Nikola Jokic and Victor Wembanyama show the world's NBA dominance
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The night began with San Antonio Spurs chairman Peter Holt screaming in delight over winning the lottery for French phenom Victor Wembanyama and ended with Serbian superstar Nikola Jokic taking shots that seemed to exit the atmosphere before splashing down into the net. It was a banner, global doubleheader for the NBA, not merely an indicator of the sport’s growth worldwide but a show of utter dominance.
Although a wealth of American talent sustains the NBA, the most compelling and coveted young players in the game now were introduced to basketball abroad. If a streak of five straight foreign-born NBA MVPs wasn’t persuasive enough, and if four international stars making the all-NBA first team this season didn’t do the trick, then how about seeing a middle-aged man celebrating the right to draft Wembanyama by acting like he just scored Taylor Swift tickets?
“I … I … I might faint,” Holt said on ESPN on Tuesday night.
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Others would rather roll their eyes. The envy isn’t limited to San Antonio, the forever home of David Robinson and Tim Duncan, landing the No. 1 pick during another draft blessed with a supreme big man prospect. There’s also a faction, which plenty of NBA players will lead on the sly, destined to tire quickly of the Victor hype and relegate him to same reputation purgatory that Jokic and Giannis Antetokounmpo have experienced.
In general, NBA discourse is the Hater’s Ball of sports. Yet for as half-witted and spiteful as the public can be, the competitors are also as catty as they come. The adoration international players receive is a particular sore spot.
On one hand, it’s understandable because the league’s players, who are predominantly African American, have long endured prejudicial criticism. Sometimes, the appreciation of “refreshing” global talent can sound like veiled anti-Black sentiments. Still, game is supposed to recognize game. But as fresh and groundbreaking talent emerges around the world, a zero-sum mentality creates a battle for influence.
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Some of the hesitance to anoint beloved players prematurely is customary pro sports behavior. But the whispers of ridicule about some international stars gets ridiculous at times. Behind the obligatory compliments, Antetokounmpo was dismissed by his peers before he dominated the 2021 NBA Finals and led the Milwaukee Bucks to a championship. Even now, as he makes his corny dad jokes and pontificates about the absence of failure, he doesn’t command the respect in every locker room of a two-time MVP who has been the league’s most dominant player over the past five seasons.
Jokic, another two-time MVP, has encountered disrespect as he continues to rise in stature. At the height of it, Kendrick Perkins, a former player turned ESPN analyst, accused him of padding stats. Perkins was trying to explain away Joker’s all-around effectiveness to boost the MVP candidacy of Joel Embiid, the eventual winner. Jokic laughed it off. But to his peers, Jokic will be more darling than game changer until his retro-modern game results in more than carrying the Denver Nuggets through hardship.
French center Rudy Gobert, who has won three defensive player of the year awards, is often challenged and derided as soft. When players griped on social media about the all-NBA voting, one unstated source of their frustration was clear: Canadian guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who averaged 31.4 points this season.
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There’s an incredulous vibe right now. The celebration of enhanced inclusivity always comes with some fear of replacement. The American basketball player is still the standard. But the most recognizable faces of the NBA game are certain to look different. If you’re looking for an elite combination of size and skill, the greatest of those prodigies are sprouting elsewhere. From Slovenian guard Luka Doncic functioning as a supersized floor general to Jokic controlling the game as a 280-pound point center, the world isn’t catching up. The world has arrived, complete with a Greek Freak and a Cameroonian center who plays like a 21st century Hakeem Olajuwon.
Over the past three decades, foreign-born players have diversified the game, expanded our basketball palate — and saved the big man from extinction. Quality bigs, though rare now, didn’t disappear. They just wandered overseas and redefined the position.
And here comes Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 evolutionary athlete who plays defense like a classic center, dribbles and shoots as well as players a foot shorter and possesses a charisma that could help the NBA captivate the world in new ways.
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A prospect hasn’t carried so much justified hype since LeBron James was drafted out of high school in 2003. Some consider Wembanyama the greatest phenom in basketball history, which is unquantifiable and silly. But for those who have lived through a lot of next big things, it doesn’t matter where Wembanyama ranks among them. What’s important is that he looks to be one of them.
And what’s remarkable is that we have been able to see him coming, all the way from Paris, the big basketball world within reach of a teenager with an 8-foot wingspan. As the NBA has grown as a global brand, no player has come to America with so much name recognition and praise. If he reaches his potential, Wembanyama will reconceive a sport eager for more big men who can play the fluid, positionless style that currently dominates the game.
First, he must prove himself. The players can’t wait to test him. If he stays healthy, Wembanyama has reason to be encouraged his game will translate. He enters the NBA in the same summer that international legends Dirk Nowitzki, Pau Gasol and Tony Parker will be enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame. His future coach, Gregg Popovich, is also in the class of 2023.
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And as the NBA playoffs near a conclusion, ol’ stat-padding Jokic is on top of his game. In the Nuggets’ Game 1 victory over the Los Angeles in the Western Conference finals, Jokic scored 34 points, grabbed 21 rebounds and dished 14 assists. He owned a game in which Anthony Davis finished with 40 points and James fell one assist shy of his own triple double.
If the Nuggets simply needed Jokic to score, his points alone would’ve been impressive. If they simply needed him to rebound, his Dennis Rodman-like board work would’ve warranted raves. If they simply needed a table-setting playmaker, his dimes would’ve been worthy of headlines. But he did it all at once, directing an offense that shot 55 percent and made 15 three-pointers and owning the paint as the Nuggets outrebounded the Lakers by 17.
To add icing, Jokic hit a casual 29-foot stepback jumper with Davis all over him, the highlight of a night in which he destroyed one of the league’s most potent defensive players.
JOKIC 3️⃣ OVER AD TO END THE THIRD‼️ pic.twitter.com/yUEgHUerdz — ESPN (@espn) May 17, 2023
After the shot fell through, Davis looked over his shoulder at Jokic and grinned. With both palms up, Jokic shrugged.
“There’s nothing else I could have done,” said Davis, who watched Jokic make 10 of 13 shots when he was guarding the former MVP.
There was no NBA culture war to fight on this night. Jokic was a force, not embellished great hope. And the excitement over Wembanyama’s arrival is already causing lightheadedness. The game keeps growing, in every direction.
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Source: The Washington Post
