What Does Victor Wembanyama Have to Work On?

For, for the rest of the series.

For Wembayama What is his adjustment?

Like, what does he need to learn from this series?

What's the takeaway for Wimbayama?

Because the talent, as we pointed out, obviously there, Castle will be 22 next year.

Harper will be 21 .

They're going to get considerably better.

They've got guys on good, like these young guys are still on a really good contract.

You can spend that money elsewhere, you know, as you're, as you're trying to put a contender together in the short term.

Like what though do you think Wembayama needs to take away from this series?

I think it's 3 buckets, probably right.

So there's obviously a physical bucket.

It's endurance.

It's physical strength.

I mean he's.

Obviously been working very hard since he got in the league to get bigger.

You have seen him get bigger and sturdier, but not enough, right?

So, he's going to have to be bigger, sturdier.

Karl Anthony Towns is a lot wider, you know, obviously, Mitchell Robinson, but even Kat is a lot wider and sort of just, you know, you could see the physical back and forth between them in a way where Victor has just got to muscle up, but it's also his lower body.

He's got to muscle up because he's so tall, he loses his balance at times.

And if you really studied him during the conference finals and finals, that was something Of the struggle he was having a little bit at times.

So, that's the physical bucket.

There is the mental bucket.

Look, you can't learn to be in a situation you haven't been in before.

Now he has been through the situation, whether it's holding your temper more in early rounds, so you're not too flagrant foul points down before you even get in the finals and have to play more conservatively, which, by the way, he did once he picked up that 3rd flagrant foul point , I think was a game 4, that he did, and you can see him play defense a little bit differently after that, um.

It is the mental free throw issue, right?

He obviously is a very good free throw shooter, but there were two key free throws at the end of game 4 and two key free throws at the end of game 5 that he missed and he didn't miss in the way of like, oh, the ball didn't just didn't bounce in.

The angle was bad.

You could see him breathing really heavily in between shots.

So that mental bucket of just sort of, hey, man, this is an incredibly mentally strong 22-year-old, but you just keep building that as you get older.

And if you think Jalen Brunson was the same player mentally at 22 that he is now, At 29, he wasn't, and he'll tell you that.

And that has just got to get that bucket's got to get built up through time.

And then the other is a strategy bucket.

I, I think that the Spurs need to work on him with a go to move because there were times where I saw him just kind of floating a little bit out there when he was put in certain positions.

He didn't quite know what the automatic thing he could fall back on is to do.

And I, if I'm the coaching staff, I would be working on that with him.

So those are the three buckets I see.

Yeah, and I, I think for Wemby, and this is something that Stan and I were talking about a little bit as well.

I think that humility is important.

Um, I think some of that's overdrawn.

I don't know.

I mean , like, look, I, well, I think it's an acceptance that there's a long way for him to go.

Like, look, Victor Wimbayama believes he's the best player in the NBA.

Like he's been saying it since midseason.

We, we, we're supposed to like that, but I think you have to come away from a series like this believing, understanding.

That there's a long way for you to go.

Like there's a lot, like you are maybe the best player in the NBA.

You are the best defensive player in the NBA, but to win a championship, you've got to be that much better.

And that's gonna be adding, like, there's layers to the game.

I think he's got to get much better in the post.

Like his, like his 3-point game is fun and it's wild.

He had a 7'4 guy jack up 3s what he can ever depend on.

That's a win for the other team.

If he's taking 3 points.

That is a win for the other.

He's got, how many times would he go?

2 for 9 early on, then he would, yeah, I think the best game he had was that third game when he was 2 of 4, like that, you know, he should not be shooting more than 5 3s per game, like full stop.

Uh, he's got to develop more of a low postgame.

He's got to be all the things you said, be more physical, have more endurance, but I think going into the offseason.

You gotta have the humility to understand that.

I don't, I, I, I wanna push back on humility specifically.

So first of all, the first sentence he said after losing the NBA Finals was, this is the biggest, gonna be the biggest lesson of my life for me.

So that's exactly what you're talking about.

So he already said that.

He said the thing that you said you want him to say, oh, I've got a lot to learn.

It's literally the first thing he said.

Him saying, I believe I'm the best player in the NBA.

First of all, if he's not, he's pretty close.

So it's not as if he's like the best player in the second half of the season for sure.

I'm just saying that it's not like he's the 6th guy on the 18th team being like, I think I'm the best player in the NBA.

