Tag: Victor Wembanyama

Sports Illustrated reports teams believe Thunder will tank next season for shot at Victor Wembanyama

Would a core of SGA, Giddey, Helmgren and Wembanyama excite Thunder fans over the future?

Despite the Oklahoma City Thunder potentially having an impressive young trio of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Josh Giddey and Chet Holmgren next season, Sports Illustrated’s Jeremy Woo has heard some teams believe the Thunder will stay committed to tanking next season for a chance to get Victor Wembanyama in his recent article.

“There are so many variables over the course of a year, and tanking is a demonstrably imperfect strategy. Finishing with the best odds ensures nothing. Committing to that process requires lottery luck and patient ownership, and most organizations can rely on neither. Oklahoma City’s current project seems the obvious exception to the rule, and rival teams already expect the Thunder will remain pot-committed to not being very good, at least for one more season, to ensure entry in the Wembanyama sweepstakes.”

Wembanyama is being billed as a generational prospect and the heavy favorite to go first overall in the 2023 NBA draft, so the Thunder having to stomach one more rebuilding season would be worth it if they can draft him. The only problem is that tanking and having one of the worst records in the league is easier said than done for the Thunder — especially next season if the young trio previously mentioned stays relatively healthy.

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If the Thunder get extremely lucky once again next lottery and land the first overall pick, then a core of Gilgeous-Alexander, Giddey, Holmgren and Wembanyama is salivating enough to make the rebuild worth it.

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Were he eligible, Wembanyama would be …

Were he eligible, Wembanyama would be the No. 1 pick in the 2022 draft, and it’s not a stretch to posit that he would likely have rated as the top prospect in any draft in the past decade, dating back to the Anthony Davis draft in 2012. While most front offices know they likely won’t be bad enough to select Wembanyama, everyone knows he’s on the horizon. In conversations with NBA personnel at the combine earlier this month, the optics of the upcoming Wembanyama draft became a fascinating topic. Players his size tend to come with injury risk, but it’s hard for league execs to otherwise envision scenarios in which he doesn’t go No. 1. For teams presently mired in the rebuilding process, this information begs the question: does it makes sense to try and orchestrate a step forward next season at all, when remaining near the bottom of the standings ensures a legitimate chance at selecting Wembanyama?

The pending arrival of 7-foot-3 French …

The pending arrival of 7-foot-3 French teenager Wembanyama—who is more than a year away from being drafted, but has gathered as much steam in the NBA community as any prospect since LeBron James—almost guarantees that the draft discourse for 2023 will differ starkly from what we’re currently wrestling with. Right now, there’s variance of opinion, but the discussion surrounds three or four top prospects with reasonable cases at No. 1 (I feel strongly about Jabari Smith being the guy, but can understand other arguments). Barring injury or any unexpected plot twists, Wembanyama will begin his draft cycle billed as a true consensus No. 1 prospect, and will presumably hold that spot until draft night.

Who ESPN has the Thunder taking with five picks in latest 2023 NBA mock draft

ESPN has released its latest 2023 NBA mock draft. Let’s take a look at who the Thunder will select first overall.

Draft season truly never ends as ESPN’s Mike Schmitz and Jonathan Givony released a mock draft for 2023. The duo has the Oklahoma City Thunder selecting generational French prospect Victor Wembanyama going first overall.

The duo also included four other prospects heading to Oklahoma City as the Thunder own the 21st, 27th, 31st and 39th overall picks. Overall, the Thunder go home with five picks with three of them in the first round and two of them in the second round.

The draft order is based on ESPN projections for next season along with who owns picks for next season. Let’s take a look at the five rookies the Thunder could potentially add in the summer of 2023.

Meanwhile, back in reality, the Thunder owns the fourth-best and 12th-best lottery odds for the 2022 NBA Draft and four top-34 picks.

The 2023 draft has been starred for …

WATCH: Vincent Poirier, Rudy Gobert work out with 7-foot-2 French prospect

Boston Celtic big man Vincent Poirier and Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert put in some work with 16-year-old, 7-foot-2 prospect Victor Wembanyama.

If this is your first time seeing French big man prospect Victor Wembenyama, odds are you won’t be forgetting him again any time soon.

The 16-year-old center was already 6-foot-10 at age 14, and standing 7-foot-2 years before his 18th birthday coupled with his 7-foot-8 wingspan, surprisingly mobile game and sound jumper has front offices across the NBA on attention.

You can see below that Wembenyama’s slight frame is a barrier to him succeeding at the NBA level as Boston Celtic Vincent Poirier and Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert — both fellow Frenchmen — had little trouble getting past the young big.

Given he’s still filling out his body and appears to have the frame to hang more muscle on in the long term, Wembenyama is a prospect to watch in the coming years — maybe the prospect to watch globally, according to ESPN’s Mike Schmitz.

In the meantime, enjoy this clip of him putting in offseason work with Monsieur Sexpants and the Steiffel Tower while you read up on this European wunderkind on our sister site HoopsHype.

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