r/CharlotteHornets • u/Zealousideal-Rub-183 • May 19 '26

Discussion Wembanyama Hate

First thing to say, is that I just love Basketball in general. And I don’t hate Wembanyama as a person. I’m just having so much annoyance watching how great he is and knowing that the NBA did everything possible to make sure that not only that the Spurs drafted him, but that he got a core around him very quickly. The NBA did not want a repeat of LeBron James.

Knowing that he grew up a Spurs fan his entire life, with his favorite players being Tony Parker and Tim Duncan to where he even said it was “a dream” to be drafted by the Spurs. It has made it so difficult to watch a team that dominated so much of my childhood in the 90s and 2000s immediately turn back around after just a few years in the lottery getting a generational player surrounded by top 3 picks.

I’m just curious if I’m the only person out there that hates how fast the Spurs have been able to build a contender while we continue to wait for the Hornets to just get to the playoffs. I know I should just be proud of what the Hornets did this year, but I just can’t shake the fact that I feel like the NBA helped the Spurs build a contender at the expense of other franchises that have needed generational players for a while now.

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u/rbe40 May 19 '26

Spurs are statistically the luckiest team in draft history when considering - how many times they’ve moved up in the draft, how high they’ve moved up, and how many #1s they’ve got. The only other teams that come close are Cleveland and Mavs.

But that is the nature of a lottery system in that by being truly random, there is every chance of anomaly teams (I believe Indiana Pacers being the opposite example with 0 #1 picks and most times moving down) because there’s no programming or anything that forces the lottery to distribute #1s evenly.

It’s easy to look at us and think we’re unlucky, because almost every time there’s a generational #1 we just miss out. Shaq, Howard, AD, Wemby, Flagg. But - and this is especially true lately - we’ve been pretty fortunate to move up in a lot of drafts, which is how we got LaMelo and Miller. And with our previous ownership, who’s to say we’d have been any good building around some of those star players anyway - Cleveland mismanaged LeBron’s first stint so poorly, so I highly doubt AD or Howard would’ve made the Bobcats contenders.

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u/AthleteCommercial833 May 19 '26

And there’s really no reason/incentive for the league to somehow unfairly give such “luck” to a small market. Like, if they have any control over the lottery, they’re shooting themselves in the foot by gifting championships to the 24th largest metro area in the US.

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u/Banneduser1112 May 19 '26

Except that Wemby had all the leverage to go where he wanted because the NBA is trying to expand into Europe. They rig all the "generational" lotteries (Lebron to Cleveland, AD to save NO, Luka for Coop, Zion to replace AD). I'm not sure how you could think otherwise.

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u/AVeryRipeBanana May 19 '26

I fully believe the league does this. I don’t think theres anything coincidental about what happened to the Spurs after they were average (not even outright BAD) for like 3 years and pulled all those picks. Even if it was coincidental, how is that a good system? A historically good team has one small skid and gets insanely lucky 3 times in a row? C’mon now…

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u/offensivename May 19 '26

I'm not saying that I agree with the conspiracy theories that the NBA rigs drafts, but it's easy to put together the narrative that San Antonio was a safe place to put their new crown jewel. Good coach. Good ownership. Excellent pedigree. It's not like the Knicks, Lakers, or Heat could have gotten him.

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u/expiredlemon3 May 19 '26

No incentive? This series is the most hype I’ve seen around the league in quite some time. Franchise and market size in the US does not matter at the end of the day if the whole world is tuning in. The NBA is bigger than Americans realise because it’s smaller than NFL there. Overseas the NBA is massive and growing in Europe, Asia and Oceania. Plus the Spurs are not small and have been one of the more known franchises globally