Never say that Victor Wembanyama doesn’t know how to recover.
A day after what was arguably the worst game of his career, in which he recorded a career-low six points on 1-of-5 shooting, along with eight rebounds, two assists and four turnovers in a loss to his rival Chet Holmgren and the Oklahoma City Thunder. – the San Antonio Spurs star recorded his second 5v5 game.
Against the Utah Jazz, Wembanyama scored 25 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, five steals and five blocks in a 106-88 victory. Interestingly, those were his first steals of the season, in his fifth game.
He also showed up to work at the historic night with a Halloween costume winner, if you’re familiar with the movie “Spirited Away.”
A 5v5 game is much rarer than its cousin, the triple-double, to the point that Wembanyama is only the third player in NBA history to post multiple games of this type. Hakeem Olajuwon is the all-time leader with six in 1,238 games and is followed by Andrei Kirilenko with three in 797 games. Only 12 other players I have recorded one at all.
Wembanyama just played his 76th game. He posted his first game in February, becoming the second rookie to do so.
The 5×5 feels like a stat made for Wembanyama to break, just like Russell Westbrook did with the triple-double. No player in NBA history has the Frenchman’s combination of length, agility and ball skills, and that means he’s a threat to achieve five blocks and five steals, the difficult parts of achieving it, if he’s active enough in defense.