10 wildly overlooked aspects of Wembanyama's historic Rookie of the Year season

1) Wembanyama will head into the summer healthy.

Building on Wembanyama's healthy season, just the fact that he will head into the summer healthy is an underrated aspect of the Spurs' offseason plans. The offseason is key for the development of young players, especially for elite prospects such as Wembanyama. Year two is when top prospects make a big leap, with Shaquille O'Neal and LeBron James being potential guides.

Both Shaq and LeBron had plenty of hype and delivered terrific rookie seasons but they were even better in year two, with Shaq increasing his scoring by nearly seven points and LeBron increasing his by 6.3 points per game. With Wembanyama averaging 21.4 points per game this season, a full summer to improve could result in him also making a dramatic year-two leap in 2024–25.

Some of that will depend on what the Spurs decide to do this summer to improve the supporting cast around him, namely, finding an upgrade at point guard. But, even then, given how well he has played with questionable talent around him this season, who is to say that he couldn't simply be far better in year two? Were that the case, he could be good enough to get the Spurs into play-in tournament contention next season.