Rookie Wire decided to put on our thinking caps and predict the future with 10 bold predictions for the upcoming season.
The 2022-23 regular season officially tipped off in the NBA on Tuesday as four teams hit the court to much fanfare in front of a national audience on TNT.
Of course, there will be plenty of other storylines to follow in each conference as the season progresses. Several teams figure to be in the playoff picture after a busy offseason while others will continue to develop and progress in their respective rebuilding efforts.
The incoming rookie class also figures to be worth monitoring, as well.
The group was dealt an unfortunate injury to No. 2 pick Chet Holmgren, who will miss the entire season, but the class figures to be entertaining to watch. Some players have already put themselves on the map after a strong exhibition run.
Rookie Wire decided to put on our thinking caps and predict the future. We made 10 bold predictions for the class and offered an opinion on what we might see this season. To make this exercise fun, we will come back at the end of the season and see how we did.
Wembanyama put up another 30-point effort, while Henderson left early due to an injury in the rematch of the likely top two picks next year.
With plenty of buzz surrounding Victor Wembanyama after a dazzling performance, the presumed No. 1 pick in 2023 picked up where he left off with another 30-point effort on Thursday to lead Metropolitans 92 to a win over the NBA G League Ignite.
Wembanyama produced a game-high 36 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and four blocked shots in the 112-106 win. He went 11-of-24 from the field, including 2-of-7 from 3-point range, in 37 minutes of action as the French team wraps up its stay in the United States.
The effort followed a 37-point performance on Tuesday in a duel against projected No. 2 pick Scoot Henderson. The rematch lost much of its draw early when Henderson suffered a knee bone bruise four minutes into the game and did not return.
Henderson is considered day-to-day with the injury.
Wembanyama wrapped up his trip to the U.S. leaving little doubt about who the No. 1 pick should be next year. He is viewed as such a lock to be the top pick that some executives reportedly suggested that Wembanyama should sit out this season to avoid injury.
He pushed back on that notion and suggested he still has plenty of room to grow. The thought that Wembanyama can still improve is likely a scary one for the 29 teams that don’t end up with him next year, and music to the ears of the team that does get him.
Wembanyama returns to France to continue his season with even higher expectations of him, but the basketball community will be eager to watch him over the next several months.
After a pair of dazzling performances from Victor Wembanyama in Las Vegas, Steph Curry praised the French top prospect.
While the NBA regular season isn’t underway yet, the basketball world has been buzzing due to a pair of exhibition games in Las Vegas.
French professional basketball team Boulogne-Levallois Metropolitans 92 met the G League Ignite team for a special pair of showcase games in Sin City.
The battle between Boulogne-Levallois Metropolitans 92 and the G League Ignite featured two of the game’s top prospects, Scoot Henderson and Victor Wembanyama.
On Tuesday night, the pair of potential top picks put on a show in Las Vegas worthy of all the hype. Wembanyama went to work, scoring 37 points on 11-of-20 from the field with a red-hot seven 3-pointers against the G League Ignite.
Henderson answered the bell, tallying 28 points of his own on 11-of-21 shooting from the field with nine assists and five boards in the G League Ignite’s win, 122-115.
With the game featured on national television, many in the NBA community got to witness Wembanyama for the first time. The unique 7-foot-4 prospect caught the attention of many, including the reigning NBA Finals Most Valuable Player.
At a press conference on Thursday, Steph Curry praised the 18-year-old Frenchman, calling him a “cheat code type vibes.”
He’s solid. He’s solid. He’s like the 2K create-a-player. Every point guard that wants to be seven foot – cheat code type vibes. He’s a solid talent. It was great to watch. They had a pretty entertaining game with the Ignite team, So it was dope.
On Thursday in Las Vegas, Wembanyama continued his impressive performances in the states. Although Henderson left the contest after five minutes due to an injury, Wembanyama didn’t show any signs of slowing down.
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Wembanyama notched a game-high 36 points on 11-of-24 shooting from the field with a pair of triples, 11 rebounds, four blocks and four assists in 37 minutes.
Whenever Wembanyama is on the court in the future, it will be worthy to tune in. You could potentially be hearing his name very early in the 2023 NBA draft.
For years, one of the great genres of sports photography was simply described as Yao Ming making people look small. Well, it turns out that the next NBA phenom will have a similar effect.
Victor Wembanyama is essentially guaranteed to be the No. 1 pick in the upcoming NBA draft. His combination of size, length, athleticism and skill puts him in a class that arguably no NBA prospect has approached since LeBron James. In his first games on U.S. soil, Wembanyama has showed out against the G League Ignite squad, making plays that shouldn’t be humanly possible.
