In 2023, Victor Wembanyama came into the NBA as the most hyped rookie since LeBron James in 2003 and lived up to his billing. He averaged 21.4 points and 10.6 rebounds and finished second in the Defensive Player of the Race year. His defense has remained elite in his sophomore season and has taken a leap offensively. He has raised his scoring average to 23.5 but Gilbert Arenas isn’t too pleased about how the Spurs use him.
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In a discussion about the Frenchman on the Gil’s Arena podcast, the retired guard voiced his frustration about the center playing as a stretch 5 rather than living in the paint. He claimed he could be as unguardable as Shaquille O’Neal was in his prime. Arenas said,
“Somebody gotta sit down with [Wembanyama] and show [him]… You can dominate. You’re a loophole trying to fit in. This is like Shaquille O’Neal being dropped in today and he gonna sit out there and chuck threes up. Nah! There’s nobody built to guard you there. You can rewrite the game.”
“There’s nobody built to guard you down there, you can re-write the game.”
Gil believes Wemby can unlock his full potential with CP3 by his side. pic.twitter.com/7jxdvXdOzE
— Gilbert Arenas (@GilsArenaShow) December 7, 2024
Standing at 7-foot-4 with a wingspan of nearly eight feet, Wembanyama is practically unblockable. But instead of using those gifts in the paint, the center settles for being a jump shooter. He’s averaging 9.2 three-point attempts this season, nearly four more than last season, which frustrates Arenas.
He believes the 20-year-old should be using his size advantage to cause chaos in the paint, akin to O’Neal. Given his fine shooting touch, Gil claims that the strategy to stop Shaq can’t be used to stop Wemby either.
Why Wembanyama cannot be contained like Shaq
When teams realized O’Neal could not be stopped even when double-teamed, they devised an alternate strategy called ‘Hack-A-Shaq.’ They’d simply foul him in the paint and send him to the free-throw line, which was his Achilles heel.
He was a career 52.7% free throw shooter and is one of only two players to miss over 5,000 attempts from the charity stripe alongside Wilt Chamberlain. O’Neal’s inability to bank free throws consistently made ‘Hack-A-Shaq’ an incredibly popular strategy. However, that wouldn’t work on Wembanyama.
The sophomore star is a career 80.9% free throw shooter. This season, he’s banking 85.9% of his attempts from the charity stripe. ‘Hack-A-Victor’ would be a terrible strategy, which is why the Spurs’ decision to park him at the three-point line is even more baffling.
Perhaps they are scared that Wembanyama’s slender frame wouldn’t survive the grind of being a center that lives in the paint like O’Neal. Regardless, the Spurs haven’t maximized the potential of the Frenchman’s physical tools.
