San Antonio Spurs teammates Victor Wembanyama and Jeremy Sochan will be part of the NBA All-Star weekend alongside other young stars in the Panini Rising Stars tournament. The tournament featured four teams headed by four retired basketball stars.
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Wembanyama was part of the Team Pau, a roster of rookies coached by Hall of Famer Pau Gasol. Sochan wasn’t initially part of the event but was drafted in as a replacement for Shaedon Sharpe on Jalen Rose’s Team Jalen. The other two teams are headed by retired WNBA star Tamika Catchings and former Dallas Mavericks star Detlef Schrempf.
Before the tournament, members of Team Pau were asked in an interview who they were looking forward to throwing lobs to in the Rising Stars game. Miami Heat’s Jaime Jaquez. Jr. and Golden State Warriors’ Brandin Podziemski answered Wembanyama. The Warriors rookie added,
“You can’t mess up a lob [to Victor Wembanyama.]”
The camera immediately panned to Sochan, who reluctantly nodded his head in agreement.
Fans on social media immediately identified the cameraman’s blatant attempt to catch Sochan’s reaction to Podziemski’s claim about throwing lobs to Wembanyama. The Spurs star has been heavily criticized for not passing the ball to his rookie teammate. Since the start of the season, fans have clipped videos of Sochan not passing to Wembanyama when he’s in an easy scoring position.
Sochan jokingly admitted on X, formerly called Twitter, that Podziemski exposed him with his answer about throwing lobs to Wembanyama.
Sochan is a power forward thrust into the point guard position because the Spurs did not employ a playmaker who could start games. Naturally, the young star struggled with playmaking duties and caught a lot of flak for it on social media. He was targeted for not passing to Wembanyama and settling for contested shots. He was taken off playing duties in January, which has made life on social media easier for the third-year star.
Victor Wembanyama’s uptick in form with Tre Jones
After 33 games, the Spurs gave up on the Jeremy Sochan experiment and inserted Tre Jones into their starting lineup as the point guard. The move worked wonders. Spurs’ offensive rating went up from 108.3 to 113.5. Their points per game improved from 110.9 to 113.1 and their turnovers dropped from 15 per game to 13.8.
The biggest beneficiaries of Jones’ inclusion as the starter have been Victor Wembanyama and Devin Vassell. The Spurs’ two best offensive players have seen an uptick in their stats since the change. With Sochan at point guard, Wembanyama averaged 18.9 points, 10.2 rebounds, 2.9 assists, and 3.1 blocks, while Vassell averaged 18.1 points, 3.4 rebounds, and three assists. Since Jones became the primary ball handler, Wembanyama has averaged 20.9 points, 9.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists, and 3.3 blocks. Vassell’s averages increased to 19.9 points, 4.5 assists, and 4.1 rebounds.
Jones becoming the Spurs’ starting point guard has helped Wembanyama the most. His improved numbers over the last five weeks have helped him gain ground on Oklahoma City Thunder’s Chet Holmgren in the Rookie of the Year award race. The Spurs sensation is now the firm favourite to take home the trophy.
The Spurs’ improvement on offense with Jones at point guard begs the question of why Sochan was forced into playing as the point guard. The third-year star did not have the passing ability or the court vision to play the position. The Spurs’ coaching staff put into the critics’ crosshairs by forcing him to play a role he wasn’t comfortable in. However, they’ve rectified their mistake, and everyone’s better off.
