Off an unprecedented 29-point comeback, the New York Knicks went up 3-1 over the San Antonio Spurs in the NBA Finals on Wednesday night. Now, to prevail, the Victor Wembanyama-led Spurs have to pull off the almost impossible. It would be just the second 3-1 comeback in NBA Finals history. One team that failed had a 7-foot-4 alien of their own: Ralph Sampson. A Sampson-Wembanyama comparison is definitely in order.
A Sampson-Wembanyama Finals Comparison
Modern NBA stretch fives are becoming a competitive necessity. Even so, the league has never truly had a player like Wembanyama before. In 2025-26, his third year in the league, he was the first-ever unanimous DPOY and finished as the MVP runner-up. He averaged 25.0 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.0 steals, and a (third year in a row) league-leading 3.1 blocks per game.
Listed at 7-foot-4, he’s commonly speculated to be up to two inches taller. He has an eight-foot wingspan, and, perhaps most remarkably of all, he has the basketball skillset of a guard. Wembanyama is a phenomenal ball-handler for his size, and shot 34.9% from three on 5.5 attempts per game in 2025-26. Extraterrestrial blocks into pull-up transition threes are his signature move at this point.
There has never been another player like Wemby. But Sampson, the 1984 Rookie of the Year, was probably the closest thing. It’s not just that Sampson was also listed at 7-foot-4 with a wraith-like frame. Already both members of the NBA’s exclusive, tallest-players-ever club, the Sampson-Wembanyama comparison goes deeper.
Sampson-Wembanyama: The Similarities
Sampson and Wembanyama are undoubtedly the two most fluid-moving over-7-foot-3 players in NBA history. Sampson didn’t have as polished an offensive perimeter skillset as Wembanyama, but there are striking similarities in approach. Sampson liked to initiate his offense from as far out as possible, lead fast breaks with the ball in his hand, and even shoot jumpers. Over his first three seasons, he averaged 20.7 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.0 steals, and 2.0 blocks on 50.5% from the field.
Like Wemby, Sampson even made the Finals in his third year in the league. In fact, Wemby is nearly the tallest player to make the Finals since Sampson. Sadly, the 1999-2000 Indiana Pacers’ 7-foot-4 Rik Smits runs interference with that stream of narrative fluidity.
Sampson-Wembanyama: The Finals
Sampson made the Finals with the Rockets back in 1986. Houston defeated the Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference Finals just to face the Larry Bird Boston Celtics. The series went like this: Sampson lost Games 1 and 2, won Game 3, then went down 3-1 after Game 4, and finally lost the series in six. So far, Wemby is on track for an exact recreation.
Of course, the 1986 Houston team operated very differently from the 2026 San Antonio Spurs. It was a bully-ball interior-oriented league with teams that attempted an average of 3.3 3-pointers per game. Moreover, Sampson wasn’t even his squad’s best player. Instead, that was a second-year Hakeem Olajuwon.
In the Finals, Sampson averaged 14.8 points, 9.5 rebounds, 3.3 assists, 1.0 steals, and, surprisingly, just 0.8 blocks per game. He also shot just 43.8% from the field. Meanwhile, Olajuwon, who would go on to become a two-time Finals MVP (one coming against the Knicks) and Houston’s undisputed GOAT, averaged 24.7 points, 11.8 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 2.3 steals, and 3.2 blocks, on 47.9% shooting.
Wembanyama has had some growing-pain moments in his series against the Knicks. Two missed free throws sealed the Game 4 loss. A crunch-time turnover cost the Spurs Game 2. But his averages and impact have looked more like Olajuwon’s than Sampson’s. Versus the Knicks, Wembanyama is averaging 27.8 points, 10.5 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 1.3 steals, and 3.3 blocks. However, his 43.5% from the field and 29.6% from three have been Sampson-esque.
The Bad News
Another point of comparison is Wemby’s tendency towards frustration fouls (or inexplicable non-fouls, as New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani couldn’t help but point out). During the Boston series, Sampson infamously punched Boston’s 6-foot-1 reserve guard Jerry Sichting. Wembanyama already took a swipe at 6-1 guard Jalen Brunson, with more potentially on the way.
What fans will be hoping across the NBA is that the Sampson-Wembanyama comparisons end there. Typical of the league’s largest players, Sampson’s career was sadly cut short by injury. He made just one more All-Star game after his Finals debut and never started in more than 44 games in a season again. Despite a shaky Finals debut, health remains the number one concern in Wembanyama‘s bid to catch the all-time greats. Even LeBron James had to wait until his seventh Finals appearance to pull off a 3-1 comeback. And, unlike LeBron, Wembanyama has already avoided getting swept in his first.
The fact is that, in only his first three seasons, Wembanyama has already surpassed Sampson’s career accomplishments. The 1980s NBA, full of Bill Laimbeer-style bruising philistines, was certainly a harsher landscape for the Sampson-Wembanyama archetype than the 2020s. Even so, as good as Sampson was, when it comes to Wembanyama, there’s a lot more than a hair’s breadth of separation. Sampson wound up being a quirk. Wembanyama looks like the heir to the throne.
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