![\"\"](\"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-300x200.jpeg\")
The NBA\u2019s Christmas Day slate got off to a tremendous start with the hard-fought battle between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks. The Knicks were able to claw their way to a\u00a0117-114\u00a0victory behind 41 points from\u00a0Mikal Bridges. However, the Spurs didn\u2019t walk away feeling like there was coal in their stockings, as franchise star\u00a0Victor Wembanyama\u00a0had an all-time great performance.<\/p>\n
In what was his first Christmas Day game, the 2023 No. 1 pick tallied 42 points, 18 rebounds, four assists, four blocks, and one steal in 40 minutes. He now joins Hall of Fame center\u00a0Wilt Chamberlain\u00a0and Hall of Fame wing\u00a0Tracy McGrady\u00a0as the only players to score at least 40 points in the Christmas Day debut.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s the first player to record at least 40 points, 15 rebounds, and five made three-pointers on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n
Lastly, Wembanyama was the first player in NBA history\u00a0to record at least\u00a040 points, 15 rebounds, 5 made three-pointers and 4 blocks in any game (h\/t X\u2019s NBA History account).<\/p>\n
At this point, the 20-year-old is the new Chamberlain, who dominated the NBA throughout the 1960s. As the league has changed, Wembanyama\u2019s emphasis is on having a soft touch at 7-foot-3 and 209 pounds. Chamberlain\u2019s was on being a man amongst men at 7-foot-1 and 275 pounds. Regardless, the results have been the same so far.<\/p>\n
Their numbers are so incredible that they\u2019re unfathomable.<\/p>\n
Chamberlain\u2019s excellence resulted in feats like a 100-point effort against the New York Knicks in 1962. Many fans still don\u2019t believe he accomplished this because there wasn\u2019t footage of the game, just\u00a0a live radio broadcast. The Big Dipper also recorded a 50-point and 25-rebound season in 1961-62. In fact, he has the single-season record for the highest scoring average (50.4) and rebounding average (27.2).<\/p>\n
He\u2019s also credited as the first and only player with a quintuple-double. Like other records associated with Chamberlain, this is disputed. However, Chamberlain was able to score around the rim or away from the basket. He constantly created chances for his teammates. In the paint, he was all but an indomitable rebounder. As a shot-blocker, he was fearsome.<\/p>\n
Even if the stats are hard to believe, he had the tools necessary to record a quintuple-double.<\/p>\n
Wembanyama has already recorded multiple 5\u00d75 games, so a quintuple-double isn\u2019t out of the realm of possibility.<\/p>\n
With his inside-outside scoring ability, he\u2019s a constant scoring threat. He\u2019s a studious player with a high basketball IQ, which has helped him become an above-average facilitator, especially at his position. He\u2019s an incredibly disruptive defender even when he\u2019s not in the paint. Last but not least, he\u2019s hard to keep off the boards.<\/p>\n
Honestly, though? Even if he never gets a quintuple-double, he\u2019s already putting up the type of stats that people won\u2019t be able to believe 50 years from now.<\/p>\n
With Wembanyama\u2019s Christmas special, fans were treated to more than a rare performance.<\/p>\n
Numbers aside, he looked like the future of the NBA. There\u2019s a legitimate conversation to be had about his shot-selection and the Spurs haven\u2019t shied away from it. All the same, guard skills are now a misnomer. As Wembanyama has shown, players who are 7-foot-3 can now score off-the-dribble, even knocking down deep threes.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s the future of the NBA not just because he has the potential to be the best player in the league but because he epitomizes the evolution of basketball. If the Frenchman is the one who takes the baton from\u00a0LeBron James\u00a0as the face of the NBA, the league will be in\u00a0a far better place\u00a0than the current\u00a0discourse about it\u2019s ratings\u00a0suggests. Rather than being a league where players do only one thing, many will be able to do just about everything.<\/p>\n
The NBA\u2019s Christmas Day slate got off to a tremendous start with the hard-fought battle between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks. The Knicks were able to claw their way to a\u00a0117-114\u00a0victory behind 41 points from\u00a0Mikal Bridges. However, the Spurs didn\u2019t walk away feeling like there was coal in their stockings, as franchise […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5706,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342.jpeg",1504,1002,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-150x150.jpeg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-300x200.jpeg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-768x512.jpeg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-1024x682.jpeg",1024,682,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342.jpeg",1504,1002,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342.jpeg",1504,1002,false],"jnews-360x180":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-360x180.jpeg",360,180,true],"jnews-750x375":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-750x375.jpeg",750,375,true],"jnews-1140x570":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-1140x570.jpeg",1140,570,true],"jnews-120x86":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-120x86.jpeg",120,86,true],"jnews-350x250":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-350x250.jpeg",350,250,true],"jnews-750x536":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-750x536.jpeg",750,536,true],"jnews-1140x815":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-1140x815.jpeg",1140,815,true],"jnews-360x504":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-360x504.jpeg",360,504,true],"jnews-75x75":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-75x75.jpeg",75,75,true],"jnews-350x350":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-350x350.jpeg",350,350,true],"jnews-featured-750":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-750x500.jpeg",750,500,true],"jnews-featured-1140":["https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342-1140x759.jpeg",1140,759,true]},"author_info":{"display_name":"Newssoccer","author_link":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/?author=1"},"category_info":"Blog<\/a>","tag_info":"Blog","comment_count":"0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/IMG_3342.jpeg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5705"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5705\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5707,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5705\/revisions\/5707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssoccer.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}