There wasn’t really any suspense. Victor Wembanyama was named “rookie of the year”, as announced by the NBA on Monday evening. The 2.24 m giant, the first Frenchman to win this legendary award (and unanimously, please), joins in history a whole slew of big names in the game, including some, like David Robinson, Shaquille O’Neal , Allen Iverson, Kevin Durant or LeBron James (among others), congratulated him in a splendid, very “American” video.
“Comparison is not reason”, as Voltaire already said, although he had little interest in basketball. But still, 20 minutes wanted to gauge the performance from No. 1 of the last draft who, at 20 years old, has already made a name for himself in the NBA without having (yet) helped San Antonio get out of the doldrums.
Already, “Wemby” has played less than all his prestigious elders, in terms of number of matches (Michael Jordan, David Robinson and Tim Duncan had even played all the regular season matches) as well as in playing time (30 minutes on average per game, which may have caused some misunderstanding among Spurs followers).
David Robinson, admiral and extraterrestrial
Staying on the floor for a shorter period of time did not prevent him from putting up some pretty dizzying stats, like these 3.6 blocks per game, and from scoring more on average than LeBron James or Kevin Durant, who are more classified as “gunners”.
This comparison shows that Wembanyama is indeed the worthy successor in the racket of David Robinson and Tim Duncan, his predecessors and “mentors” at the Spurs. Furthermore, these figures also testify to the incredible successful first NBA season by “Admiral” Robinson, who arrived in the league in 1989, at the age of 24, after serving in the US Navy.