Victor Wembanyama to make impact on Spurs’ defense next season, says Zach Collins

Zach Collins is firmly confident that Victor Wembanyama’s arrival to the San Antonio Spurs would mean a much greater defensive mark for the franchise as they head to the league’s 2023-24 outing.

“If he was just that tall and he wasn’t good at basketball, we would be better defensively,” Collins told Tom Orsborn of the San Antonio Express-News. “But the fact that he is obviously very smart on defense and uses his length really well, it’s going to be so much better for us.”

Last season’s Spurs tallied a 120.0 defensive rating — the lowest for any team since the league started to track down the said team statistic in the 1973-1974 season.

As such, Collins defensive confidence comes from the fact that Wembanyama feasted defensively on its two Summer League games recently. In his debut against the Charlotte Hornets, the top overall pick had a block fest with five rejections. He quickly followed it up with three defensive stops to pair in his massive 27-point, 12-rebound double-double versus the Portland Trail Blazers.

In his previous MVP campaign for the Metropolitans 92 in the French LNB Pro A League, Wembanyama also tallied 3.0 blocks average en route to clinching “Best Blocker” and “Best Defender” honors.

More than anything else, Collins praised Wembanyama’s down-to-earth approach.

“He is getting so much hype right now – it seems from everybody else – but when you talk to him, he is very humble, very quiet,” Collins said. “He just wants to play basketball.  You can see that just being around him. All that hype is coming from everybody else and everybody else’s voice. It’s not his.”

Collins, who averaged 11.6 points and 6.4 boards in 63 games last regular season, will officially serve as the starting center of San Antonio upon coach Gregg Popovich’s declaration and will help Wembanyama to anchor the paint of the club’s anticipating campaign for 2023-24.