Victor Wembanyama Is Changing Everything About the Boston Celtics Plan for the Future

Victor Wembanyama is breaking all the rules.

Not the ones that govern basketball and the NBA. The ones that govern life and human evolution as a whole.

He is natural selection’s greatest achievement, and he just happens to be playing NBA basketball for a living right now, in this plane of existence, where teams like the Boston Celtics are desperately trying to build a team good enough to face him and his team for the foreseeable future.

Good luck with that.

What we saw in Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals sent shockwaves through the rest of the league. His 41 point, 24 rebound, three block performance over 49 minutes was full of one ridiculous play after another. After every one, be it catching an alley oop dunk while one arm was being held, blocking a putback dunk attempt from five feet away, or drilling a game-saving three from Steph Curry land, the legend of Wemby grew even bigger.

After the game, Wembanyama was asked about watching Shai Gilgeous-Alexander get the MVP trophy before the game. The reporter framed the question by saying “[Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson] said it's pretty natural response for a competitor to see another competitor get something that he wants, whether it's the MVP trophy or whatever it might be. Just curious if that was in your mind at all, knowing that Shai had gotten that award, you were in the top three for it. Did any part of tonight feel personal? Some of your facial expressions kind of looked like you were really, really going for it.”

Wembanyama paused a beat, and said, “Yeah, for sure. Everything you just said.”

Oh no.

When someone tweeted, “I'm wondering how many front offices are having existential crisis watching these two teams,” The Ringer’s Zach Lowe said “the answer is 28.” And I’m thinking OKC might be a little worried that Wembanyama might stand in the way of the generational run everyone expected them to make.

Of course, no team goes off and wins eight straight championships anymore, but it does feel different this time. The Oklahoma City conversation was because of all their stockpiled picks and shrewd front office movies, which still could make the Western Conference Finals the defacto NBA Finals for the next decade, but Wembayama is having a different impact.

He’s so good that the Spurs can throw almost any competent players around him and still be good. The Wemby effect will raise everyone else’s games, making it much easier for the Spurs to navigate the treacherous aprons. All they really need is Stephon Castle and Wembanyama. The rest is essentially just checking off boxes of certain skillsets to support them.

Which brings us back to the 28 front offices who don’t have Wembanyama or SGA. Nikola Jokic will have something to say about all this, but he turns 32 in the middle of next season so even his time at the top is becoming limited.

The Celtics have Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, but they don’t have anyone to deal with Wembanyama, and that's something they have to take into consideration when they put their team together. The Celtics, like everyone else, want to win a championship and have a very small window to do it. Wemby is now standing in front of that window, waving his eight-foot wingspan, looking like he could star as Jack Skellington in a live-action remake of The Nightmare Before Christmas.

But this nightmare is real for the Celtics and the rest of the NBA. The construction of a team around Tatum and Brown can’t just be good enough to deal with the Detroits and Clevelands and New Yorks of the world. If Stevens is building a serious contender, one that is actually a threat to push Boston’s banner total into the 20’s, he needs to find someone who can somehow deal with Wembanyama in a meaningful way.

Maybe he needs to go full Dr. Frankenstein and construct one. Boston has some pretty good schools with some innovative people. Maybe there's some jailbreak ChatGPT prompt that can provide an answer. Maybe the government’s sudden willingness to share UFO info has some kind of antidote or repellent formula that they can use.

Stevens’ job is harder today than it was yesterday, because Wembanyama served notice that he’s more advanced than we thought. The scary part is that he’s 22 and only getting better, so now is Boston’s best chance to strike. I don’t know how he’ll do it, but whatever tricks he has, now’s the time to use them.

The Celtics have to root for the Spurs to win it all this year and hope all their youth parties too hard and don't understand how to handle themselves as champions. Then they have a chance to swoop in and steal one more.

You don’t want to see what a motivated Wembanyama looks like for a full season.

What we saw last night was scary. I wish Stevens and the Celtics all the luck in the world trying to combat that. They’ll need it.

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