Never say Victor Wembanyama doesn’t know how to bounce back.
One day after arguably the worst game of his career — in which he posted a career-low six points on 1-of-5 shooting plus eight rebounds, two assists and four turnovers in a loss to his rival Chet Holmgren and the Oklahoma City Thunder — the San Antonio Spurs star recorded his second ever 5×5 game.
Facing the Utah Jazz, Wembanyama had 25 points, nine rebounds, seven assists, five steals, five blocks in a 106-88 win. Funnily enough, those were his first steals of the season, in his fifth game.
He also reported for duty on the historic night with a winner of a Halloween costume, if you’re familiar with the movie “Spirited Away.”
A 5×5 game is magnitudes rarer than its cousin, the triple-double, to the point that Wembanyama is only the third player in NBA history to post multiple such games. Hakeem Olajuwon is the all-time leader with six in 1,238 games and is followed by Andrei Kirilenko with three in 797 games. Only 12 other players have recorded one at all.
Wembanyama just played his 76th game. He posted his first game in February, becoming the second rookie to do so.
The 5×5 feels like a stat made for Wembanyama to break, much like Russell Westbrook did with the triple-double. No player in NBA history has the Frenchman’s combination of length, agility and ball skills, and that means he’s a threat to hit five blocks and five steals, the hard parts of the achievement, if he’s active enough on defense.