Bill Simmons recently claimed that Victor Wembanyama will be worth double of what LeBron James was worth, with $1 billion being the number.
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Victor Wembanyama is a new breed of NBA bound of big-men that the league has never seen before. A 7’4 player with the defensive instincts of Rudy Gobert and the shot making ability of any All-Star guard that plays in the league currently makes for quite the generational prospect.
Talking heads across the NBA have been raving about ‘Wemby’ ever since clips of him went viral when he was 16 years old playing exclusively in France. Fast-forward to the 2022 Preseason and we’ve seen him drop 37 points and 34 points in back-to-back games against elite level competition.
He’s been lauded as being the greatest prospect the NBA has seen since LeBron James in 2003. This is quite the praise as GMs around the time like Danny Ainge were willing to trade any current player in the league (except Kobe Bryant) for a 15 year old LeBron.
Victor Wembanyama is worth $1 billion to any team that drafts him, according to Bill Simmons.
Woj recently came out and said that General Managers and front offices are of the belief that Victor Wembanyama will bring in an extra $500 million worth to any team he joins. This is up there with what LeBron James did for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Bill Simmons on the other hand, believes there is a higher ceiling to Wemby. While on ‘The Lowe Post’ podcast, he would go on to say that the French big-man could be worth as much as $1 billion to the team that drafts him.
“LeBron on Cleveland is worth a $500 million swing. Because they would have those Forbes things and Cleveland was a top 3 team when they had him. As soon as they didn’t have him, they were worth like $500 million. To me, this guy [Wembanyama] is worth $1 billion plus.” [at around 43:00 min mark]
Is Victor Wembanyama going to cause the greatest tank-job in the history of the NBA?
With the hype around Victor Wembanyama being completely justified, it’s safe to say that teams that know they don’t have a shot at contending for a championship will certainly look to lose games. With the way the lottery works, even if you were to go 0-82, your chance of getting the number 1 overall pick won’t ever go higher than 14%.
However, squads like the Pacers or the Hornets that know they will be a play-in team at best, they could go all out and instead of going for 28-32 wins, tank completely and try to lose around 65-68 games this year.
Also read: When is Victor Wembanyama draft eligible? NBA Executives hold their breath for 7’4″ Future #1 Pick
