Je Suis Très Fatigué: The Wembanyama Energy Problem

When your strength is your weakness

I’m an idiot who took French in high school, despite living in San Diego. I don’t recall much from the classes, but remember I had a verbal tic of just repeating the Français version of “I am very tired” to myself over and over. There was just something to that rhythm and rhyme:

Je suis très fatigué!

As I watched Wemby alligator arm shot attempts late on Monday night I just kept muttering, “Je suis très fatigué. Je suis très fatigué.”

On that note, the playoff crunch time clips from Nate Duncan and Danny Leroux might be the most underrated product in sports media. Perhaps we can’t all easily access games on Peacock, but we can watch the most dramatic moments on YouTube, announced with their informed passion.

I’d say Nate, a large person, focuses more on Big Man Fatigue than most. To us normal sized people, it can be easy to assume these Goliaths are super human. Of course, injury track records suggest that size is no bulwark against vulnerability. Some Nate Duncan announcing quotes from Monday night’s dramatic Timberwolves escape from San Antonio:

The Wolves physicality is taking over against Wembanyama! This is the first time here that we’ve seen Wembanyama struggle both on the perimeter and on the boards!

Wembanyama usually doesn’t go this long. Is he going to wear out?

Perhaps more than any other player in my lifetime, the Victor Wembanyama hype comes with a promise of eventual totalizing dominance. Yes, Shaquille O’Neal was branded as “dominant,” but that was all within the context of defined center duties. The idea with Wemby is that it’s over for the league when the do-it-all-at-8-foot-tall man figures it out. Everything will end because The Alien does…everything.

I’m skeptical of this future, for reasons that are better explained here than on X. On that platform, negativity drives engagement, and to be more negative than consensus invites a lot more negativity. I (ironically?) short Wembanyama not because I disbelieve his skill, impact, or even approach. It’s just that, at his frame, given his tendencies, I doubt sustainability. This is just a euphemism for saying, “I think this evolutionary Ralph Sampson wears down and gets injured,” which plays poorly in the discourse because predictions read as preferences. I’m not a Wemby Doomer (in the sense that he conquers the league for two decades) because I’m a Wemby Doomer (in the sense that he’ll struggle to stay healthy).

To be clear, this is not just an opinion informed by the man’s build, or odd tendency to fall multiple times per game. Another factor is that with his great power comes all encompassing responsibilities. And this is why the Wolves series is fascinating to me. Instead of running away from the giant, they’re repeatedly testing him. From Wolves guard TJ Shannon after Game 1:

He gonna have to block it every time, I ain't gonna stop going downhill and I told him that when he said a little something after he blocked my second one. He gonna have to block it every time, man. I know he ain't gonna block it every single time. I'm gonna dunk on him.

The Wolves Game 1 approach produced a stat line unlike any other: 12 blocks, 15 boards, 11 points, 17 shots, 0-8 from 3-point range. Much was said about how Minnesota had to adjust from attacking defensively challenged Nikola Jokić to driving against an MVP-level player who offers unprecedented rim protection. Did they adjust? In certain specific ways, yes, but broadly, no. That’s a basketball paradox. How does a team yield benefits from attacking an obvious weakness in one series, and then yield benefits from attacking an obvious strength in the next?

It’s because the playoffs are about energy, as much as they’re about anything else. Steve Kerr, who knows something about winning playoff series, obsesses over energy. In his conception, a series is not just an attempt to win 4 games out of 7. In his vision, it’s often more like a Rumble in the Jungle scenario where one fighter eventually gasses out and the other takes control. Even though James Harden is dangerous with the ball, when the Warriors played Harden in postseasons, they wanted the ball in his hands as much as possible.

We don’t often talk about the pros and cons of dribbling. Obviously, dribbling is useful and fun to watch. LeBron isn’t LeBron without a point guard-level handle. There’s a downside to dribbling, though, one beyond its slowness relative to a pass: It’s exhausting.

A classic coach’s basketball aphorism is “the ball finds energy.” It’s meant to encourage cutting and movement. Run with purpose and the ball will find you. But there’s a flipside to this. The ball also spends energy. It’s a demon orb that will steal your lifeforce the more you bounce it.

That’s not intuitive, as a few dribbles are hardly taxing. But look at the Game 1 numbers, and behold the cumulative toll. NBA.com stats had Harden tallied at an incredible 550 dribbles.

In a regular season game, the Warriors might want the ball out of Harden’s hands. In the playoffs, they needed him to keep bouncing it, keep using his legs to launch step back 3-pointers. What kills you in Game 1 eventually bears fruit by Game 5.

The Wolves did not need wait so long to seize a victory from tired Wembanyama. Unlike Harden, Wemby has a nearly equal responsibility load on both sides of the ball. The physical Wolves are grinding on him every possession. They’re either bumping him on box outs, smacking him with screens, or just driving directly at the guy. On the other side, he’s playing a bit like James Harden, acting the part of perimeter scorer. Dribble, dribble, dribble, drain drain drain. Wemby got a bit unlucky with his eight 3-point misses, but was short on key possessions. He played 40 minutes, which is a lot for a guy who averaged 29.2 MPG this season.

The good news for the Spurs is that they’ve an abundance of talent surrounding their superstar. The other good news is that he, at some level, appears to get it. After the game Wembanyama said:

Offensively I used too much energy on things that didn’t really help our team

There’s that word “energy,” the most overlooked playoff factor. Where he directs it and whether he sustains it should define the series.