Bill Simmons says Victor Wembanyama has reached elite tier sooner than expected

Bill Simmons just put Victor Wembanyama in the same tier as Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic, and nobody should be arguing with him. Players come in all shapes and sizes, but the Spurs' star center can do things no one else can on defense and offense. It's hard to quantify it all with numbers, but he puts up crazy stats anyway, and I'll go to my grave defending the importance of defense.

"He's either the third- or fourth-best player in the league now, just game to game when you're actually watching him," Simmons told Zach Lowe on the Bill Simmons Podcast. When you look at the numbers, Victor is averaging fewer points than all of the other top players, but his defense more than makes up for it, since he's taking away an absurd number of buckets from the opponent every night.

The Spurs giant's size alone isn't the problem, either. It's how active he is on both sides of the ball. A guy like Boban Marjanovic, as much as we loved him, couldn't impact the game anywhere close to the level that Vic can. Bobo just couldn't move as fluidly as Wemby. That's usually the case for players that tall, and that's actually just one reason why the Alien's rise should have been expected by now.

Wemby has been exceeding expectations from the beginning

If you continue to view this kid through the lens of a normal player, you're going to keep being shocked when he obliterates those expectations. Maybe it's better that way for the dopamine chasers. When you act like you don't see the signs that this athlete is much different from everyone else, you get to enjoy the shock a little differently when that guy turns into a legend.

However, every hint you could possibly need was in plain sight from the very beginning. Allow me to take you folks back to what we were hearing before that 2023 draft. Analysts were calling Wembanyama the greatest prospect in any sport ever. Because those words were uttered by guys who don't usually speak like that about young prospects. That was our first clue.

The next hint that we were looking at a basketball deity was equally jarring. After every scout and pundit, including the same aforementioned analysts singing Vic's praises, told us that the slender 7'4" 19-year-old would need time to get acclimated on the offensive side of the ball, he came out averaging 21 points and 4 assists his rookie season.

He scored 38 in his fifth game of the year. We can't forget the 17 points he dropped in three minutes to help beat a Denver Nuggets team that needed that win for playoff positioning late in the season. Oh, the signs were there.

The defense came as advertised, too. It was transcendent. It didn't take long before he was either racking up an absurd number of blocks or forcing teams to find new ways to attack the Spurs. The paint was no longer an option with Vic down there. He only got better as the season went on, and by the end of the year, conversations were starting about whether he was already a top 20 player.

LeBron James averaged 31 points in his third season. Michael Jordan averaged 37. They both played out of their minds after only a couple of years of growth and understanding in the NBA. You should be thinking about Wemby the same way because he has the potential to join and even end that debate. So, we should stop being shocked that an obviously legendary player is doing legendary things.