembled an unparalleled debut campaign. Forget the greatest rookie season ever or the best center in basketball; many were ready to lodge him as the next “face of the NBA.”
If not top five, then what?
So, Beverley, quite frankly, doesn’t consider Victor a top-five center. Does that immediately cast him as the “bad” guy? Or, as the internet likes to say, a “hater”? Actually, it is the opposite. Pat, not considering the ascending San Antonio Spurs star a center, justifies his greatness.
“He’s not a five [center],” says Beverley of Wemby. “He’s everything. You can’t even put him in comparison with other people. He is the best player in the NBA next year. He’s a center who shoots 3’s and dribbles the ball. … He’s positionless. It’s him, Kevin Durant, and LeBron James in that category.”
Perhaps even “positionless” would be a shallow way to describe the versatility of Wembanyama, whose capacity to deliver an impact from any area of the court is beyond description.
Just think back to a late-season game against the New York Knicks, a team that entered the contest with 27 more wins than the Spurs. On an early possession, No. 1 patiently waited as the much burlier Isaiah Hartenstein moved him deep into the restricted area. As the now-Oklahoma City center tried twirling in a shot, he was effortlessly met by the titanic-sized hands of Wembanyama and watched his shot get completely gulped.
Then, in overtime, already with 35 points to his name, which was already two points higher than his previous career-high, Wemby, aiming to feed off the energy of a ravenous crowd, turned his nonchalance into a sudden 3-point trigger and rattled one in from 27 feet, awarding him the first 40-point outing of his career.
It’s stuff like that that cannot be compared. Heck, it has virtually never been done by a guy his size, making any comparison incompatible to begin with. There’s still much more to come. We’ve only seen one year of the Wembymania.
Related: Lonzo Ball makes a bold take about Victor Wembanyama: “He has a chance to be the best player ever”
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