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Victor Wembanyama averaged 26 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.6 blocks per game in the NBA Finals.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Complete coverage:\u00a02026 NBA Finals<\/a> SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 Victor Wembanyama had to watch the visiting team become champions, again.<\/p>\n The Wemby era of the NBA is fully underway, with the 7-foot-4 French star unanimously winning the Defensive Player of the Year award this season, finishing third in the Most Valuable Player balloting and making first-team All-NBA for the first of what could be many, many times if all goes according to his plan.<\/p>\n But the ultimate moment has escaped his grasp for the second time in three years. In 2024, he tearfully watched the U.S. celebrate winning Olympic gold at the Paris Olympics \u2014 and now, he relived that moment by seeing the New York Knicks celebrating their first championship in 53 years by winning Game 5 of the NBA Finals in San Antonio on Saturday night.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment,\u201d the 22-year-old Wembanyama said. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you exactly what the lesson is, but we\u2019re learning from that, for sure. I\u2019m learning more than any other time in my life before.\u201d<\/p>\n His numbers in the finals: 26 points, 11.2 rebounds. 3.6 blocks per game. They were good, just not good enough.<\/p>\n And his series, fairly or unfairly, will also be remembered for some mistakes: The turnover that led to Jalen Brunson\u2019s go-ahead free throw in New York\u2019s Game 2 win (a game where Wembanyama missed a jump shot to win at the buzzer); and missing a pair of crucial free throws with 1:47 left in Game 4, the one where the Spurs wasted a 29-point lead and lost by one in what became the biggest collapse in finals history. The Spurs wasted double-digit leads in all four losses, including a 16-point cushion in what became the season finale.<\/p>\n \u201cThe margin of error is very thin,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cOur domination stints are absolute. We absolutely dominated for most of the series. But our errors, our mistakes, are punished so hard that we can\u2019t have ups and downs like this. \u2026 The ups are OK. The downs are the reason we lost.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s only Year 3 for Wemby. It\u2019s not like every star wins right away.<\/p>\n It took Michael Jordan seven seasons to win his first championship. LeBron James needed nine years. Jerry West needed 12 years for his one and only title. John Stockton and Karl Malone never got one. Charles Barkley, Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony didn\u2019t get one, either.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s definitely the future of this league, man,\u201d Knicks legend Larry Johnson said during the series when asked about Wembanyama. \u201cHe\u2019s a heck of a ballplayer.\u201d<\/p>\n Wembanyama knows the history, knows that it took some of the greatest to ever touch a ball several years to win a title.<\/p>\n Doesn\u2019t mean he likes it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s painful. It\u2019s painful,\u201d Wembanyama said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not running away from that. I\u2019m using it to fuel me. \u2026 I\u2019m not satisfied with not winning. But as I said, this is the biggest lesson of my life. As a team, there\u2019s no better experience than what we just lived.\u201d<\/p>\n His numbers are like almost nothing the game has ever seen before. There have been four seasons in NBA history where someone had 150 blocks, 150 assists and 100 3-pointers. Chet Holmgren did it for Oklahoma City in 2023-24, and the other three instances are all from Wembanyama \u2014 who has hit those totals in each of his first three seasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama averaged 26 points, 11.2 rebounds and 3.6 blocks per game in the NBA Finals. \u2022 Complete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,217940,105,79946,104782],"class_list":["post-491965","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-nba-finals","tag-sports","tag-spurs","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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