The 100 meters is the most exciting race in athletics, truly a “blink and you’ll miss it event”. It might be the sporting contest that regularly deals with the finest of margins. The first 100-meter runner to break the vaunted “10-second barrier” was Jim Hines in 1968. According to Wikipedia, 187 men have since joined Hines in breaking that 10-second mark. How many do you think have broken the 9.9-second barrier? Fifty-two. How many have run a time below 9.8? Eleven. Three men in history have run a time below 9.7, and only Usain Bolt has ventured below the 9.6 mark.”

What does that have to do with the San Antonio Spurs and building around Victor Wembanyama? Wemby’s adaptation to the NBA took a month or two, but since January, he’s rapidly ascended through theoretical top 100 player rankings. For the month of February, Wembanyama averaged 21.3 points, 10.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.0 steals, and 3.9 blocks in 28.9 minutes. Only 9 instances of that statline (rounding to the closest whole number) had been recorded in NBA history, and Wembanyama averaged it for an entire month. Wherever you might rank him these days, it’s undoubtable now that Victor Wembanyama is already one of the most impactful players in the NBA, which has prompted discourse among the NBA landscape on how the Spurs should proceed from this point.

In the Blue Corner!… We have the likes of Kevin O’Connor and Bill Simmons advocating for a Trae Young trade in the summer. There’s a faction of the internet, a loud one at that, who posit that San Antonio should be searching to find Wembanyama an All-Star running mate, a player who, along with the mercurial Frenchman, can lead them out of lottery mediocrity into the postseason as soon as next year.

Ramona Shelburne made a statement on ESPN last week that went viral:

ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne: “Victor is here and he wants to win… I don’t know how patient he’s going to be (with the #Spurs)… I don’t think he wants to sit here at the bottom of the lottery standings.” #PorVida #Wemby #Wembanyama #NBA pic.twitter.com/CXKXjFJAaL

— Dusty Garza (@Dgarza888) March 5, 2024

“Victor is here. Victor is ready to win. I know that they have this idea that they’re going to take two or three years and find the right core and have them on the same timeline, but I don’t know how patient he’s going to be…”

The Chosen One:

Google Wembanyama, and you’ll find a stream of articles, podcasts, and videos stating the case for why San Antonio needs to bring in Trae Young this summer. Others have campaigned for Darius Garland, while LaMelo Ball’s name has also been mentioned. There was even some buzz about the Spurs targeting Damian Lillard when he hit the market last summer. I think the NBA mediasphere can sense that Victor is our next face of the league. At the end of 2023, he’d already generated the third most media impressions of any player in the association. The public is already enamored with the French phenom. LeBron and Steph, the two players who generated more views, are in the back half of their careers and playing for play-in teams, not contenders. Nikola Jokic will inspire us for years on end with his play but clearly isn’t into the media circus that being the star of the show comes with.(Check out his response to the question we’ve been dying to know “What’s your favorite Dinosaur?” below for proof if you ever needed it.)

This just in: Nikola's favorite dinosaur 🦕

🎥: @AltitudeTV pic.twitter.com/kmfcsnivpi

— Denver Nuggets (@nuggets) March 12, 2024

In short, there’s this power vacuum on the horizon, and media members have correctly identified that Victor will be the one to fill it. Can the face of the league be on a team in the rebuilding phase? How does that work when we get to the postseason? ‘Hey! You know that guy you’ve watched do the most insane stuff all year long? Yeah, he’s not in the playoffs this year.’ I think this is part of the reason for the clamor to pair Wemby with a second star. Other motivations might genuinely be for basketball reasons. Some concern has been expressed about Victor’s frame; perhaps a player with such extraordinary measurements might not have the longevity to compete for the next two decades, and it’s more important to win sooner rather than later. There’s an argument to be had that pairing Wembanyama with an elite on-ball creator will lead to improvements in his game. He’ll get better looks, more space to work, etc. It’s always said that players need playoff experience. Getting into the postseason next year might allow for the Spurs to make informed decisions about the direction of the team while Victor is on his rookie contract.

I’m not saying those arguments don’t carry weight. But I’d like to fight from the red corner, campaign for the Spurs to take it slow, continue to swing for talent through the draft, and show a bit of patience. I wrote about sprinters at the top of this article to highlight the fine margins between good and great. 0.42 seconds currently separates 188 men from sporting immortality. If you have time, look up the list and see how many of the names of these sprinters you know. You might recognize five others, ten if you watch the Olympics, twenty if you’re a real track and field fan. The others on the list are so very close to that notoriety but didn’t quite get there. This is what I’m worried about with the Spurs.

The Trae Young Question:

Much of the chatter about the Spurs and specifically Trae Young is focused on how Victor might be the player in the league that can cover up Trae Young’s defensive deficiencies best. In turn, we’ve seen Trae thrive with vertical spacing fives, and as far as verticality goes, they don’t come much more vertical than the Frenchman. I think the two would pair well together. Analysts are completely right in saying that Wembanyama covers for Trae’s deficiencies. Sam Vecinie often mentions “ground coverage” as a prerequisite in the modern-day NBA. If Young’s frame sets a team back in covering ground, then Victor certainly makes up for that.

But when you’re competing against 29 other teams every year, do you really want to be building around a guy who needs his weaknesses covered up for? A team that San Antonio will seemingly have to get through in the West is the Oklahoma City Thunder. OKC is currently the one-seed in the Western Conference. They have arguably the most exciting young core in the league; all of their cornerstone players are above the height of 6ft 6, and they have fourteen first-rounders to use over the next seven years. If I were in Sam Presti’s shoes and the Spurs added Trae, I’d have the luxury of using some of that draft capital to guarantee that I can put five guys on the floor that Trae Young can’t guard.

If Victor does have the impact that media, fans, Adam Silver, San Antonio hope he’s going to have, then teams will look to not just build the best team possible. They’ll look to build a team capable of stopping Victor Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs. Much like on the track, when it comes to the court, it can be the finest of margins that separate NBA teams from each other. It’s easy to build a good team in the NBA. It’s difficult to build a champion. It’s near impossible to build a dynasty.

But…

Doesn’t Wembanyama give you the chance to build a dynasty? I’m all for teams trying to be good for as long as they can as soon as they can. Often the best way to increase your chances of winning a title is to remain consistent for many years, keep getting to the postseason, keep rolling the dice. Trading for a star in the offseason would maximize the number of dice rolls that San Antonio gets over the duration of Wembanyama’s career, but I think when you have a player who has the potential to be an all-time great, you have to aim higher than building a contender, than rolling the dice year on year. With Wembanyama, the other promising young players on the roster, and the draft capital at their disposal, the Spurs have the assets to build a dynasty, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too. No star next year will force Victor into difficult situations – it’ll place the creation burden firmly with him once more. He’ll see doubles, aggressive coverages, he’ll have bad nights, but isn’t that challenge the kind of thing that leads to growth?

If I were the Spurs, I’d take my lottery pick/picks (dependent on the Raptors’ pick conveying) this year, and I’d spend next year aiming for the play-in, accumulating assets where possible, and really testing the ceiling of what Wembanyama is capable of. You can only go “all-in” once. I started this article off talking about sprinting, but the path to becoming an NBA champion is a marathon; I hope the Spurs don’t jump the gun and squander the chance to go down as a Usain Bolt, not one of the 187