Victor Wembanyama played one of the most dominant individual games the NBA has produced in a very long time Wednesday night, and his reward was watching the San Antonio Spurs nearly hand the whole thing back.
Start with the line, because it barely fits in a sentence: 52 points, 24 rebounds, eight blocks, two steals, 16-of-28 from the field, 19-of-23 at the line, in a 112-111 win over Dallas at Frost Bank Center. He became the first player ever to post at least 25 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in a single half. Only Wilt Chamberlain, back in 1961, has ever matched the full 50-point, 24-rebound, eight-block shape of that night. His 24 rebounds are the most anyone has grabbed in a 50-point game since Chris Webber in 2001. A 22-year-old just crashed into the most exclusive statistical air the sport has.
Now the number that actually explains the game: San Antonio was plus-23 with Wembanyama on the court and minus-22 in the roughly 14 minutes he sat. The Spurs outscored Dallas 87-64 while he played, then shot 39% as a team and went 5-for-36 from three. A team shooting like that against a 4-3 opponent has no business winning, and it only did because one man refused to let it lose.
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RatingThe pushback on the heroic-carry story is that a one-point survival against a middling Dallas team looks like a roster with a hole in the bottom of the boat. The hole is real. Wembanyama is the only reason the water isn't over everyone's head. The near-collapse is the carry: the Spurs went plus-23 with him on the floor and got outscored by 22 the moment he caught his breath. That's a scarier roster report than losing by ten.
The defense is where it crosses from gaudy to absurd. Late in the first half he blocked three straight shots on the same possession in about 13 seconds, swatting Cooper Flagg and P.J. Washington out of bounds before De'Aaron Fox finally corralled the loose ball. That's a man playing a different game than the nine other people on the floor.
RTGHe wasn't even right. He played through a virus and an ankle that briefly sent him to the locker room, then told reporters he was feeling fine. The one crack showed up at the free-throw line, where he made his first 18 attempts before missing four straight down the stretch. Call it fatigue, call it a sick guy running on fumes in minute 40 of a one-man show. Either way, it's the tell: when the best player alive is the entire margin for error, every tired miss becomes a near-disaster.
This came after an ugly opening-night loss in Oklahoma City that had people wondering whether his fourth year might be a plateau. Six straight wins later, that take is in the bin. Over his last seven games he's at 31.4 points, 12.2 rebounds and 4.3 blocks. He isn't going to average 52 a night, and nobody sane is asking him to. But the Spurs are 6-2 eight games in because of him, and almost in spite of everyone he shares a floor with.
San Antonio's front office watched their franchise player turn in a Chamberlain impression and escape by a single point. Get this man some shooters before his body files a complaint.
