The Ringers’ Howard Beck on OKC’s Big Victor Wembanyama Problem

Howard Beck has covered the NBA long enough to be careful with superlatives, and even he could not hold the line on Victor Wembanyama. Asked by Suzy to place him among the great centers, Beck said the honest answer is that Wembanyama is nothing like anyone we have seen.

He combines the dominance of the giants who came before, Shaq, Ewing, Hakeem, Wilt, Kareem, while resembling none of them. At 7'4" or 7'5", he presents the same conundrum those legends did, with no blueprint to copy. The best a defense can do, Beck said, is keep bodies on him and load up on seven-footers, an echo of the old days when teams grabbed whoever they could just to foul Shaq. Isaiah Hartenstein has done his part, yanking and bumping, but to Wembanyama's credit he gets knocked down, pops right back up, and rarely complains to the officials.

Beck admitted he cringed during the draft a few years ago when people slapped the all-time-great label on an 18-year-old. Now he cannot help himself. A couple of wins from the Finals at 22, racking up 12 blocks in a single playoff round, owning the paint, contesting shots inside and out on the same possession, then pulling up for logo threes. After all these years on the beat, Beck said, very few players make him shriek from his couch. Wembanyama does it every time.

Then the conversation turned to the figure hovering over the whole Spurs run: Gregg Popovich. Beck described Pop's in-and-out presence through his retirement, showing up at airports, like an episode of Succession, and pointed to De'Aaron Fox recounting how Pop walked into the locker room after a loss and told the team, "This is not how Spurs play ball."

That, Beck said, gives him literal chills, because the league almost never gets this. Red Auerbach is not walking into the Celtics locker room. Phil Jackson is not going to pep-talk a future Lakers team. Pop is still there, especially remarkable after his health scare, and the moment that moved Beck most was a human one: Wembanyama reaching down to put his arm around Mitch Johnson during stoppages, the two whispering back and forth, before the broadcast cut to Tim Duncan and Pop in a luxury suite.

Generations aligned, the past sitting right there in the present. Duncan, David Robinson, Bruce Bowen, and Sean Elliott are all still around as resources, and Pop, now calling himself El Jefe, is the one who put Johnson in position to take the reins. Beck and Suzy, who covered the Duncan-and-Tony Parker years firsthand, agreed it is a beautiful thing to watch that lineage get handed down to Wembanyama.