{"id":68589,"date":"2024-03-16T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=68589"},"modified":"2024-03-17T04:32:20","modified_gmt":"2024-03-17T08:32:20","slug":"nba-damian-lillard-offers-scouting-report-2023-no-1-pick-victor-wembanyama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/03\/16\/nba-damian-lillard-offers-scouting-report-2023-no-1-pick-victor-wembanyama\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA All-Star Offers Scouting Report of No. 1 Draft Pick"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>To this point, the only players that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/w\/wembavi01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Victor Wembanyma<\/a> has been compared to are former San Antonio Spurs greats or other unicorn prospects. However, Milwaukee Bucks superstar <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/lillada01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Damian Lillard<\/a> has thrown another name in the hat.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h2>Damian Lillard Offers Scouting Report of Victor Wembanyama<\/h2>\n<p>\u201cI think he\u2019s special,\u201d Lillard says of Wembanyama while making an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cWhen I first started to see him, the first thing you think is height. I could see that he was clearly a good basketball player, but it was so much hype around him\u2026 he\u2019s so tall and long, the game is so fast, how\u2019s he gonna do in the NBA?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201c\u2026He\u2019s got a little twitch with him,\u201d Lillard continues, as he offers his scouting report on the top pick in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/news\/2023-nba-draft-order\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2023 NBA Draft<\/a>. \u201cEven though he\u2019s tall and lanky he moves quick\u2026 is fluid. He\u2019s doing things you just haven\u2019t seen somebody do at that size before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Damian Lillard on the Dan Patrick Show Full Interview | 3\/15\/24\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7c19QEs15gU?start=260&#038;feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>As for his Wembanyama comparison?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think we\u2019ve always been extremely impressed with Kevin Durant doing it at 6-foot-11,\u201d Lillard says. \u201cNow you have a dude who is 7-foot-5 doing the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Best Player in the NBA?<\/h3>\n<p>Taking it a step further, Lillard offers an even broader perspective of Wembanyama\u2019s future outlook.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think how competitive he is,\u201d says Lillard, \u201cis what surprised me the most. And that\u2019s what makes me think that very soon I can see him being the best player in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lillard\u2019s words confirm what many have been thinking. The most recent discourse has focused on Wembanyama as a player who has the potential to be the face of the league. One of the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/09\/25\/top-25-nba-players-under-25-no-11-victor-wembanyama\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">thoughts<\/a>, when he was drafted, was that he had the potential to be the best player in the league one day. Even this <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2023\/11\/22\/wembanyamas-career-trajectory\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">early in his career<\/a>, he\u2019s done plenty to prove that.<\/p>\n<p>Wembanyama averages a double-double with 20.6 points and 10.3 rebounds per game. leading all rookies in both categories. The 20-year-old leads the entire NBA with 3.4 blocks per game.<\/p>\n<p>Like Wembanyama, Durant entered the league as one of its wonders.<\/p>\n<p>The lanky scorer stood at 6-foot-10 and made the game look far too easy. The only thing that\u2019s changed about <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbadraft.net\/players\/kevin-durant\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">his scouting report<\/a> since then is that he\u2019s grown an inch and has learned to use his length on the defensive end.<\/p>\n<p>Had he not been part of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>\u2019 generation, he may have been considered the best player in the league too. A 14-time All-Star and 10-time All-NBA selection, Durant has won an MVP award (2014) and two NBA championships. He ranks in the top 10 in both career points (28,577) and points per game (27.3).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To this point, the only players that Victor Wembanyma has been compared to are former San Antonio Spurs greats or other unicorn prospects. However, Milwaukee Bucks superstar Damian Lillard has thrown another name in the hat. Kevin Durant. Damian Lillard Offers Scouting Report of Victor Wembanyama \u201cI think he\u2019s special,\u201d Lillard says of Wembanyama while [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5008,"featured_media":68592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[62,1608,15,3,28,34],"tags":[187,69,98,4669],"class_list":["post-68589","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","category-basketball","category-bucks","category-news","category-suns","category-spurs","tag-damian-lillard","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nba-draft","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"modified_by":"Quenton S Albertie","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68589","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5008"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68589"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68589\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}