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Michael C. Wright, ESPN Staff Writer
It is THE last minute in the first quarter of Chris Paul’s preseason debut against the Orlando Magic, when he lofted a lob to his new partner, Victor Wembanyama, who stuck in front to dunk an alley-oop over Moritz Wagner.
Of course, many 16,952 in the Frost Bank Center lost, hoping to become the most powerful precursor.
“People in the know, they know that with the talent they have and the amount of attention they get, there’s bound to be some bait,” Paul said.
Paul will understand. His name is big. Paul has been making them better for almost two decades. The point guard enters the season having assisted on 715 alley-oop dunks in his career, the most among active players. Wembanyama, meanwhile, ranked third in the league last season in alley-oop dunks, according to Second Spectrum tracking data. He accomplished that feat without floor general of Paul’s stature.
Working with Paul, Tyson Chandler in 2007-08 averaged a career-high 11.8 points. DeAndre Jordan led the league in field goal percentage for five consecutive seasons (2012-13 through 2016-17) playing alongside Paul. Clint Capela won the NBA field goal percentage title in 2017-18 as Paul’s Houston Rockets teammate, before averaging a career high the following season in scoring.
“He probably saw everything on the basketball court,” said Spurs interim coach Mitch Johnson, who led the team while Gregg Popovich recovered from what the team called a “minor stroke” he suffered on Nov. 2. “It’s difficult as a coach. because you try to talk to everyone at the same time and the game goes on, so having someone like Chris, who probably has a better solution than me, maybe on the field with the ball, helps, or. affecting it in real time is worth its weight in gold.”
Paul has 20 years of experience in making bigs better, but he has never played with one quite like Wembanyama, the 7-foot-3 phenom once famously described by Paul’s friend LeBron James as “an alien.” Paul added a clear lob threat to Wembanyama’s game, but didn’t match up as expected in the league this summer, with Wembanyama’s ability to score on the perimeter — and the way opponents defend — adding complexity to a partnership the duo is still smoothing out.
“Traditionally big switch from one to five?” Paul said. “You’ve never played with a point guard like me, you know what I mean? So we’re constantly doing different things. I’ve never played with a center where I’ve set screens. It’s different.”
PAUL KISSES A lob in the pick-and-roll as Wembanyama cut to the basket in the first quarter of the November 15 game against the Los Angeles Lakers.
Bro.
A two-hand clock with Austin Reaves hopelessly behind.
The assist was Paul’s third game and the 12,000th of his 20-year career, making him the third player to reach the milestone, behind John Stockton and Jason Kidd. Helping to make history came in the kind of game most wanted when Paul and Wembanyama joined forces in July.
However, only one of Paul’s 11 assists on the night resulted in Wembanyama’s dunk. Meanwhile, three of Paul’s team-high 11 assists against the Lakers found Wembanyama for 3-pointers.
“Our first priority is to win games,” Paul said. “A lot of people think it’s just going to be lob, lob, lob. If the lob comes and we win, it’s going to happen. It’s going to happen just because of who he is. The shot is open, and a lot of times we throw it and he can finish it.
Paul believes that the diversity in Wembanyama’s game played a role in delaying the process of optimizing the chemistry between them.
“Some nights, it’s going to be the center that keeps him going,” Paul said. “Some nights, it’s going to be a small forward. In this league, you just have to be able to adapt. That’s what he found out and learned.”
There are also other obstacles that hinder the process. The 20-year-old took more than a break on the heels of the whirlwind summer, and the club had him out of three of the five exhibitions in San Antonio while Paul missed two preseason matchups.
Wembanyama, who missed the team’s past two games with a right knee contusion and missed Thursday’s game against the Utah Jazz, spent the first few contests of the regular season getting back into shape, learning the intricacies of the game. with elite point guards such as Paul.
Wembanyama said: “We share a lot of similarities in the way we look at basketball. “The biggest thing is our knowledge of the pick-and-roll. I just try to apply what I see and experiment, also tell me what I want. He tells me what he likes, what he doesn’t like. I think it’s a very healthy relationship because we see basketball the same way.”
Pair a future Hall of Fame point guard with 7-foot generational talent and watch the alley-oop dunks rain in abundance. That thought seemed futile when news broke about Paul signing with San Antonio to a one-year deal.
“On paper, it seems like it should work,” Johnson admitted.
Just 13 games into the NBA season, Paul and Wembanyama admit they are still in the learning stages of a partnership that could grow indefinitely as 2024-25 progresses. But Paul has assisted on 98 of Wembanyama’s 295 points in 2024, the most points assisted by a passer to a scorer this season, according to ESPN Research.
“The most important thing is that they are willing to tell us anything,” Wembanyama said. “Every practice, he gives us feedback on what he usually does, how the defense usually plays, how to get more space. He approaches it in an unselfish way.”
NANTI WEMBANYAMA Score his first career 50-point game when he won 139-130 on November 13 against the Washington Wizards, 14 of the points came from Paul’s help.
But none of that resulted in a single dunk by the French phenom. He scored 12 points assisted by Paul on four of his career-high eight 3-pointers in the contest.
“We want him to take that shot,” forward Julian Champagnie said. “(He’s) obviously a special, special player. It’s not always going to be drawn for him. Teams are going to play differently. Tonight, (it’s) going to be 3. They’re not going to send (Jonas) Valanciunas all game big body, we want him keep taking (3s). to him.”
It is clear that the opponent believes in defending Wembanyama physically in or near the paint, a strategy reflected in the profile taken through San Antonio’s first 13 games. Opponents regularly beat and harass Wembanyama near the basket, and Johnson thinks that big men are routinely tasked in the NBA.
So, Wembanyama has applied his skills this season to where he is most effective: the perimeter. Due to his athleticism, height and great length, his approach will be seen as a contrast. But 62.5% of Wembanyama’s attempts in San Antonio’s first 13 games came on catch-and-shoot and pull-up opportunities, while 33.2% of his shots came from less than 10 feet from the basket.
So much for attacking lob dunks – for now.
“The lob is a dunk, it’s an easy basket,” Wembanyama said. “And that’s one of the first things teams have to take care of. So, it’s not as easy as you think to throw the lob. But if there’s anybody in this league who can throw it, it’s (Paulus).”
Fortunately for Wembanyama and Spurs, history has shown that Paul can make a variety of passes at his choosing. That has led to an interesting combination of connections between the duo, which can often be seen in the locker room postgame chatting about what they saw minutes earlier on the floor.
Paul has dished 31 assists for Wembanyama this season with 15 coming on 3-pointers, eight on dunks and four on alley-oop jams. Paul’s connection to Wembanyama is the only combo in the NBA in which one player has assisted at least seven 3-pointers and seven dunks to one player.
And Paul’s influence does not end with the young French. Paul has become a veteran with Popovich away from the team. And with Wembanyama on the bench Tuesday night, Paul led the Spurs to a win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, one of the NBA’s top teams. At 7-8, the Spurs still have a long way to go to reach the playoffs, but are well ahead of last year’s pace, when they won seven straight on January 12.
“I hope you can see the work we do every day,” Paul said. “You know how talented he is. But his desire and wanting to get better, his desire to want to work on things … the more games we play, I think we’ll get more familiar with each other.”
