KC Covington

**LARGEST ON/OFF SWING** **2025-26 NBA Season** VICTOR WEMBANYAMA +16.5 NIKOLA JOKIĆ +16.2 KAWHI LEONARD +13.3 (STATS VIA CLEANING THE GLASS) --- **NET RATING for 2025-2026:** 1. Wembanyama 16.6 2. SGA 14.9 (net rating is how much each player’s team out score his opponents with the above player on the floor) —- **BBall Index** ✅ **@The_BBall_Index** MVP candidates in Offensive and Defensive LEBRON **O | D Percentiles** Wemby 98% | 100% Jokic 100% | 83% SGA 99% | 74% (no single metric is perfect, and yes, this does overrate Jokic’s defense and underrate SGA’s)

Kirk Goldsberry's Stat of the Year: "Every NBA team this year has an eFG% between 52 and 58. Whenever Wembanyama is on the court, the opponents eFG% is below 50.. He turns every offense he faces into something less efficient than the Brooklyn Nets offense.” #GoSpursGo #PorVida

Doc Rivers says Victor Wembanyama was the best player he saw this season: “It’s just so different and he does so many things. You have to prepare for him differently than anybody else… You can beat him off the dribble at the FT line but you’re not going to get the shot off… when you guard him, all you’re doing is hope he misses because there’s nothing you’re doing defensively… He’s another guy that has that Kobe and Michael mean streak. I love that about him” (Via @rBillSimmonsPod)

Doc Rivers on why Wemby is the best player he coached against this season

Someone tell @Matthew_Tynan. =p I'm just going to keep razzing you, brother. ;-)

Victor Wembanyama is Sporting News' 2026 NBA Player of the Year 🏆 "He is the most dominant defender I have witnessed in over 30 years of watching the NBA.." - @StephNoh

Last high stakes game he played in was probably the highest of them all and he was the best player on the court, why I think it’s hilarious when people say he has “no experience”

The only 60-win teams in NBA history without anyone playing over 31 minutes/game: 2025-26 Spurs 2013-14 Spurs In the modern, injury-filled NBA, the Spurs intentionally balanced minutes this season. 62 wins later, everyone is in good shape for the playoffs. It's go time.

How many games will this series go?🤔

@SpursReporter This is one of those "everyone pay attention to me" takes.

I'm really starting to wonder about Jason Williams. 🤔

MVP. He won't be given the award this year, but he did earn it. By the numbers, the overall most impactful player in the NBA.

@GohanVeezy They were amazing. A lot of those in-office Sportscenter commercials were all-time classics as well.

@Fried_Baseball These were the best commercials ESPN ever put out fr. 🥹😭

With Victor Wembanyama on the floor, the Spurs generate far more layups for their point guard trio — a trio I spent all summer convinced wasn’t an ideal fit. De'Aaron Fox, Stephon Castle, and Dylan Harper are three downhill guards and none of them is a proven knockdown shooter. On paper the spacing math didn’t work. Mitch Johnson solved it by playing only one or two of them together at once. And Wemby handled the rest. Harper’s at-rim frequency jumps 15.5% with Wemby on the floor. Castle, 14.2%; Fox, 9.7%. More shots at the rim is one piece. More shots going in at a higher rate is the other. Every rotation player sees a jump, not just the guards. Devin Vassell’s true shooting climbs from 55.2% to 60.8%. Harrison Barnes from 58% to 64.7%. Julian Champagnie from 58.4% to 63.3%. Fox is the exception — his true shooting stays the same. Some of this increase is thanks to transition offense off stops. Most of it is Wemby’s gravity in the half-court. Gravity comes in different flavors. The first is simple spacing: his shooting pulls a big out of the paint and the guards drive into an empty lane. The more interesting one is what happens when he rolls. When off-ball defenders decide to stay home on shooters, the big man still needs to prevent a lob to Wemby, which means Fox, Castle and Harper can go one-on-one with a full head of steam and walk into layups. Of the nearly 400 handler/screener duos to log at least 100 pick-and-rolls this season, Fox/Wemby, Castle/Wemby and Harper/Wemby all rank in the 88th percentile or better in scoring efficiency. None of this shows up on his line. Wemby finishes those possessions with zero points and zero assists and jogs back down the floor, and the box score insists nothing happened. Something happened.

To me the real question isn't, "Why didn't Wemby play?" It's "Why did anybody?" I was surprised that wasn't a night off for most of the regulars. The best way to screw up the playoffs is to have someone important get hurt before they start. Spurs fans should remember 2011.

@2bojan23 @ESPNInsights And the Nuggets (with Joker) lost at home against the Spurs without Wemby earlier in the year. We're in silly town trying to build cases on this stuff. Within a few weeks, we'll know who the better team right now actually is.

@Fried_Baseball @ESPNInsights How many games played AG , Payton Watson, Cam Johnson even Jamal and Joker this season (I don't like Braun since his new contract but he missed a lot of games too). Spurs lost yesterday to Denver without basically 7 players, Joker played only 15 minutes because of 65 games rule

The Spurs finished the season 30-4 since February 1st, the best in the NBA 👏 They went 0-3 against the Nuggets and 30-1 against all other opponents 😲

@MDE_Unmapped Where was the Hooters?

Parque Lleras, Medellín (1959) 😔

@EB21122 @MJAcquiredTaste Just passing along. :) x.com/LevAkabas/stat…

@Fried_Baseball @MJAcquiredTaste Because it’s laughable to think the Celtics haven’t super far exceeded expectations. The spurs did but not as much as the Celtics. Just being objective

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Devine unveiled his NBA Awards ballot. He has: Wemby MVP runner up Wemby 1st Team All NBA Keldon 6th Man of the Year Harper 1st Team All NBA Rookie Castle 2nd All NBA Defensive Team Mitch Johnson 3rd for Coach of the Year #PorVida

My 2026 NBA MVP ballot: 1. Victor Wembanyama 2. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander 3. Nikola Jokic I spent most of the season assuming I'd vote SGA. Then I looked closer. New column on @YahooSports: sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/th…

Final Top 10 Offensive & Defensive Rating 1.BOS 120 (2)/111.7 (4) 2.Spurs 118.7 (3)/110.4 (3) 3.NYK 118.7 (4)/112.3 (7) 4.OKC 117.6 (7)/106.5 (1) 5.HOU 117.5 (8)/112.1 (6) 6.DET 117.3 (5)/108.9 (2) 19 of last 21 NBA champions have finished top 10 offensive & defensive rating.

This might actually be better than being there live tbh 😭🔥