Obscured by the glow of Victor Wembanyama's historic performance Thursday night - in which he put up 25 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, five steals, five blocks, and was a plus-43 in an 18-point win over a putrid Utah Jazz team - is the fact that the San Antonio Spurs sophomore's offensive development appears to have hit a speed bump.
Let's qualify this by acknowledging that we're only five games into his age-21 campaign, he already has a 5x5 game on the ledger, and San Antonio's roster is far from optimally constructed around him (not to mention missing a couple of vital current players). This won't be an indictment of Wembanyama's present or future abilities, especially considering he's the front-runner for Defensive Player of the Year in just his second season.
But at the other end of the floor, the way serious teams (sorry Jazz) have guarded him and the Spurs - and the extent to which he's struggled against those coverages - is a notable early-season trend.
The 7-foot-4 phenom is regularly being defended by players nearly a foot shorter than him, and he hasn't done much to punish or dissuade the ostensible mismatches so far. Frequently, those matchups come about when teams switch his screening actions. Just as often, they're the result of teams using wings as his primary defenders. The likes of Dillon Brooks, Klay Thompson, Jalen Williams, and Alex Caruso have all more than held their own when tasked with stymieing the Frenchman. (The Jazz didn't do this, because the Jazz have no wings. So we'll ignore that game for now.)
Wembanyama isn't scoring efficiently or even generating many high-value looks against the cross-matches and switches he's seeing; only 45% of his field-goal attempts have come from free-throw-line distance and in, and he's shooting just 30% on jump shots outside that range. Switches flatten out the Spurs' pick-and-rolls and make it harder for Wembanyama to dive to the rim. His average shot distance is currently 16.2 feet, per Basketball Reference, way up from 13 as a rookie. Even Kevin Durant shoots the ball from closer (14.3 feet) on average. Meanwhile, the smalls guarding Wembanyama aggressively attack his high dribble any time he puts the ball on the deck, leading to boatloads of turnovers.
All told, the Spurs rank 29th in offensive rating, and they haven't been any more efficient with Wembanyama on the floor than on the bench. That defensive blueprint has been successful for a few reasons, some of which are attributable to Wembanyama and some of which are out of his control. Let's start by looking at what's happening around him.
For one thing, opponents feel comfortable putting wings on Wembanyama because they feel comfortable putting their centers on Jeremy Sochan. The non-shooting forward is off to a great start as an interior finisher this season, but he still doesn't really stress opposing big men in space because of his lack of range and shaky off-the-dribble chops. Those centers can rove off Sochan and lurk as back-side helpers when Wembanyama gets fronted, there to deter him if he tries to make a move to the basket.
Even when Sochan isn't on the court, defenses have plenty of shaky shooters and creators to choose from for cross-matching purposes; every forward but Harrison Barnes looks like a viable hiding spot right now. On top of their cross-matching options, opponents are happy to either shade help in Wembanyama's direction or outright swarm him when he catches the ball with a huge size advantage, knowing there's a good chance they won't get burned even if Wemby manages to toss a perfect skip pass to the weak side.
And that's if the Spurs can even get him the ball in an advantageous position, which they're finding difficult without any real advantage creators who can tilt the defense away from him. (This is where they obviously miss Devin Vassell and Tre Jones, their best off-the-dribble shooter and creator, respectively.) For as good a passer as Chris Paul still is, he can't beat anyone off the bounce anymore, which makes it tough for him to find clean avenues to deliver Wembanyama the ball in the half court. It also means that when opponents switch the CP-Wemby pick-and-roll, which they do more often than not, there's very little concern about what Paul will do to the front end of that switch.
So, the offensive ecosystem as a whole isn't exactly thriving. But we can't entirely let Wembanyama off the hook. Even acknowledging how young he is, how impactful he already is defensively, how high his offensive ceiling remains, and how many of these issues can ultimately be assuaged with better roster construction, this is a player who talks a big game and needs to start taking it personally when opponents try to undermine him with shoulder-height defenders.
That starts with where he makes himself available to receive the ball. Right now, he's settling for too many perimeter catches, or allowing himself to get pushed out when looking to post up mismatches, which results in him having to either settle for long jump shots or try to create for himself out of face-ups. A 3-ball over a much smaller defender with a completely clear field of vision isn't necessarily a bad shot, but it's an outcome defenses will gladly live with given that Wembanyama's hit just 32% of his threes across 76 NBA games.
Opponents will also live with Wemby trying to dribble his way to the basket against a smaller defender from 20-plus feet out. Wembanyama's handle is pretty impressive for a guy his size, but that size still puts him at an inherent disadvantage in that department because of how far the ball has to travel between his hand and the hardwood. He's turned the ball over on 19% of his possessions this season.
He's logged 15 drives through five games, and on those drives, he's shot 0-for-3, committed three turnovers, drawn one foul, and passed for two assists, per NBA Advanced Stats. At times - especially during the game against the Thunder earlier this week - he can get discouraged by his inability to navigate the thickets of arms in the middle of the floor, or by his teammates looking him off rather than attempting risky post-entry passes, and start to disengage from the offense altogether.
Long term, he needs to improve his duck-in craft, hone his swim move to create more space for those entries, and build a stronger base to carve out and hold deep position. Those things won't happen overnight. In the meantime, the Spurs need to find different ways to get him closer to the basket: Put him in motion more, have their guards set more off-ball screens for him (corner pins for curls, cross screens along the baseline), and give him more opportunities to catch the ball with some downhill momentum.
Again, some of this is on the Spurs' coaching staff, some of it is on Wembanyama's teammates, and a lot of it is on Wembanyama himself. He can work to beat switches with hard slips or by rolling into deep seals. His teammates can trust him to catch the ball if they simply toss it up somewhere in his vicinity. The Spurs can hunt more early offense or simply run their half-court actions with more pace. (They rank 17th in average time to shot, including 24th after defensive rebounds and 30th after live-ball turnovers, per Inpredictable.)
The bottom line: It should not be this hard to get the guy with the biggest catch radius in NBA history the ball near the rim. Even in a less-than-ideal offensive environment, better process is possible. For now, the blueprint for guarding Wembanyama and the Spurs has been drawn. It's up to him, and them, to tear it up.
Joe Wolfond covers the NBA for theScore.