Victor Wembanyama, affectionately dubbed “Wemby,” entered the NBA last October amid sky-high expectations, even higher than his towering 7’4″ frame. Before even stepping onto the court, predictions about his career varied widely — from potential future GOAT, evoking comparisons to the likes of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, to the cautionary tales of Shawn Bradley and Ralph Sampson, whose careers, despite their impressive heights and skills, were cut short by injuries and ended with unmet expectations. Wemby’s unique blend of size, agility, and skill along with his rail-thin build set the stage for heated debates. LeBron James can be given credit for creating an otherworldly nickname when he spoke about Wemby’s abilities at a press conference: “Everybody’s been a unicorn over the last few years, but he’s more like an alien.”
Wemby was drafted #1 by the Spurs, which meant he would play for legendary coach Gregg Popovich who has more wins under his belt than any other coach in NBA history. The fact that the two prior #1 picks in Spurs history were David Robinson and Tim Duncan only added to the pressure. If Wemby performed at any level below hall-of-famer, fans would be disappointed. So how did he do?
When analyzing basketball data, I like to keep it simple: in a nod to fantasy sports, I just add up the stats of all the major categories. A player’s production on a per-minute basis (FPPM or “fantasy points per minute”) and on a per-game basis (FPPG) are informative statistics, as well as the total for the season (FPPG x # of games = “total production”). If you recall my blog entry last year, I defended “total production” as a solid way to rank players because it was simple and objective and correlated well with popular lists of all-time greats such as the one produced by ESPN.
So, how did Wemby’s year stack up against the most productive rookie seasons in the last 50 years?
By this metric, Alien had a great rookie season, ranking #18 and above some clowns named Julius Erving, Magic Johnson, and LeBron James. However, since he only played in 69 out of the 82 games, it gets even better when you look at his per game productivity.
On a per-game basis, he ranks 5th behind David Robinson, Michael Jordan, Shaq, and George McGinnis(?). Hold on, who’s this guy again? I looked him up. It turns out that the reason he’s a “rookie” in my data at the age of 25 is because he came from the ABA fresh after winning the ABA MVP award. Okay, so technically, he was an NBA rookie, but this was not his first year playing professionally. So, to reiterate: Wemby’s productivity on a per-game basis in his first year was higher than anyone in the last 50 years other than the ABA MVP in his first NBA season, Shaq, the GOAT, and David Robinson, who came into the league as a 24 year old. Did I mention that Wemby is only 20 years old?
But wait, there’s more! Wemby played much of the season on “minutes restriction” to protect his ankle, after stepping on a ballboy’s foot. Notice that he’s the only player on any of these lists having played less than 30 minutes per game. He was so frustrated by his lack of minutes, he even checked himself into a game without the coach’s consent once. (Coach Pop just took him back out again.) So you know this one’s going to be good: what are the most productive rookie seasons per minute? (Minimum 10 games and 10 minutes per game)
You’re reading that right. On a per-minute basis, Wemby was the most productive rookie over the last 50 years. Let this sink in: his overall total productivity was higher than LeBron James’s rookie year despite playing 10 fewer games and an average of 10 minutes less per game. Bottom line: Wemby is more on the Kareem path than the Bradley one.
Speaking of Kareem, you may recall from last year’s blog that his 1975 season was the most productive single season in my dataset (last 50 years):
Notice that his productivity per minute (FPPM of 1.33) was actually lower than Wemby’s this year (1.38)! It’s probably too much to imagine that Wemby could keep up his frenetic productivity for 41 minutes per game and 81 games in a season like Kareem did. Or is it? Considering the fact that the 20-year-old Alien may be the worst version of Alien that we will ever see, he actually has decent a shot at topping this list someday, especially if he can avoiding stepping on any more ballboys.
So it appears that Wemby will indeed be the future of the NBA, but who is the present? Well, there’s a new entry on the “Most Productive Seasons (per Game)” list:
And it’s a new #1! On a per game basis, Luka Doncic just had the most productive season in the last 50 years. Joel Embiid is the new #4, having gone statistically wild during his injury-shortened season. And Giannis barely gets a mention for putting in the 13th most productive season in the last 50 years.
On a per minute basis, Embiid almost took the top spot in modern NBA history, where he played Wemby-like minutes and still put up 30 points and 14 rebounds per game.
I extended that list to the top 25 seasons, for no particular reason.
Anyway, back to the question of who’s the player of the present of the NBA. My winner of the MPP (“Most Productive Player”) for 2023 is…
Luka Doncic for the second year in a row! The guy is a beast and at 25 years old, is at the peak of his game. He’ll undoubtedly be considered among the all-time greats when he’s done.
Speaking of which, here’s the current list of the players with the highest average career productivity in the modern NBA…
Luka just passed up LeBron James! Of course, we’re not comparing apples to apples here, because eventually, even Luka will get older (and slower?) and drop down the list by the time he retires. But who knows, if he continues at his current rate for a few years, he could even spend some time above MJ! At that point, maybe he should consider retiring young and claim statistical GOAThood. Jokic is also no joke, sneaking into the #5 spot. I also see some 20-year-old who’s new to the list at #10 somehow, despite not playing that much. The potential for that guy is off the charts.
For completeness, here’s how I rank the top 20 MPP candidates this year:
Jokic and the Greek Freak performed similarly to Luka Magic, but his incredible productivity per game put him out of reach. Also take note: LeBron is still in the top 10 at 39 years of age! His durability and consistency is truly incredible. I understand the “LeBron is GOAT” arguments. I don’t agree, but I understand. It’s becoming more clear that old LeBron > old Jordan. We’ll know for sure next year when we see if LeBron can top 40-year-old Jordan’s 82 game season with 20 PPG, 6.1 RPG, 3.8 APG, and 1.5 SPG.
When comparing MJ against LeBron, There’s definitely a pre-baseball Jordan and a post-baseball Jordan to consider…
Before taking time off to play baseball, Jordan’s total productivity, per-game productivity, and per-minute productivity topped LeBron’s every single year (except when MJ had a broken foot in 1985). These are the types of statistics that Jordan supporters (like me) point to. Young Jordan > young LeBron, even if you ignore important considerations like Championships, MVPs, and his Defensive Player of the Year title.
However, look at the years after baseball. Suddenly LeBron is more productive per minute and per game and is only sometimes less productive overall because he’s not in the habit of playing 82 games per season.
What’s interesting is that Jordan came back out of retirement again at age 39 and gave us a couple more seasons to compare against LeBron. The comparison doesn’t look too good for the 39-year-old version of MJ. LeBron, the oldest player in the NBA, is still killing it. He’ll outperform “old Jordan” again next year if he can stay healthy and average over 20 points per game at age 40. There’s something to be said about LeBron’s unnatural ability to play at an extremely high level for such a long time.
But there isn’t a human alive who could dominate offensively and defensively like pre-baseball Jordan. But an Alien? Time will tell…
