All Signs Point To Victor Wembanyama Eventually Smashing Hakeem Olajuwon's All Time 5x5 Record
Chris Nicoll. Getty Images.With Wemby coming off the worst performance of his young NBA career against the Thunder, there's nothing like going up against one of the worst teams in the NBA to help get your groove back. A slump buster like you read about. And while some may be tired of the "holy shit Wemby did something insane" blog, my hands are tied. As long as he continues to do insane shit on an NBA court and make history, I'm going to talk about it.
Last night, it came via his 2nd career 5x5 game (that was very close to being a 6x5)
Of all the things you can see a player do in a game, 5x5s have always been a cut above for me. Huge scoring nights are fun, triple doubles are impressive, but a 5x5? That's like seeing a unicorn in real life.
With this performance, Wemby became just the 3rd player in NBA HISTORY with multiple 5x5s (2) in his career joining Hakeem (6) and Andrei Kirilenko (3). Digging even deeper, he's now found himself in even rarer air
which is why I feel pretty confident in suggesting that when it's all said and done, Wemby is going to smash Hakeem's 5x5 record. Is it crazy to think that he could add two or three more this season? I mean it only took 5 games for him to get his first one this year and he's only getting better defensively. Not to mention he had a handful of performances last year where he just missed out on a 5x5 by a single steal or block, and with how fast paced the game is played today and how many more possessions teams have, it wouldn't shock me if he ends up with at least 10+.
I understand how insane that might sound considering Hakeem is an all time great and he only finished with 6, but I think we need to start to get used to the idea that Wemby might be more than halfway to that number years before he even enters his NBA prime ages. If he's doing this shit already, imagine Wemby at age 27?
I look at Wemby's 5x5s sort of like Westbrook's triple doubles. For decades nobody thought we'd see another player average a triple double in a season after the Big O did it, and then Russ went out and did it three separate times while becoming the all time leader in triple doubles. In a way, we had to recalibrate our brains when it came to that feat.
Well, I feel confident in suggesting the same thing is eventually going to happen with Wemby and 5x5s. In fact, I'll go so far as to say he'll probably also give us our first 6x5 game too (he needed just 1 more 3PM) given the fact that Pop wants him shooting all the 3s he can get