He's saying something that whether if you can argue about whether it's true or not, but it's not like it's an out of the ballpark.

Thing to say.

We want our players to believe that.

By the way, almost every guy who is the star on their team thinks they're the best player in the NBA and we'll tell you that.

Um, I, I just don't like this.

He's not humble or he needs humility.

He's speaking in his third language, so sometimes he is a little bit blunt, but someone took the quote when, where, uh, he said, oh, everyone thinks we're going to come back and win.

The question was, is there belief in the locker room that you guys can come back and win?

And he said, yeah, everyone thinks that that was the question that he changed it to everyone knows we're gonna do it, yes, but again, everyone.

Was everyone in his locker room.

So when you're saying, oh, everyone thinks, then he changed it to everyone knows because he was trying to be more certain, that wasn't that everyone being everyone on earth thinks knows we're gonna win.

The question was, what do the guys in your locker room believe?

So I'm, I just look.

Of course, yeah, I just gave you three buckets of things he can improve on.

I'm not saying he can't improve, but I will push back on, on, oh, he's got to buy some humility, that kid.

He, he has said over and over again, he's learning stuff every game.

It was the first sentence he said after the NBA Finals.

And by the way, we made this big deal going into the finals of, oh, how did Victor spend his summer last summer?

He went to the monks, he went to the chess park.

In New York, he did that's literally someone who thinks he has a lot to learn.

So I expect him to go see less of that this summer.

Like, no, I don't.

I think it is perfectly of the traditional basketball.

What I need, I need more video from another basketball player that's a damn highlight reel cut from their like hype guy in the, in the gym over at what's the gym in New York that, uh.

The sky gym or whatever, yeah, or whatever that like I, I don't need, no, I do not need a hype tape.

I'm not saying I don't need any tape.

I'm not, I'm like I I don't care what a guy does for social media or for the cameras.

I'm saying like in terms of getting better, like what the fundamental way of getting better is it doing stuff outside the box like going to.

He did both of those things though, right?

He worked with, with Hakeem.

He worked with Kevin Garnett.

He worked with Tim Duncan.

He spent time on his conditioning.

He's like going up mountains.

I do believe, you know, most physical experts will tell you that cross training is better for you, especially in an offseason if you're trying to get better and get more endurance.

So I'm glad that he's obviously on that.

That front, I thought Iman Shumpert had a good point.

Um, I was listening to him on the Hoop Collective podcast where he said this is the summer that you get with Tim Duncan.

This is where like you move in with Tim Duncan, you.

Sleep in his guest room.

You, you know, work out.

What do you think change in Tim Duncan's guest room with them?

I don't know.

What do you think is in Tim Duncan's guest room?

Like a towel.

Like, I don't think it's one of these guest rooms with like an amenities basket.

No, no, no frills.

No, I think Tim Duncan's guest room is like a full size bed, you know, not even good sheets either, like kind of 500 thread count sheets.

Normal, normal stuff, but this is like the summer you spend with Tim Duncan.

You move in, you, you do whatever he tells you to do, and you come back hopefully with the post skills that Tim Duncan had.

Like you'll, you'll, you've lacked Tim Duncan and perimeter skills.

Like Tim Duncan never had the kind of game you have on the outside.

But if you can come back with the kind of mid-range game that Duncan had, with the postplay that Duncan had.

You become an entirely different animal altogether offensively and look, he's, you're right, he's saying all the right things.

Let's, I wanna see it implemented this offseason.

Like put it together.

Nothing's good enough for you.

No, he's a great.

He literally is also doing all the right things.

He's saying and doing all the right things.

He's just not the best player ever yet who didn't win a title in his first time ever through.

Correct.

Yes, well, they were favorites.

They were 5.5 point favorites.

They were Game 5.

And by the way, you, you're the one who told me both before Game one and Game 5 they were gonna win.

I thought, yeah, I thought kudos to the New York Knicks for, for doing what they did.

I mean instead, the stats , like, not to keep recapping the series, but like they led for 72% of the series.

That's like, look, I went into Game 5.

This was my thing on TV on Friday was that the Spurs kept saying going into Game 5, Hey, we've led, we led the last two minutes of every game.

So, obviously we're close and we should be winning them from here on out.

And I said, if you're telling me that you led in the last 2 minutes of every game and you've lost 3 or 4 of them, in the words of the Princess Bride, I don't think that means what you think it means.

I think it means you were telling me you can't close.

That is what that means.

