Kevin Garnett And Paul Pierce Think Victor Wembanyama Is Already A Top-5 Player In The NBA

We are mere days away from Victor Wembanyama’s highly anticipated NBA debut, as he and the Spurs play host to the Mavs on Wednesday night.

For more than a year, Wembanyama’s other-worldly abilities have been the stuff of legend, but everyone has been waiting to see how the 7’5 Frenchman fares against the best players in the world. Rookies, even ones that go on to be greats, tend to not be among the league’s best players in their first seasons — it’s been 12 years since the last rookie made an All-Star team with Blake Griffin, who was a “redshirt” rookie after missing a year with an injury.

However, Wembanyama is not just any prospect, as he’s considered the best talent to enter the league since LeBron James, and expectations are sky-high for what he’ll do immediately. While his Summer League showing was a bit spotty and started to pump the brakes on some of the immediate hype, what he’s done this preseason has ripped the brakes completely off of the hype train. It’s not just fans that are driving the Wemby bandwagon, but some all-time greats are already all-in on him, as evidenced by this delightful video of Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett on Showtime’s KG Certified geeking out over what Wembanyama’s done, proclaiming him a top-5 skill player in the league already and saying the Spurs should make the playoffs.

KG and Paul Pierce are probably a bit too high on what Wembanyama and the Spurs are going to be immediately this year, but I do love seeing two Hall of Famers showing this kind of love to the next generation of superstar. All too often we see past stars questioning the current generation, but KG and Pierce are just hyped to watch this guy who can do things no one else has ever done. There’s no “well in my day” stuff here, it’s just excitement about this alien who has an insane skillset we now get to watch play basketball. Is it going too far? Maybe, but who can blame them given what we’ve seen him do.