Everyone wants Spurs to find Wembanyama’s partner but he’s already there

Robin to Batman. Clyde to Bonnie. #2 to Dr. Evil. As is well known, wingmen are important. For most of you reading this, you’ve either been the wingman or needed one at some point during adolescence, so this one will hit home.

The necessity for wingmen is obviously vital to success, both long and short-term. The Spurs have their superstar. Everyone knows who that is—his name is Victor Wembanyama. The question then becomes who his partner in crime is.

They have a cast of quality players that can fill this role, but it’s clear the Spurs brass sees one player above the others as Bert to Wemby’s Ernie. They believe so much in him that he was signed to the most lucrative contract in team history.

Devin Vassell is that guy the Spurs will rely on

Wembanyama can do it all. Right now, he leads the Spurs in scoring at 25.4 points per game and has earned the right to be considered the Spurs’ top offensive option. However, as Christmas Day showed, Wembanyama—although Superman-esque at times—cannot do it all himself.

That’s where Vassell comes into play. The 6’5 wing out of Florida State was the Spurs 1st round pick in 2020 (11th overall) and has steadily improved his play across his four seasons in the silver and black.

Despite a couple of bad games, Devin is important to San Antonio's future. His points per game have steadily improved each season, capping off at nearly 20 per last season, 19.5 to be exact. He hasn't reached that yet this season, but he's still getting his rhythm back now that he's been re-inserted into the starting lineup.

Vassell has the ability to stretch the floor. His three-point percentage is the highest of his career this season at 38.8%, and this skill does not allow teams to key on Wembanyama as much. This aspect of Vassell’s game opens the floor for both him and Victor.

The Florida State scorer can also help defensively, showing versatility like any good wingman should be able to do. He’s had two two-steal games and a block in two others over his last four games.

Although the Spurs have several players who excel in specific areas, like Sochan defensively or Champagnie’s shooting ability, Vassell is the player with the highest potential to be impactful on both ends on a consistent basis.

The Spurs front office sees this as well. They were able to lock up Vassell to a lucrative deal, as mentioned earlier, and believe they’ve got a core of players who will thrive on this team for years to come.

It’s a bit ironic that the team acquired Hutch before Starsky, but the Spurs always seem to have a plan. Maybe this was the way the plan was expected to work.

Pippen to Jordan. Dumars to Isaiah. Kobe to Shaq. Wade to Lebron. All these pairings had success at varying levels, and I believe Vassell and Wembanyama can lead the way to similar prosperity and speed up that race for seis.