And in fact, that is what we saw.

And again, some of it's endurance.

I don't want to keep going through a finals that's 4 days old, but like some of it's endurance, some of it's what I've been saying to you for 2 weeks that if these kids don't stop taking those damn early in the shot clock 3s when they get panicked.

I don't, I'm going to go down to the bench and shake them myself.

It's the coaching staff getting experience and getting better.

I think Mitch Johnson is a great coach.

I think he deserved to be on a lot of people's coach of the Year ballots, but like, he clearly got outcoached at points during this series, and that comes from the fact that Mike Brown has coached, been a head coach in NBA Finals now, an assistant coach and several more.

You need to go through these processes and learn, and they will all be better when they come back the next time.

What do you do if and when they can get there?

What do you do if you're San Antonio with De'Aaron Fox?

So how much faith, how much do you put into the, oh, he and his wife unfollowed the Spurs on social media, blah blah blah blah blah.

I, I didn't even see that, but um.

I mean, not good, but like I don't know what the market is for De'Aaron Fox.

He is entering, I think this will be the 1st or 2nd year of that full max contract.

He's entering, he's about to start the 1st year, yeah, 4-year full max contract coming off.

I mean, look, he was an All-Star during the season, so there's a good player there, but this was as destructive a postseason.

As you could have, except for, you know, except for Jalen Duran trying to go into a year where he needs a new contract.

That's true, that's, but it's like Game 7 against, uh, the Thunder, he was excellent.

He made that big shot in Game 3 that helped them pull that one out, so he had some moments, but overall, especially the final two games of the series, like he was brought in.

To be the bucket getter for this team and this is what he was supposed to do.

I just don't know.

I don't know what you can do with him because I don't think there's any kind of market for him, you know, he's still in his prime, but are you really going to trade for a 28 year old smallish point guard who is coming off that type of postseason run?

Moreover, I think the conversation with De'Aaron Fox has to be going into next year.

You're gonna have to be the 6th man because Dylan Harper is coming.

Like Dylan Harper might already be here.

Dylan Harper and Stefan Cassel are the future of this team.

If there might be some situations where you can play all three of them together against some teams, but if you needed more traditional lineup, your two guards have got to be Dylan Harper and they've got to be Stefan Cassel.

I, I think the conversation with De'Aaron Fox moving forward is for you to be the most productive member of.

This team, you got to come off the bench.

And that's gonna be something that De'Aaron Fox probably isn't gonna like very much, especially coming off an All-Star season and what he's accomplished, um, in terms of accolades in his career.

But that to me is where he's got to be.

But this comes back down to everyone has got to decide what's most important to them and who do you want to be, right?

And again, I'm gonna go back to Jalen Brunson giving up his money, um, For the Knicks and sort of who you want to be and just sort of like, do you want to be a champion or do you want to be rich?

And I think that as I pointed out with Brunson, that much of a decision only happens when your literal godfather runs the front office and you know the team's not going to screw you, but it comes down to De'Aaron Fox in the Spurs.

It comes down to LeBron James.

Do you want to stay with the Lakers or don't you?

How, how good a team do you want to go to for how much money and how important is that to you?

I think De'Aaron Fox has to say, how important is it to me to stay with a team and a franchise where they're gonna win some rings.

Victor Wemanyama is going to win some rings, you know, assuming health, all the stuff I always say.

So, how important is it to you to be playing with this generational player, to be the guy who is in all those photos and be able to tell those stories to your grandchildren 25 years later?

How important is it to you to have rings on your fingers?

How important is it?

To you to be part of something like this and sacrifice and whether that's the bench or not, he has to decide that and the choice is really stark.

A lot of guys don't have this stark a choice, but when you've got Victor Webayama and this level of organization, it's a stark choice.

Do I want that or do I want to be the star?

Do I want my money no matter what?

Am I willing to, you know, change things around, take money differently, all the different things that, that can happen here.

And he's just got to decide.

And then the Spurs have to decide how much are we willing.

To invest in him because I don't believe that.

How old's D'Aaron?

27 or 28, 28, something like that.

Yeah, that's not a finished product.

Well, I mean, I think this is where he is.

Like, I don't know if he's getting, I don't know if I buy that.

I think that guys entering his prime years and he's been the All-Star.

I think this year was kind of who he is, especially on this team.

Like it's not like he's going to.

I have seen guys his age develop their games, and some of them are elite, elite players.

