After a tremendous rookie season, the start of Victor Wembanyama‘s second season in the NBA was proving somewhat disappointing for many. Was. The French giant turned out to only need a couple of matches to reactivate himself, and like someone resurrected after his first coffee in the morning, he finally woke up from his lethargy after a couple of matches still half functioning. And the Utah Jazz paid the consequences.
Wemby has achieved the second 5×5 of his career against Salt Lake City, a milestone that almost seems designed to be achieved with some frequency. Specifically, the Frenchman finished with 25 points, 9 rebounds, 7 assists, 5 blocks and 5 steals, shining in all statistical categories and achieving a statistical line with a single precedent, achieved by Hakeem Olajuwon in 1990. A dominance that led him to that his minutes on the court ended with a devastating partial of +43 for the Texans, who won the match by a placid 88-106.
¿Historical dominator future?
With this milestone, the Frenchman becomes the third player in history to achieve more than 5×5 in his career, something that to date had only been achieved by Andre Kirilenko, who added 3, and the aforementioned Ojajuwon, who closed his trajectory as the undisputed leader of this statistic with 6. But said dominance may have its hours numbered. Wembanyama seems perfectly equipped for this record, since his enormous size, his defensive involvement and his long arms mean that achieving 5 blocks and/or 5 steals in one night is not something crazy, and reaching 5 rebounds is something he can almost do effortless. The same for the 5 points, but he also has a vision of the game and a passing ability that is unusual in men of his size that allow him to regularly reach 5 assists. And the combination of all these virtues is truly scary.
Victor is the 15th player in history who has had a 5×5 recorded, although the truth is that in this case it is necessary to make a difference between players who have had it recorded and players who have achieved it. Since blocks and steals didn’t start being counted until the 73-74 season, it’s likely that someone achieved this milestone at some point and it was simply lost to history because no one was keeping tabs on these two stats. But hey, it’s also nice to have some statistic that isn’t dominated by Wilt Chamberlain. When we have a video record of the 100 points we will negotiate, Wilt.
The last 5×5 is also owned by Wembanyama, who last year achieved the first of many (time after time) in the visit of the Spurs to the Lakers, against whom he achieved 27 points, 10 rebounds, 8 assists, 5 blocks and 5 robberies. With that performance, he put an end to a drought of more than five years without seeing a performance, since the last one dated back to January 2019 and starred Jusuf Nurkic.
“What this shows me is that I have to raise my expectations, because now when I don’t get a 5×5 I will know that I could have helped my team more in certain aspects,” commented Victor, ambitious as usual. «As I have already said on some occasion. It’s something I should do more often to help my colleagues.
Placid victory
However, despite the tremendous performance of their star, it was not until his teammates took a step forward that the Spurs truly took control of the match. With 17 of his goals in the first half, Victor was the clear dominator, but this did not help the Texan team to go ahead at half-time, something for which he needed to involve his teammates upon returning to the court. With Chris Paul gaining more weight and adding 14 of his 19 points in the second half, Poppovich’s team changed the fate of a clash in which they had been down 11, and not only quickly took the lead but built an advantage which led to an ending without too many problems.
The Jazz were in this sense the perfect victim, since, after several years in which they have seemed to be too good but on the tank but not so much to compete, on this occasion they have embraced the idea of being one of the worst teams in the competition. Hardy’s team is the only one that has not opened its winnings this year, and although during the first half they dreamed of doing so, they ended up falling quite far from achieving it.
(Cover photo: Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)
