ORIGINALLY COMPILED FROM: THE RINGER
Written by Zach Kram
原标题：Is Victor Wembanyama the Best European NBA Prospect Ever?
At the 2023 NBA Lotto draw, the Spurs drew the top pick. Wen Ban compared Bunban to other highly regarded European players like Luka Doncic, spoiler aside, even from this point of view, this 7-foot-3" prodigy is unique.
The importance of the NBA draft is sometimes overstated because few high-ranking rookies are truly lucky enough to be players on teams that can start a dynasty. Of the last 35 champions, only three have won championships with their original team: LeBron James and Kyrie Irving (both from Cleveland) and Tim Duncan (from San Antonio).
But the importance of the 2023 draft doesn't seem to be overstated. The winner will get Victor Venbanyama, the 7-foot-3 French prodigy who could be a LeBron and Duncan-level player, so what will happen?
Kevin O'Connor said Bunban is "the most promising player in decades in the NBA, and he has the potential to become the greatest player in history." Bunban's name appears on all teams' draft rosters, and there's a 99.5 percent chance of being selected, according to FanDuel odds. On Tuesday night, a special set of ping-pong draws will determine which team can pick him next month.
So, as we get closer to draft day and Wen Ban finishes his regular season in France in preparation for the 92 Mets' playoffs, it's worth taking a moment to look at what kind of exceptional players the NBA will get next season. KOC and other draft players have been covered in scouting, but here, we're going to cover some statistics because Bunban is equally good at it.
At the age of 19, Bunban was among the top in scoring, rebounding and blocks in the French Pro Basketball League. (Especially when it comes to blocks, Bunban is almost twice as large as the second-ranked player.) He averaged 21.8 points, 10.6 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 3.6 blocks per game. By the way, the only Tier I player to average 20+10+2 on the offensive end and at least 3 blocks per game over the last 30 years is Duncan (a senior at Wake Forest University).
But classes are not contested at the university level; He spent his pre-draft season in Europe, so it makes more sense to compare his stats to his previous top international rookies. From RealGM and Basketball Reference, we have data on 25 draft players who play in the International League, from Pau Gasol in 2001 to Osman Dean in 2022. Compared to this group of people, the literary class is also a miracle.
(Unfortunately, not all international rookies this century have comprehensive statistics.) For example, data from the Chinese Basketball Association is not available, which means Yao's 32 points and 19 rebounds per game are not counted. )
Compared with the previous 25 international rookies, Wen Ban averaged the first points per game, the first rebounds per game, and the first block per game. Playing more than 30 minutes per game helps the statistics accurate, but Bunban still ranks first in points, rebounds and blocks per 36 minutes.
Wen Ban can shoot quite a few three-pointers against a player of any height, not to mention that he will soon become the tallest player in the NBA. He ranks first in free throws, with 83 percent of his shots coming from the free throw line, both of which are testament to his talent for scoring easily even when shots are missed.
Venban Yama with other rookies from the International League in the Lotto Zone
Bunban's shooting stats aren't as dazzling as his scoring stats. Although he made a lot of three-pointers, especially for someone of his size, he also shot a lot of three-pointers. Wen Ban's offensive system allows him to take the ball as much as he wants — his 31 percent shooting percentage in France is on par with Devin Booker, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant this season — and his penchant for forced jump shots has made his overall shooting efficiency ranked mid-table among international rookies.
Venban Yama vs other international league lottery rookies (shooting stats)
However, while his highlights include one-legged three-pointers and European step dunks, Bunban's greatest strength is his defensive performance and may be an influential player from day one in the NBA. With his height, Bunban is a reliable rebounder, and he's had a whopping 10 percent block percentage this season. By comparison, Jaren Jackson Jr. led the NBA with 9.6% blocks (for which he won the Defensive Player of the Year award), while Manute Ball is the only official player in NBA history to achieve double-digit blocks in a single season.
Among other European big men with the highest pick, Bunban has essentially twice the block rate as before Porzingis was selected, and the gap is even wider when compared to Jonas Valanciunas and Gasol.
Venban Yama vs other international league lotto rookies (advanced stats)
There's an asterisk in this chart because if we had Gasol's PER data for the entire 2000-01 season, Bunban would probably be the number one player in player efficiency, rather than a fraction of it.
