Victor Wembanyama is coming off a rookie season where he proved to be as good as advertised as a generational talent. He earned All-Defensive honors, as well as Rookie of the Year, and despite being only 20 years old is already one of the best players in the league. Wemby checked in at No. 12 during our annual Top 100 NBA player ranking last month
After a summer that included winning a silver medal for his home country of France at the Paris Olympics, Wembanyama will soon begin his sophomore campaign where he will team up with veteran point guard — and future first-ballot Hall of Famer — Chris. Paul on a Spurs team that has an outside chance of fighting for a play-in spot. San Antonio may still be in the infancy of reconstruction centered around Wembanyama, but after the end of last season strong there are some expectations of this young team to take significant steps towards contention.
All eyes will be on Wembanyama once again as we all wait to see what he does next in his young career. He will definitely be in the running for an All-Star spot this season, and will have countless jaw-dropping highlights, whether that be in the form of blocks, showing off his handle and knocking down a step-up jumper, or dunking on someone. . Wembanyama has racked up his fair share of posts from his rookie season, but there are still three guys he’d most like to dunk as 2024-25 gets underway.
In an exclusive interview on CBS Sports HQ, Wembanyama revealed the three NBA players he would most like to dunk. Rudy Gobert, his fellow Frenchman, was the first name he listed.
“The best defenders would be the biggest challenge, so that would be Rudy Gobert, I think, Kawhi. [Leonard] would be — because all these guys I respect so much on the defensive end, it would be incredible to dunk on them,” Wembanyama told Ashley Niclole Moss. “So I would say Rudy, Kawhi and third would be Jonathan Isaac. I think [Isaac’s] a really, really underrated defender.”
Here is the full interview with Wemby:
Wembanyama has said before that he would enjoy dribbling on his compatriot in Gobert, but Leonard and Isaac are new additions to the roster. Neither of those are out of the realm of possibility given Wemby’s size, and the reigning Rookie of the Year could check two of those names off his list early in the season when the Spurs play the Timberwolves and Clippers in back-to-back games the first week of November.
But as Wembanyama said, dunking on all three of those guys would be a challenge because they are some of the best defenders in the league, with Gobert (the 2024 Defensive Player of the Year) ranking fifth in the league in total blocks per season. ahead and Isaac ranking 15th in blocks per game. Leonard may not be among the league’s best shot-blockers, but when he’s healthy he’s a key defender and can challenge someone like Wembanyama even if Leonard is nine inches shorter than Wemby.
Now that Wembanyama has released that list, we’ll be keeping an eye out for when he plays against those guys.
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