But if you really needed an indication as to just how large Wembanyama is a human being, look at this postgame photo with the 7-foot-1 Rudy Gobert.
He makes Gobert look short! And, again, Gobert is not short — he’s extremely tall. Wembanyama is listed at 7-foot-2, so he clearly got taller because Gobert measured at just over 7 feet without shoes at the 2013 combine.
It’s going to be wild seeing Wembanyama match up against NBA big men and making them look short. NBA fans were understandably stunned by the postgame photo. No wonder LeBron said he’s more like an alien.
The Alien. It has a real nice ring to it, doesn’t it? It feels like that’s what we’re going to be calling Victor Wembanyama from this point moving forward.
Obviously, he’d been on a lot of radars prior to Tuesday. But the basketball world tuned in when his Metro 92 team took on the G-League Ignite squad in Las Vegas and he did not disappoint.
Wembanyama dropped 37 points including 7 made 3-pointers and 5 spectacular blocks while looking like a guard wrapped up in Rudy Gobert’s body.
“I think probably the same as everybody else thinks. Everybody’s been a unicorn over the last few years, but he’s more like an alien. No one has ever seen anyone as tall as he is but as fluid and graceful as he is on the floor…He’s for sure a generational talent. Hopefully, he continues to stay healthy. That’s the important thing for him.”Â
There you have it, folks. Wembanyama is a basketball alien. And he has the admiration of LeBron James. Rightfully so — we’ve never quite seen anything like this.
As James said, health is going to need to be a priority for Wembanyama. Otherwise? He’s got the goods. He’s the surefire No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA draft and the race to tank to the bottom to get him is on.
Best of luck to your favorite team.
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Wembanyama of Metropolitans 92 produced a game-high 37 points, five blocked shots and four rebounds versus Scoot Henderson and the NBA G League Ignite. He went 7-of-11 from 3-point range in 32 minutes of work in the loss.
The 7-foot-4 center shined on offense, from hitting stepback 3s to flashing his footwork in the post and running as the point guard. On the other end, Wembanyama put his 8-foot wingspan to work and altered plenty of shots from the competition.
James was among those that were impressed by his performance.
Everybody has been a unicorn over the last few years, but he’s more like an alien. No one has ever seen anyone as tall as he is but as fluid and as graceful as he is out on the floor. At (his size), his ability to put the ball on the floor, shoot stepback jumpers out of the post, stepback 3s, catch-and-shoot 3s and block shots. He’s for sure a generational talent. Hopefully, he continues to stay healthy. You can tell he loves the game. He was smiling a lot.
The display by Wembanyama further demonstrated the lengths some teams may go to in order to have the opportunity to draft him next year. Some team executives reportedly believe he should sit out for the rest of the year as he is believed to already be a lock as the top pick.
He is considered to be perhaps the top draft prospect since James.
Wembanyama is drawing monstrous expectations given his talent and size, and it is something that is heightened each time he steps onto the court. James once dealt with the same hype, but not in the social media era. It is something he is thankful for.
I just thank God I didn’t have social media. That’s all I can say. I can’t imagine how my life would have been different or what would have transpired with me with social media but I’m happy I didn’t have social media and I’m happy I was from a small town of Akron, Ohio. It definitely kept me in a bunker and kept me locked in on the task at hand.
All eyes will be on Wembanyama and Henderson throughout the upcoming season. The two players headline a draft class that is expected to be deep and talent evaluators will be curious to see how they handle the pressure and expectations that come with being the top picks.
They seem to be more than ready for the challenge.
In a newly released 2023 NBA mock draft, ESPN projects Victor Wembanyama to the Rockets at No. 1 overall, and he looked the part in Tuesday’s battle with Scoot Henderson.
The 2023 NBA draft is nearly nine months away, and the pick order is far from determined. As usual, the first-round order will be primarily shaped by each team’s record in the upcoming 2022-23 season — worst to best — with a weighted lottery for the first four selections.
But with two potentially generational prospects available in 7-foot-4 French big man Victor Wembanyama and G League Ignite guard Scott Henderson, there’s considerable intrigue in making early projections. Yes, even before the regular season has even started.
After finishing with the NBA’s worst record in each of the last two seasons, the Rockets earned the No. 2 and No. 3 overall draft picks in the 2021 and 2022 first rounds, which led to them adding Jalen Green and Jabari Smith Jr. to the roster. Based on those types of blue chip young talents, many feel the Rockets could have more success in 2022-23, and Sunday’s 38-point romp over San Antonio in the preseason opener could offer evidence in that direction.
ESPN, however, doesn’t appear sold. (Or, perhaps they’re expecting some luck for Houston out of a lower spot in the pre-lottery order.)