Look, LeBron James is 30, 41, and we saw him adding, adding levels to his game in his mid-thirties.

Right, yeah, we can't pick the greatest aberration, but that's, but that's what I'm saying is that everyone's different.

But it could just be a question of who do you want to be, and I think that that's a great question.

As the money gets bigger, as the endorsements get bigger, as all of these guys learn how to move forward and we get into team building, and it's Giannis, and who does Giannis want to be and what kind of team does he want to be on and LeBron and what kind of team does he want to be on?

That is what I would take if I was De'Aaron Fox and the Spurs from all of this that's happened over the last week or two.

All right, you mentioned Giannis.

Let's touch on him now because this now becomes the biggest offseason story.

We are less than a week away or about a week away from the NBA draft, uh, happening in New York City.

This is the self-imposed deadline that ownership in Milwaukee has given on getting a Giannis deal done.

Uh, we've been hearing a lot about Miami because Miami doesn't care if you hear about Miami.

Like Miami is fine letting the world know.

That they want to trade for Giannis Tendokumpo, what they're willing to give up.

We all knew about this before the deadline.

It's roughly the same deal right now.

Uh, but the Boston Celtics continue to creep into the conversation.

Now, I've heard from different people outside of the Celtics that they're in it.

I have not heard directly.

That they have made a firm offer for Giannis.

I just haven't heard it.

I'm not disputing some of the stuff that's out there.

I haven't heard they haven't made an offer, so I don't know for sure.

Um, all I do know is if the Celtics do go all in to go get Giannis, I think it's a massive risk.

I've been saying that for weeks now.

Jalen Brown is an in his prime superstar.

Top 5, top 6, and The NBA player from last season has won a championship there, has complimented Jalen, uh, Jayson Tatum well, um, and does not have anywhere near the injury history that Giannis Tentakumpo has.

And as he's in the other direction.

He's kind of an Ironman.

Iron Man.

It's on a big contract, but not as big as the contract Giannis is gonna be getting when he every deals, uh, out there.

Like the Boston interest.

What have you made of it and Do you think it's in the best interests of the Celtics who are championship-driven right now with Jayson Tatum coming back healthy in the prime of his career, a bunch of good players around him.

Do you think it's in the best interest of the Celtics to go after Giannis at the, uh, before the draft?

Well, look, it's a level of poker that only the best teams can play, right?

How much of a tweak do you make?

The New York Knicks, we're gonna get.

To game 6 of the Eastern Conference Finals, but fire our coach because we think we're that close.

We think it's that much of a tweak to make to then get to and win a title.

And by the way, paid it off, right?

It's the little tweak of, OK, are we so good that we can just bring in a Drew Holiday and get rid of a Marcus Smart or do the kinds of things that they did at the Boston level.

So that's the level of poker that these guys are playing.

When you're playing that level of poker, you're saying, OK , if we get to an NBA Finals and are facing Victor Webayama.

Can we match up with that team?

That is where Giannis comes into the equation.

Then it's not a Jalen Brown conversation.

So I'm asking you Well, You're asking me what exactly.

So I'm asking you, are you playing for that?

If you're playing for that, if that's the conversation you're having in your front offices, we're not just saying the odds are we do better with Jalen Brown than Giannis because the odds are he's less likely to get hurt over the long term.

The odds are X, Y, and Z.

We've got these two guys.

If the question is, how do we win a title in today's NBA and are we good enough right now?

To do it given the level of competition, do you think that the Boston Celtics, as constructed, if they just sort of beef up their interior but not Giannis beef up their interior part of it, right?

Like as they constructed, no, they're not good enough, but the construction can happen in a lot of different ways.

They've got a $27 million trade exception they can use.

They can go out and find a big man.

I don't know who it is right now.

Maybe they make a run at Mitchell Robinson.

Uh, I've been told Mitchell Robinson's medicals are not great.

Uh, that's something to be wary of, and we've seen that he has a hard time staying on the court for more than 56 minutes.

I don't think you need to have an interior view.

He's not the perfect nick, you know.

Carl Anthony Towns is gonna play 30, 35 minutes.

Mitchell Robinson, uh, the other ones, but I'm sure.

Has the game measurably changed in the two years since the Celtics won a championship?

Like one player has, like the arrival of one player for sure.

But I've watched the two times the Celtics have played the Spurs.

Uh, the game they had in San Antonio, they probably would have won if Jalen Brown didn't get tossed from that game in the second quarter.

They're up.

