Predicting Victor Wembanyama's Complete Rookie Stats | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

Getting to 20 points per game or more is the clear launching pad for this discussion. It's not particularly rare for rookies to leapfrog that bar. Over 50 first-year players on record have now spit out more than 20 points per game.

But this feat is far less common for newbies as young as Victor Wembanyma. Just nine rookies age 20 or younger since the three-point era have met the bar. Three have done it since 2010, all of them in the past half-decade: Luka Dončić (2018-19), Zion Williamson (2019-20) and Paolo Banchero (2022-23).

Wembanyama is engendering the same generational hype as Dončić and Williamson—if not more. Assuming the Spurs resist the urge to cap his minutes in the 20s, he will average 20 or more points per game.

Whether he easily skirts past that number, and how efficiently he'll do, remain debatable. Head coach Gregg Popovich doesn't seem to have a concrete plan for how the Spurs will use him. It's possible Wemby tilts toward more play-finisher than hybrid creator as a rookie.

Role functionality shouldn't do much to repress his scoring, though.

"I called one play for him all night and I think he got over 20," Popovich told reporters after the 19-year-old dropped 23 points in 23 minutes against the Portland Trail Blazers on Oct. 13.

San Antonio has afforded Wembanyama the runway to experiment off the dribble. I expect that type of usage to continue given the relatively low stakes of the Spurs' season, albeit on a slightly smaller scale.

That may not be a boon for Wemby's overall efficiency—especially from three, where he cleared a 32 percent clip on real volume while overseas just once. But higher usage itself will keep his scoring lines in the clouds, and he'll get spoon-fed enough to maintain comfy efficiency levels closer to the basket.

Prediction: 20.9 points per game on 53.2 percent two-point shooting, 31.4 percent three-point shooting and 73.9 percent free-throw shooting