Victor Wembanyama Clearly Wants All The Smoke After Calling Out NBA Stars Who Don't Put In The Work To Be Great

Issac Baldizon. Getty Images.

By pretty much all accounts, the Year 1 Victor Wembanyma Experience was about as good as it could possibly be. It's not often that we see a player who had his level of hype entering the NBA not only live up to it, but actually exceed it. You could make the case that as we enter Year 2 he's actually starting to get a tad overrated, but at the same time you can understand why. A two-way monster who is already basically a lock for 20/10/4/4 every night, he's only going to get better from here.

Aside from his cheat code length and skillset, what we've learned about Wemby so far is it appears he has the exact mentality you want for a franchise player. You can tell he wants to be great and is willing to put in the work to truly fulfill his potential. Given people declared if he ended up being HAKEEM OLAJUWON by the end of his career that it would be a "failure", you could say the bar is set pretty damn high. 

Well based on how he's talking entering his second season, he seems ready for the challenge

“In a good way, some of them are really impressive and inspiring in the way they approach the game every night. But others that I used to like, now it’s like I’m just not sure they deserve it. Like they don’t seem like they put as much work in as I thought.” 

Now, first things first. As I do whenever we get an "anonymous source" who says shit like this, I can't ignore that talking this way and not mentioning the names is bullshit. Name names! If you're brave enough to say this shit on record, be brave enough to say who you are talking about. If you want to play that game, then play it and then accept what comes with it once you step in between the lines. 

Is he talking about Harden? Luka? Embiid? Not mentioning the names is a bit soft in my opinion, even if I understand why he didn't. 

Normally, a second year player calling out NBA stars like this would be pretty insane, but with Wemby I think because we all know what he's going to turn into and can see his dominance already, he sort of gets a pass. Said another way, if someone like Brandon Miller said this, he'd be getting dragged for it. 

As a fan, I love it. This is what the NBA needs more of. Bring back hate, bring back beefs, bring back players calling out other players for being lazy and not working hard. You don't think this is going to catch the ear of the stars throughout the league who are probably going to be extra motivated whenever they see Wemby? That's a good thing! Then on the Wemby side, he can't talk like this and then not take another leap, so there's pressure on him to now back it up, which is also a good thing!

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Given that Wemby is entering the season with ESPN ranking him the 11th best player in the league, most assume he's a lock for both DPOY and MIP, it's only a matter of time before the masses get some Wemby fatigue. We see it happen all the time to the generational talents and a lot of that is rooted in jealousy. All I know is once the season starts and Wemby starts to be matched up against all of these NBA stars, we'll get a pretty clear idea of who he was talking about in that clip. 

He asked for the smoke, so let's see how he handles it.