by The official box score credits Victor Wembanyama with just four turnovers in San Antonio’s 109-120 loss to the host Dallas Mavericks on Thursday night. I’m assuming that if you miss a rebound it’s not a turnover, otherwise I’m confident there would be zeros behind the number. Wembanyama is one of the most gifted and extraordinary athletes in the world; he can do just about anything; and compared to the Mavs, his hands seemed to belong to someone else entirely. Possibly Pazuzu.
You can’t revolutionize sport everyone Night. Up to 81 times this regular season, Wembanyama will change the game in amazing, breathtaking ways; He will do things no one his size has ever done before, dwarfing the agility and coordination of world-class athletes a foot shorter. On Thursday night, it was as if he had inadvertently left one of his spatial dimensions – certainly depth – behind in the locker room. The Mavericks would miss a shot and the rebound would be there and Wembanyama would be there to get it and the ball would go through his grasp (as it should have) like it was a green screen artifact. A Spurs teammate threw a punch his way, he jumped and extended his incredible arms… interacting with the ball like a gentle breeze without changing its trajectory.
Of course, this is all a bit of an exaggeration: Wembanyama went a terrible 5-for-18, but still scored 17 points and was only beaten by the four turnovers. (If he was 5-foot-10, 26 years old, despised by everyone who ever played with him, and averaged those numbers over an entire season, the Washington Wizards would give him a max contract.) He came often enough to use to secure nine rebounds. But there were certainly times, particularly in the first half, when his apparent struggle to simply get control of the ball descended into the absurd. It happened again and again! His hands touched the ball – or, well, came within visible proximity – what felt like half a dozen times, each time he successfully grasped it. I felt terrible for him and also felt like he needed a lesson from his husband Spirit who taught Patrick Swayze how to touch things.
It was the first game of the season for both teams, and the rust was showing. For Dallas, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving combined to miss 27 shots on 42 attempts; The immortal Chris Paul, perhaps Wembanyama’s most important new teammate, scored three points on 1-6 shooting. None of this means anything special unless it persists. In this case, it means that someone must search for Victor Wembanyama’s body so that his astral form can return to him.