Uh, they played really well against Oklahoma City.

The game they had two nights later in Oklahoma City, they almost won, and Jayson Tatum didn't play in that game.

So against the very best, the Celtics, I, I know Brad Stevens had that number was like we're 3 and 11 or something against top 3 teams in conferences.

Fine, but I think you gotta drill down on that number and look at each individual matchup, who was playing?

How did the game play out?

You know, you take those two games and say, if Boston beat San Antonio, they beat Oklahoma City, all of a sudden you're what, 5 and 9.

I haven't looked at the other games.

I think the Celtics.

It, it, it is in their best interest to try to nibble on the fringes here, to try to use that exception, use some of this draft capital, and go get guys that fill their needs.

Obviously they're bad in the front court.

So who's the big that would get you past the Knicks?

I don't know yet.

I'm not sure they need like, and who's the big who they get you past whoever comes out of the West?

Uh, I don't know who that guy is right now.

Like, I don't off the top of my head, I don't know who that player is like.

I'm not sure what they need.

Like Vusovich didn't work.

Like they, and this isn't off the top of your head.

You've been thinking about this for weeks.

So tell me, but I, no, well, you know who's out there.

I'm not, I don't, I don't even know.

I don't know who's really out there.

Like Hardenstein could be out there if he winds up getting, but that's a good answer.

But Hardenstein, yeah, he's, he's somebody that might make some sense, but I don't think that Oklahoma City is gonna say, but you just said you think that exact same reasons.

Mitchell Robinson, the name that keeps coming up a lot.

You can look at the Andre Drummonds that are out there.

You can look at the Jonas Valentunis that are out there, like these bigs.

That are recycled to a degree.

So that's what I'm asking you.

Is there someone else, if you are Boston and the level of the, the, the poker table you are taking at, you're playing at the highest rollers table, you think you can win a title.

You've got Jayson Tatum on your team.

You've got a great coach.

You've got a great franchise.

Who can you get who will beat the size that the Knicks have in the East and the other contenders rebuilding in the East and who will beat whoever comes out of the West, especially if it ends up being a win be too worried about like the Knicks have good size, right?

Like Towns is a great big man, but the Knicks built their team to beat Boston.

Like that's how they constructed their team with wings.

They wanted to play against them, so I'm not worried too much about the size, but then they went out and got Carl, and they have Mitch.

Well, they had Carl.

like they went out and got Carl in the same year, and they traded Randall and and.

But they tweet, they, they also paid attention to that part of the.

They did.

They, they, they got a big in their front court.

I, I'm not so much worried about the Knicks' size.

The size of Wambayama is obviously a problem for everybody that's out there.

I don't, I don't think the Celtics.

I don't think Giannis solves the problem.

Like, I don't think you get Giannis and it's like all of a sudden you're a big man.

Giannis is a power forward, who plays some center, right?

Like he can match up with talents.

That's fine.

Um, does he match up great with Wemiyama?

I don't know.

And the bigger problem, look, if this was 3 years ago, I would be all in on Giannis, but he's coming off a major injury.

Like this is.

And you're gonna give him 4 years full max to play alongside another guy coming off a major injurym not pitching this trade.

You want to trade Jalen Brown.

You are trying to run out of Boston.

You want to wind up on his Twitch stream, by the way, I think I like Jalen Brown as a player more than you do.

So hell no.

I've been covering Jalen Brown in Boston for 10 years.

Well, that's true.

You love everybody in Boston equally and with their life.

I was a top 5.

I think Jalen Brown.

Robbed of his 5th place vote of uh MVP.

Jalen Brown deserved.

He was 5th place on my MVP ballot.

Mr.

Don't try to hurl accusations at me.

Boston hates New York fans.

Hates Victor Webanyama.

New York fans, huge Wembayama fans, hates.

I'm gonna come up with more things you hate.

What else do you hate?

I'm a big Wembanyama guy Sus.

Suits.

I don't know.

Have I ever seen you in a suit?

I don't think I've ever seen you in a suit.

Occasionally, occasionally, occasionally.

I, I just, I don't love the deal for Boston because it's going to not only require Jalen Brown, it's gonna require other things too, like probably require draft capital.

Maybe it's another piece that you gotta give up to of your rotation that gives him up.

Um, I've said this before, I don't think you trade Jalen Brown for Giannis straight up, not given the concerns that you have about Giannis's health.

Do you think Steph would have to come from Milwaukee to?