This is a meaningful metric. While there are some big-name players — like Georges Papageianis, who had excellent advanced stats in his limited playing time in Greece and was unexpectedly selected by lottery and was unpopular in Sacramento — the performance of lottery rookies in Europe can often predict their final performance in the United States.
Of the previous 24 International Lotto rookies (Fran Vazquez, who was drafted by the Magic 11th overall pick in 2005 and never made the NBA), the correlation between their international game PER during the draft season and their career PER in the NBA was 0.78. Correlation works on a scale of 0 to 1, so 0.78 means that there is a strong relationship between statistics.
All these different statistics point to the same overarching conclusion: Wen Ban has an incredibly optimistic outlook and is a more accomplished international rookie than anyone before him.
Of course, given the way scouts have talked about upcoming top picks over the past year or so, we already know a lot. But the comparison is worth appreciating, especially by comparing Bunban to Luka Doncic, the NBA's best European draft pick of the 21st century. (Note lottery eligibility here, as it excludes Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic — even though Jokic was the 41st pick in 2014 and played excellent stats in the Adriatic league before joining the NBA, which provides yet another piece of evidence that performance tends to shift from one side of the Atlantic to the other.) )
In their respective final seasons in Europe, Wen Ban was a more influential defender than Doncic, and he was actually evenly matched with Luca on the other end. The latter may come as a surprise, given that Luca has the highest level of solo offense, but Bunban has scored more points than him, shooting almost the same percentage and even standing at the free throw line more than Doncic — a good indicator given that Doncic is now one of the NBA's most prolific free throw shooters.
Literary comparison with Doncic's final European season
Here, though, we should take a breather and make a few important sobering notes. Because we don't want to kill Venbanyama too much.
Bunban dominates the French league, while the quality of the game in the French league is mediocre. In 2017, international draft expert Fran Fraschilla ranked the French league seventh out of 12 non-NBA leagues worldwide. By contrast, Fraschilla places the Europa League and La Liga ACB League first and second, respectively, and ESPN's Kevin Pelton calculates that the gap between the French league and the Europa League is about as large as the gap between the Euroleague and the NBA. Doncic's MVP performance in the Europa League and Spanish League as a teenager was more impressive than his best performance in the French league.
(By the way, out of the 12 leagues listed by Fraschilla, the Chinese league ranks last.) Against this backdrop, Yao's dominance in Shanghai looks much weaker. )
Or, to put it another way, Bunban ranks fourth in the French league this season in points per 36 minutes. The three players in front of him are 35-year-old Nando de Colo, who played two seasons in the NBA at around the age of 25 with little to no results; There is also a pair of American guards who have never made it to the NBA: Matt Morgan and 5-foot-9 Marcus Keane.
In addition, since his team has not played in European competitions, Venbanyama has a smaller sample size than Doncic's. The future Lone Ranger player played 73 games in his final season before being drafted; By comparison, Bunban has played just 34 games this season, which may be more favorable for his long-term health, but also means we should be skeptical about his stats.
As a result, Pelton's prediction system, while still affirming Bunban's potential, doesn't value his stats as highly as scouts rate his overall ability.
It's quite possible that Bunban will need a period of adjustment after entering the NBA, because the quality of the game around him will improve a lot. We probably shouldn't expect Bunban to lead the league in blocks when he enters the league as a rookie.
Luca, on the other hand, is already a superstar, and any theoretical adjustment period at Wen Banshan can be shortened by his work ethic and continued progress as a basketball player. For example, his subpar three-point shooting percentage would have great promise of improvement because he shot 80 percent from the free throw line. And playing with NBA-level guards who make it easier for him to shoot, which can also help him improve his mid-range scoring efficiency, even when he's facing tougher defenders; The assist leader of the Mets 92 team is Tremont Waters, who played in 40 NBA games from 2019 to 2022.
How much more adjustments the class needs to make, and how much more he can improve as his body matures, are questions about his NBA future, which will begin Tuesday night. The combination of his unprecedented height and technology has shown that he will come here to achieve something unless he is injured. But his domination in a decent Europa League as a teenager only adds to his mystique appeal. Even compared to other highly touted candidates before him, the class is unique.