The media has landed on Victor Wembanyama\u2019s villain arc as one of its top storylines coming off an incredible NBA Finals, but ESPN\u2019s Scott Van Pelt is pushing back.<\/p>\n
Wembanyama not only skipped out on media, gave out cocky quotes and denied his Knicks opponents customary handshakes after the series, he also roughed up several opposing players and talked trash heavily throughout San Antonio\u2019s playoff run.<\/p>\n
The young Spurs phenom certainly gave his detractors plenty of ammunition to put a target on his back heading into next NBA season.<\/p>\n
However, Van Pelt said Monday on his podcast<\/a> that he believes the situation is not all that different from what many super young star athletes go through, and called the idea of Wembanyama as a villain \u201coverstated.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe list of things that this 22-year-old could have done better, it\u2019s lengthy,\u201d Van Pelt said. \u201cThere\u2019s things that, in review, this 22-year-old can look back and say, \u2018Where I can I get better?\u2019 There\u2019s things he could do that don\u2019t draw the ire of people. The game will mature. He\u2019s got to add more tricks to the bag.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The\u00a0SportsCenter host also acknowledged that the rest of the media and fan community seeing Wembanyama that way is ultimately a good thing for interest in the league, fair to the French star or not.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the league, not a bad thing at all to have a villain. To have a guy this talented, this young, that people are going to want to watch,\u201d Van Pelt explained.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd if they\u2019re going to root for him to fail, doesn\u2019t hurt the league. Helps the league. I just believe it\u2019s overstated. I believe this is a thoughtful, incredibly talented guy that will get better across the board. And I think we\u2019re grading with a real sharp pencil and being harsher than is fair in turning this guy into the worst thing that ever happened.\u201d<\/p>\n While The Ringer\u2019s David Jacoby said on a podcast that he hates \u201ceverything about<\/a>\u201d Wembanyama, and New Yorkers Jay Williams<\/a> and Tiki Barber<\/a> each ripped the Spurs star for his attitude and immaturity, plenty of young sports stars have gone through this before. Just ask Anthony Edwards, Ilia Malinin<\/a>, Noah Lyles<\/a> or any number of history\u2019s best athletes.<\/p>\n In this case, Van Pelt is putting his neck out for Wembanyama to remind fans that though his mistakes may have been high-profile and he will need to get better, he is not the first or and won\u2019t be the last to face such an inflection point early in his career.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The media has landed on Victor Wembanyama\u2019s villain arc as one of its top storylines coming off an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762449,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,474,8144,17323,693],"class_list":["post-762448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-san-antonio-spurs","tag-scott-van-pelt","tag-svpod","tag-victor-wembanyama"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116759609082684118","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}