In a newly released mock draft, ESPN is projecting Wembanyama to the Rockets with the No. 1 overall selection in June 2023. Scroll on for a look at their insight, along with statistics and highlights from Tuesday’s showcase game between Henderson’s Ignite and Wembanyama’s Metropolitans 92 team from France.
Those two top prospects will meet in a second showcase game on Thursday, Oct. 6, with tipoff set for 2:00 p.m. Central. That game will again be broadcast on national television via ESPN2.
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What’s good y’all. It’s Prince here with another Layup Lines, and I want to talk about Scoot Henderson for a minute. The 18-year-old put on a show Tuesday night, but he’s still being overshadowed by Victor Wembanyama. It’s a shadow he’ll find hard to shed.
As long as things continue to play out as projected, Wembanyama will be the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 NBA Draft and Henderson will be No. 2. The two players will forever be linked, and Wembanyama will always be mentioned first because of his unique combination of size and skill.
Even after Henderson led the G League Ignite to a win over Wembanyama and the Metropolitans 92 with 28 points, he was mostly just a secondary story to the French sensation’s incredible 37-point performance. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Being connected to Wembanyama might actually bring Henderson more notoriety than he would’ve garnered alone. The same way Henderson’s Ignite teammates benefit from his presence, he benefits from Wembanyama. Even the most casual fan will tune in to see a 7-foot-5 center with guard skills play, and on Tuesday they were treated to a display of what Henderson could do too. He used that stage to increase his profile.
Wembanyama is seen as a once-in-a-generation prospect, so simply being in the conversation of top pick with him is a big deal. If Henderson proved anything Tuesday, it’s that he absolutely deserves the praise. The 6-2 guard BALLED, showing his own freakish combination of athleticism and skill. He finished several layups over and around Wembanyama, which is no easy feat. He even knocked down a step-back three over him, something several players in the past have tried and failed to do.
Wembanyama is a beast and deserving of all the attention he’s receiving, but Henderson shouldn’t be forgotten in all they hype. Even Wembanyama admitted, had he not been born, Henderson would be No. 1. Game recognize game.
The Tip-Off
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
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Bet For The Win’s divisional previews continued Wednesday with a peek at the Northwest Division. That’s the Blazers, Jazz, Nuggets, Thunder and Timberwolves.
Denver is the clear favorite to win the division at -145 odds (and maybe even the entire conference), but as our Cole Huff writes, don’t sleep on Minnesota.
“Minnesota is the default sleeper because there aren’t any other worthy teams in the conference. Portland could be good and surprise some folks, but likely not good enough to eclipse 50 wins and remain in play for a division title.
But Minnesota’s case to win the Northwest is also strong because, well, the Wolves are going to be really good. They finished last season three games out of first and it’s clear they got better (on paper) with the addition of Gobert. There’s also a world in which the favorites, the Denver Nuggets, aren’t quite as good as their projections.
Every single time you watch him play ball he does something impossible. He did it again on Tuesday night in an exhibition against top prospect Scoot Henderson’s G-League Ignite team.
The presumed No. 1 and No. 2 picks were going head-to-head against each other for the first time and the matchup completely lived up to the hype surrounding it.
Henderson totally impressed everyone. He scored 28 points, dished off 9 assists and grabbed 5 rebounds in the Ignite’s win. In a normal draft, he’d totally be the first pick made.
But this draft is not normal. Victor Wembanyama is in it. And he dropped 37 points along with 7 3-pointers and 5 blocks himself. He simply did things that shouldn’t be possible.
Here are all the wild plays he made.
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Sam Presti was in attendance in Las Vegas to see the top-two projected 2023 picks going at it.
The NBA world focused its attention on Las Vegas on Tuesday night as a G League Ignite-Metropolitans 92 game was headlined by the matchup of Victor Wembanyama and Scoot Henderson — the projected top two picks of the 2023 NBA draft.
The hype was exceeded as both players dominated. Wembanyama finished with 37 points, five blocks and seven 3s. Henderson finished with 28 points and nine assists.
With several general managers and front office members in attendance from teams across the league, both players took advantage of the spotlight and showed out.
One of those general managers in attendance was Oklahoma City Thunder’s Sam Presti, as Gonzaga reporter Theo Lawson noted on Twitter.
Oklahoma City GM Sam Presti is in the front row here, for those salivating over the possibility of Chet Holmgren-Victor Wembanyama frontcourt. pic.twitter.com/xTSPUZpnde
The Thunder are projected to have another high lottery pick next year, so Presti visiting Las Vegas to see the top-two players shouldn’t shock too many people.
Nonetheless, it’s definitely an attention getter to see Presti live in the flesh in Las Vegas as he hopes his franchise gets a chance to draft one of Wembanyama or Henderson in next year’s draft.
