Victor Wembanyama’s rookie season made the internet line him up with Tim Duncan. The original thread showed that on a simple Per 36 stretch out, Wemby topped every Duncan high in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks. Then one user stepped in and said “Use per possessions stats to even slightly alleviate the era difference please.” That single line is the whole argument. Fans were not trying to push Duncan out. They were trying to fix the lens so that 1998 Spurs basketball and 2024 Spurs basketball can be seen in the same light.
Why Per 36 Started the Fire
Per 36 is loud because it takes Wemby’s 26 points, 12.9 rebounds, 4.7 assists, 1.5 steals and 4.3 blocks from the post and shows them as if he played 36 minutes every night. That looks bigger than any single Duncan season. People on social media saw that and said it proves that today’s league gives stars more freedom and more usage. Another fan said “All this tells me is that stat inflation is crazy.”
“Stat inflation is crazy.” said one commenter on social media.
What Era Context Still Favors Duncan
The deeper you go the more Tim Duncan’s rookie year looks like a ready made winner. He was All NBA First Team, an All Star, and finished top 5 in MVP voting. Duncan did all of this while sharing the floor with David Robinson who still took touches. A fan on the internet said “The difference was Timmy put those stats up while sharing possessions with David at the same time. Wemby is great but the modern era inflates stats a bit and he had a very very high usage.”
Here is the real separator. Duncan’s rookie true shooting was roughly 57 to 58 percent which was around 10 percent better than the league environment he played in. That league was slow and physical. Scoring was harder. So being that far above league average was a sign of polish and not a sign of pace. Wembanyama in 2023 24 was closer to 56.5 percent true shooting while the modern league was closer to 59 percent. That shows his scoring load was huge but he was still learning how to finish at the same rate as older bigs.
Another user in the post said “There’s grown men Wemby struggles to box out when it matters.” That is the eye test side. Duncan did not just rack numbers. He hit the glass early, he protected the rim without hunting blocks, he scored with simple bank shots that always looked the same. Wemby is the opposite kind of future. He blocks jumpers, he pulls up from 3, he handles the ball. His ceiling is wider. Duncan’s floor was higher. So the fair final read is this. Per 100 possessions says both guys were historic per opportunity.
Duncan’s rookie edge was that he was more efficient than his league and he drove winning right away while sharing touches. Wemby’s edge is that he is already putting up a modern all around box score that even Duncan never reached in raw categories. That is why the original commenters were begging people to add per 100 and to add context. They were trying to keep us from turning a fun comparison into bad history.
