The silly thing to me was Simmons and Russilo arguing whether Wemby should be the pick over both of them. He's been absolutely amazing of course, but the durability concerns are too real for me. I'd still easily take Ant or Tatum at this point.
This is the nuttiest thing I've read on this forum in at least *checks notes* well, 10 hours or so. But still - nuts!
Wemby is very tall, but also of a build that shouldn't put too much strain on his knees, and he's coming up in an era that understands far better about how to keep players like him on the court. Manute Bol, Ralph Sampson, even Shawn Bradley might as well be ancient history by comparison to a player entering the league in 2024. The guy isn't walking off the rec league courts into the NBA, either - he was a pro for FOUR YEARS in France, with a lower workload than an NBA season, certainly, but the guy was banging down in the post with grown-ass men since he was literally 15 years old. And nearing the end of his 5th pro season, he hasn't missed significant time to injury in any of them.
Anyway, unless one has a deep conviction that Wemby is inevitably going to get Embiid Knee in the immediate future, I don't see how one could possibly take even Tatum or Ant over him. He is a unique game-wrecker, the most unanswerable challenge on both ends of the court in the entire league, save perhaps Jokic. And he just turned 20! Would I trade Tatum for him this coming offseason? If I didn't let sentimentality get in the way, yeah, probably! Our window to get titles would be much extended with him on a rookie-scale contract the next 3 years and making 30% of the cap the 4 years after that, rather than Tatum at 35%. Tatum is "likely first-team all-NBA for the next 5-7 years", obviously an amazing player, but Victor is on the fast track to "maybe the greatest player in basketball history", it's a rung on the ladder that most players can't even reach for. And, while you can't just "find another Jayson Tatum" out there for trade, you can get a lot closer to him, as a two-way wing, than you can get to anyone resembling Wembanyama.
You'd take Ant Edwards over Victor Wembanyama, to build a team around? Wow. I'd understand the skepticism if he was still yet to enter the NBA, questioning if the hype was real, etc. But we've seen it for 70+ games now.