Victor Wembanyama has no excuse to not improve gift-wrapped skill

When used properly, the pick-and-roll is one of basketball's most reliable plays. If the San Antonio Spurs can figure out how to master P&R with De'Aaron Fox and Victor Wembanyama, they can elevate the Spurs offense past the No. 19 ORTG they finished last season with. If they don't figure it out, they're not doomed, but it might cause the offense to stagnate a bit.

In their very short time together (46 possessions), Wembanyama and Fox scored just 0.82 points per possession on pick & rolls, according to The Kevin O'Connor Show. That's not woeful, but with Wembanyama's ability to move from the 3-point line to the rim in one step and Fox's mastery of manipulating the paint, that number should skyrocket in 2025-26... and it sort of has to.

Without elite shooting flanking them, the Spurs' stars will need to find every way possible to generate offense in half-court sets this season; P&R between a nine-foot-tall alien and one of the craftiest paint navigators in the league seems like a great way to accomplish that. There's really no reason for this duo not to be one of the best two-man units in basketball. Plus, if Wemby can

Fox and Wemby have both been great in the pick-and-roll

Just not with each other yet.

It's not like these guys are going to be forced to learn some new play they're not used to. Wemby and Chris Paul dominated the play, and De'Aaron Fox mastered his timing with Domantas Sabonis when they played together in Sacramento.

In 2022-23, Fox averaged 8.4 P&R possessions a game as the ball-handler and scored 1.02 points per possession, which was sixth-best out of the 35 players who averaged more than six pick-and-roll possessions as the ball-handler that year.

That same year, Domantas Sabonis averaged 1.33 points per possession as the roll man in pick-and-roll, with most of those plays coming with Fox. The duo formed one of the best two-man games in basketball and engineered one of the best offenses in the league.

Wembanyama's injury kept us from seeing this duo's full potential

I don't expect the 2025-26 Spurs to put up numbers like the 2022-23 Kings did. But the point here is that both parties necessary for the Spurs to have a great P&R offense have shown in the past that they can execute the play at a high level. Now they just need to do it together. And I am pretty confident they will.

It's also important to remember that these guys have barely played together. In February, the hype of the De'Aaron Fox trade quickly cratered into misery about the Victor Wembanyama injury that knocked him out for the rest of the season and caused this duo to play just five total games together.

Five games! We still don't have any idea what this combination will look like after a full offseason and clean bills of health. Pretty, pretty, pretty good is my guess right now. This is just with Fox, too; Wemby's two-man game with Stephon Castle showed some potential last year and Dylan Harper is now in the mix. It's like guard Christmas.