The entire NBA has known that Victor Wembanyama would eventually be a problem teams had to try and solve if they wanted to win championships. In his first postseason, he has proven the rest of the league no longer has time to prepare.
Wembanyama has arrived in full force as the most dominant singular figure in the NBA, changing games on both ends of the floor in a way only he can throughout the Spurs run to the Western Conference Finals. For teams who hoped they might have a bit more runway to figure out how to counter Wembanyama and the young Spurs in a playoff setting, they’ve been greeted with a rude awakening that he is already a postseason nightmare come to life — best evidenced by his historic performance in Game 1 against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
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The scramble has already begun in front offices around the NBA to figure out what they can do to position themselves to challenge Wembanyama and what appears to be a new iteration of the dormant Spurs dynasty. Finding a true “Wembanyama stopper” is likely a fool’s errand, but the closest thing to an individual player who has the size, length, strength and quickness to challenge Wembanyama is very much available this summer — for the right price.
For the better part of a year we’ve been hearing Giannis Antetokounmpo’s name come up in trade rumors as his tenure as the face of the Milwaukee Bucks seems to be coming to an end. While Antetokounmpo hasn’t issued a firm trade demand, he’s made it clear he wants to be somewhere that can contend, and this past season proved the Bucks (who finished 32-50) are not close to that level.
The problem for Milwaukee has been the extremely public nature of Antetokounmpo’s non-trade request request has made it difficult to extract the kind of deal that would feel at least close to what Antetokounmpo is worth. The haul of picks and young players the Bucks want simply hasn’t been out there, but as one NBA executive told The Athletic, Wemby’s playoff run might force teams to be a bit more aggressive in pursuing one of the few players out there who can actually match up with the young Spurs star.
“Yeah, Giannis is a matchup solution for Wemby, so I could definitely see teams factoring that in when they’re discussing trading for him,” a Western Conference executive said.
Antetokounmpo will have his say in wherever he ends up, but any team acquiring him is doing so with an eye on winning a championship. At this point, whether you’re in the East or the West, you have to think the path to a title in the next five years has a very strong chance of going through San Antonio and Wembanyama. As GMs around the league examine their rosters to figure out whether they have enough to handle that challenge, some will come to the conclusion that to beat an Alien, you need a Freak.
That could help the Bucks extract just a touch more in a return for Antetokounmpo than they would have otherwise in a situation where they lack much leverage. They’ve struggled to get the kinds of offers they hoped for Antetokounmpo, as teams on Giannis’ short list haven’t been interested in (or capable of) giving up the farm to do so.
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The list of interested parties could grow to include teams booted from this year’s playoffs by Wemby’s Spurs, and while Antetokounmpo may have his sights set on the East, if the best in the West come calling, he might have to consider the opportunity. The Timberwolves are already on the sidelines knowing what they have isn’t enough, and if the Spurs manage to stun the Thunder in the Western Conference Finals, there’s no team in the league with more firepower to make a big move than OKC.
Outside of San Antonio, the biggest Spurs fans over the next month might be found in Milwaukee. Wembanyama’s ascension to the league’s most dominant force would only help the Bucks as they potentially get set to rebuild in a post-Antetokounmpo future.
