{"id":846897,"date":"2026-08-07T15:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T15:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/846897\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T15:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T15:04:09","slug":"victor-wembanyama-is-working-on-dirk-nowitzkis-fadeaway-and-it-might-be-over-for-the-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/846897\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama is working on Dirk Nowitzki\u2019s fadeaway, and it might be over for the NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Despite a bummer of an ending, it was obviously a wonderful year for the Spurs. Victor Wembanyama morphed into arguably the best player in the world, and proved that he could drive winning at the highest levels by leading his team to an upset victory over the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals. Wembanyama turns 23 years old in the middle of next season, and he\u2019ll be the presumptive favorite to win his first MVP. Only the Thunder are ahead of the Spurs in our way-too-early power rankings<\/a> for the 2026-27 campaign.<\/p>\n

The scariest thing about Wembanyama is he still has so much room to get better. To me, the biggest thing that would help him level up again is figuring out a signature shot in the mid-range that he can always lean on when he doesn\u2019t want to chuck a three and can\u2019t get all the way to the rim. In the playoffs, Wemby took a decent amount of mid-range shots, with 28% of his field goal attempts coming on non-rim two-pointers. The problem is he only made 35% of those shots. Wemby obviously has good touch \u2014 he\u2019s an 82% career free throw shooter, and 34% career three-point shooter \u2014 so I tend to think he can get a lot more accurate from the mid-range in time.<\/p>\n

A video circulated from the Spurs\u2019 offseason workouts, and it should terrify the rest of the NBA. Wembanyama might be figuring out his mid-range game in the most unstoppable possible style: by mastering Dirk Nowitzki\u2019s go-to fadeaway.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a world where that shot could be as unstoppable as a skyhook for Wembanyama. It\u2019s going to be impossible to contest, and it gives him enough room to square his shoulders to the basket for a shot. The fact that Wemby is now strong enough to win the positioning battle on the ground against his man only makes this even more enticing. If Wembanyama can hit this with any consistency, it\u2019s going to give him even more scoring versatility for when the game slows down in the playoffs.<\/p>\n

Wemby could still be a few years away from his offensive peak. Right now, it feels like he\u2019s about as dominant defensively as anyone has ever been. It\u2019s easy to imagine Wembanyama and Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle reaching the NBA Finals year after year, but the reality is that the NBA hasn\u2019t even had a repeat conference champ since the 2019 Golden State Warriors. Everyone thought LeBron James would be in the Finals every year after he made it for the first time in 2007. It turns out James had to leave Cleveland for the Miami Heat before he made his next trip in 2011 \u2026 where he lost to Nowitzki\u2019s Dallas Mavericks.<\/p>\n

Wembanyama should be adding to his offensive arsenal every offseason. Beginning to integrate a Dirk fade into his game would be the best possible start.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Despite a bummer of an ending, it was obviously a wonderful year for the Spurs. Victor Wembanyama morphed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":846898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,590,85],"class_list":["post-846897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=846897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/846897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/846898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=846897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=846897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=846897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}