Wait, Whoa, The Spurs Are Way Ahead Of Schedule

You know the thing that the truly great rim protectors do, in basketball, where they learn they can alter shots by aura alone? The area under the basket becomes a Sarlacc pit, the remote and terrifying domain of a very large, patient, and hungry creature. The great ones are happy, thrilled even, to welcome a meal. They learn to stop jumping out and using their body to cut off ball-handlers and take charges, because they've seen the advantages they can sometimes gain by inviting drives, by baiting some fool into taking another dribble, into dreaming of scoring at the basket.

Victor Wembanyama has advanced to another plane, to what his opponents will have to hope is the ultimate stage of rim-protection dominance: He appears to be developing the no-look shot-block. He had an eye-popping one of these Wednesday, in a road win over the Toronto Raptors. Wembanyama refused to leave a darting and cutting Collin Murray-Boyles, down in the dunker spot, in order to deter a drive from Scottie Barnes, who was isolating against a size mismatch. Barnes is Toronto's best player; Murray-Boyles, God love him, is just some guy, some well-meaning rookie fella. The book is pretty clear on this matter: Go ahead and leave Collin Murray-Boyles, send help at Barnes, zone up the weak side, and force the Raptors away from the basket.

Wembanyama has his own damn book, a grimoire containing secrets of the darkest defensive magic. Instead of leaving Murray-Boyles, Wembanyama fully turned his head and back to the court and faced into the stands, showing no sign of even noticing Barnes's attempted dunk until the Raptors forward was already in the air. Then, whoa hey, suddenly a huge hand was flying in and slapping the ball out of there. Wembanyama looked almost irritated at Barnes, like he'd rudely interrupted something, as if what the Frenchman really did want to do on that possession was closely observe the movement patterns of his undersized counterpart. The ball raced back the other way, and the Spurs jogged into an open transition three-pointer.