Victor Wembanyama’s playoff brilliance evokes one man — young Shaq

A young Shaquille O’Neal taught an even-younger me what bass sounded like.

When the generational big man drove near the Orlando Arena parking lot for that night’s Magic game back in the mid-‘90s, the world shook. He had a variety of different customized cars, including a lot of Suburbans with the Superman logo emblazoned on the front bumper, and made sure to make his presence felt every night, long before the game even began. Shaq’s pregame ritual schooled 10-year-old me on the low end of audio frequency.He had the music blasting in his car — with the bass turned all the way up — and speakers blaring out his favorite songs. You could feel the Shaqmobile coming from blocks away.

I was lucky enough to see prime Shaq up close. Watching him play felt unlike anything I had ever seen. Each night, you knew you were seeing something that was just different. He was bigger, stronger and faster than almost every other big man from the moment he stepped into the league. In a league full of giants, he stood out more than the rest.

Thirty years later, I’m getting the same feeling watching Victor Wembanyama run up and down the floor in the Western Conference finals.

Just like Shaq did three decades ago, the basketball alien from France is making his case as the next face of the NBA with a combination of size and skill that we have never seen before. While they don’t have the same builds and certainly don’t have the same games, their respective impacts on the league feel similar.

Wembanyama left no doubt about that in Monday night’s double-overtime Game 1 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder while putting together one of the greatest performances in one of the greatest games in league history. At just 22, Wembanyama is making the loudest statement of his young career against the defending NBA champions. He is that good and if he can stay healthy, he’s only going to get better as the years roll on.

Wembanyama is 7 foot 5, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year and can hit from the outside like Stephen Curry, if not at the same frequency. As I watch him in this series, I keep thinking back to when I watched another tall, young superstar change the game forever.

The Athletic’s Nick Friedell pictured next to Shaquille O’Neal. (Courtesy of Nick Friedell)

Both Wembanyama and O’Neal have unique athleticism and grace to go with the height that makes their ability to see over everybody else even more powerful. The pair’s defensive presence is palpable as opponents have to change shots around them throughout any game. While Wemby has the kind of jump shot that Shaq could only dream of, both men’s ability to dominate a game offensively and clean up the glass sets them apart from their peers. While Shaq’s defensive ability deteriorated with age, he was a menace on that end of the floor early in his career thanks to unbelievable athleticism, averaging 2.8 blocks per game in Orlando. The All-Star big men share a collective trait that is so rare even for the greats in the NBA — they strike fear in their opponents because they can affect the game in so many different ways.

Shaq could do it with pure force. He would just bully other centers down on the block and dunk on them. Wemby can do that too, but his offensive game is more expansive early in his career, although he can’t match young Shaq’s pure power, Wembanyama can break opponents down in a variety of different ways. Both men have a distinct mental advantage over other players because their talent is so overwhelming. When Wembanyama gets rolling, just like Shaq did years ago, there’s a feeling of inevitability to their greatness.

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Just like O’Neal did with the Magic in 1995, Wembanyama has the Spurs in the conference finals in just his third season in the league. O’Neal accomplished the feat after beating Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the Eastern Conference semifinals that year. Wembanyama still has plenty of work left before his first finals appearance. He needs three more wins against two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Thunder. But just like O’Neal did all those years ago, he has given the rest of his teammates the belief that it can happen with him leading the way.

That’s the key when you have a generational talent on your side: More than all the eye-popping numbers in the box score, what both poured into the rest of their young teams was belief. It was evident in the eyes of the Spurs’ players on the bench at the end of Game 1 and it was clear to see during Shaq’s four-year stint in Orlando, especially during the entire 1994-95 season as he led the Magic into their first Finals appearance of what was supposed to be many.

Not only are the comparisons between O’Neal and Wembanyama apt because of their size and two-way impact, but this iteration of the Spurs may be the closest thing the league has seen to that version of the Magic. Although O’Neal was the clear focal point of the Magic as Wembanyama is for the Spurs, O’Neal was playing with an overqualified young supporting cast, just like Wembanyama is with San Antonio. Penny Hardaway was the ultra-talented young point guard by O’Neal’s side. Wembanyama has 20-year-old Dylan Harper and 21-year-old Stephon Castle by his side.

O’Neal had talented veterans Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott and Horace Grant along with him. Wembanyama also has veteran point guard De’Aaron Fox, and solid pieces like Devin Vassell and Julian Chamagnie running with him. Both organizations knew they had to fill up their respective rosters with pieces that would complement their young stars the most. Like the Magic did before them, the Spurs had to adapt and learn what pieces would accentuate their generational star’s greatness the most.

As the Magic rolled through the Eastern Conference playoffs in 1995, it felt like they were set up for years to come. It was a matter of when, not if, they would start winning championships. Instead, they became a cautionary tale of just how quickly a team’s window can shut if the right moves aren’t made. The Magic got swept by the Houston Rockets in the 1995 finals. They lost to Jordan and the 72-win Bulls in the Eastern Conference finals the following year. Then in the 1996 offseason, O’Neal signed with the Los Angeles Lakers and changed the course of NBA history, signing with a team that had just drafted another young, hypertalented guard — this one out of high school.

Wembanyama has given no signs to suggest he would follow the same path. He seems happy in San Antonio, and the talented players around him look poised to grow into their own championship run over the next few years together. But as the world gets used to seeing him do things on the court we’ve never seen before, his ability is reminiscent of another transcendent talent who paved the way for Wembanyama to follow three decades later.

Shaq didn’t have the run in Orlando that Wembanyama likely will in San Antonio — but his impact with the Magic is the closest comparison the league has to what is happening right now. What Wembanyama is doing is so special that his only real comparisons exist out of his own time.