Since San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama emerged in the basketball scene, he’s been compared to a lot of players in the NBA. One of the players he’s been compared to is LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers. On Monday’s episode of “Courtside Club Podcast,” former NBA player Richard Jefferson had a hot take about which player between the two he’d take.
During the episode, the current ESPN commentator told Rachel DeMita that he’ll take Wembanyama over James as a prospect entering the NBA. To him, the Lakers star is still a unique player. However, there’s something more special about Wemby that he can’t ignore.
“I stand by that a hundred percent. We didn’t know what LeBron was going to become. If you look at the history of sports, the big man has always been taken first. You look at Olajuwon and Sam Bowie drafted over Michael Jordan. You look at Greg Oden drafted over Kevin Durant. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the big goes first. That’s just the way it is,” Jefferson said.
“LeBron James might have been the number one prospect, but there’s just something about that size that is such a unicorn. So if you would have had that seven-foot-three monster at seventeen or eighteen, and LeBron James is seventeen or eighteen, now, mind you, because it’s Cleveland and they had the number one pick, let’s just say it wasn’t overall.”
.@Rjeff24 explains why he'd take Victor Wembanyama over LeBron James with a #1 overall pick pic.twitter.com/GZt8MCr59B
— Courtside Club (@CourtsideClub_) October 28, 2025
Jefferson said that Victor Wembanyama is comparable to Hakeem Olajuwon, Bill Walton and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Draymond Green believes Victor Wembanyama can win a lot of NBA awards after this season
Victor Wembanyama was off to a flying start to his third season in the NBA. Through four games, he proved that he’s among the best players. The Frenchman is playing like an MVP. According to Draymond Green, he thinks the 7-foot-7 big man has what it takes to win three major awards this season. The four-time champion talked about it during the recent episode of “The Draymond Green Show.”
“If he stays at this pace and this level, he’s going to be like MVP, DPOY, Most Improved Player,” Green predicted. “He’s going to be in position to compete for all those awards. So, I think when you look at him, you can only sit and wonder what kind of player it’s going to take to guard him.”
The Golden State Warriors star also said that he could win all three awards this year if he keeps up the pace. The Spurs superstar is averaging 31 points, 13.8 rebounds and 4.8 blocks.
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Reign also writes NBA and WNBA news updates on Sportskeeda. He started as a feature writer for AirAlamo, an NBA website that covers the San Antonio Spurs. Some of his work can also be seen on Valley of the Suns, a Phoenix Suns-centric website, where he served as a contributing writer.
