Better teammates helped Victor Wembanyama solve his biggest flaw

Better teammates helped Victor Wembanyama solve his biggest flaw originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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Victor Wembanyama’s third year in the NBA felt like the moment a superstar truly arrived. He carried the San Antonio Spurs all the way to the NBA Finals against the New York Knicks. Along the way, he cut his turnovers down to 2.4 per game, which is way better than his 3.1 career average. He became absolutely dominant at the rim.

But getting to this point wasn’t easy. During his first two years, the 7-foot-5 unicorn’s biggest problem was taking care of the ball. He relied too much on outside jumpers, launching 8.8 three-pointers a game in his second season. 

Whenever opposing defenses crowded him, the turnovers piled up because he didn’t have much help on offense. 

Even Wemby joked about it during his rookie year. After a massive 10-block game that came with seven turnovers, he told reporters, “I almost got a quintuple-double with turnovers too.”

That style shifted completely because of the roster San Antonio built around him. The midseason arrival of De’Aaron Fox, paired with the growth of 2025 Rookie of the Year Stephon Castle and rookie guard Dylan Harper, gave Wemby real driving threats to play with for the first time. Castle became his direct pipeline to the rim, setting up more than half of Wembanyama’s 89 alley-oops last season. 

With Fox, Castle, and Harper breaking down defenses off the dribble, Wembanyama’s three-point attempts dropped from 8.8 per game to 5.5. His offense shifted back toward the paint, where he averaged 6.0 field goal attempts at the rim per game while converting them at an elite 75.1% clip. This efficiency made him a matchup nightmare for anyone trying to guard him.

Leaders in Rim FG% per game + Rim FG%

Elite at getting to the rack pic.twitter.com/ckHoZlNes3

— Basketball University (@UofBasketball) July 2, 2026

The biggest payoff came in the postseason. In Game 1 of the Western Conference Finals, Wembanyama completely dominated the paint. Instead of settling for outside jumpers, he aggressively attacked the glass and put back missed shots. He carried San Antonio to a 122-115 double-overtime victory over Oklahoma City, finishing with a massive 41 points and 24 rebounds. 

At just 22 years old, he became the youngest player in NBA history to post a 40-20 stat line in the playoffs. It was clear evidence of a superstar playing off his teammates rather than trying to do everything on his own.

Giving a 7-foot-5 player the ball near the rim sounds simple, but San Antonio needed two years of roster rebuilding to make it happen. Wembanyama lacked help on offense, which forced him to take bad shots. Ultimately, adding better teammates fixed what coaching alone could not.

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