the best prospect i've personally ever evaluated is a once-in-a-lifetime type of talent it's really not fair one kid can have so much talent simply put he's a generational talent described as literally one of the best nba prospects ever he's a unicorn people don't talk about him like he's a future all-star they start the conversation with future mvp that's some pretty high praise for an 18 year old who hadn't even played an nba game yet except these remarks are not about lebron all of these comments are about the 2023 draft prospect victor wenbin yama a player who scouts are saying might just be the best nba prospect of all time except there's just one thing scouts are forgetting today's video is sponsored by keeps keeps is a subscription-based service that focuses on making it easier and more affordable for men to treat their male pattern baldness keeps offers clinically proven research-based treatments to combat the symptoms of hair loss each user receives a personalized treatment plan fit specifically for their hair needs delivered straight to your door and with 24 7 support provided by medical advisors prescribers and care specialists you can get quality expert care without ever visiting a doctor's office or pharmacy and since keeps is typically half the cost of a traditional pharmacy you can get everything your hair needs at a fraction of the price whether you're looking to prevent hair loss stimulate hair growth or just take better care of the hair you have keeps has you covered and right now you can get 50 off your first keeps order by going to keeps. com forward slash jimmy high roller or by clicking on the link in the description that's k-e-e-p-s dot com forward slash jimmy high roller question off the top of your head who is the best player in nba history seven feet three inches or taller yao ming ralph sampson rick schmitz maybe art vedic sabonis i'm sure a few names come to mind but only a few and that's because even in a league full of giants there just hasn't been many players this tall in fact throughout the nba 75 year history there have only been 26 players who were 7 feet 3 inches or taller of those 26 players only 3 of them are currently in the nba and only three others made the basketball hall of fame see despite size and length being one of the most valuable assets in the game of basketball there is such thing as being too tall for the game at what point does a player have too much height well if history tells us anything it's that the threshold is about 7 1. i know it's a rather specific number but time and time again we are shown that anyone above 7-1 is bound to have significant if not career-ending injuries and health issues due to their incredible size out of these 26 players really only about seven of them went on to have notable careers and of those seven players five of them either missed entire seasons due to injuries or had to retire due to injuries you'd actually have a hard time finding more than a few players who were taller than 7-1 who didn't have careers plagued by injuries there seems to be a specific limit to how big a player can be before their size quickly becomes a debilitating detriment and i say all of this for one reason this kid seven foot three inch 18 year old victor wenbin yama a player that possesses all the physical tools and skills to be a once in a generation talent but may just be too tall for his own good victor is already being anointed as the best nba prospect since lebron james 20 years ago which sounds like a massive reach until you watch the kid play see over the last few decades we've witnessed some of the all-time greatest nba prospects get drafted the kind of talent that has teams scrambling to lose as many games as possible to get shaq in 1992 tim duncan in 1997 lebron james and o3 and anthony davis in 2012.
with talent of this caliber there's never really any debates as to who's going number one overall in fact in some cases if these prospects were available for the draft sooner they would have gone first overall before they were even eligible ron artest is on record saying lebron could have played in the nba by the time he was just 15 years old former nba player and long time nba exec danny ainge said there are only four or five players in the nba that i wouldn't trade to get lebron right now this was back in 2002 when lebron was a 17 year old high school junior of course not all ultra elite nba prospects are ready to make the jump right away a few years ago marvin bagley was far and away the best recruit in the class of 2018 so to expedite his journey to the nba he reclassified to the class of 2017 and was still the number one recruit in the country but despite his glaring talents and nba readiness at such a young age he has yet to make a real impact at the nba level because no matter how incredible a young prospect is in the world of sports there is no such thing as a guarantee but rarely maybe once or twice in a decade a prospect comes along and nearly reaches that unattainable status the 2023 nba draft will feature one of these generational prospects and viktor wenbin yama victor has been in the spotlight for quite a while now and not even 24 hours after the 2022 nba draft attention already began to shift to next year's draft and the ultimate prize the 2023 nba draft informally being labeled as the wenbin yama sweepstakes by now most of y'all have probably heard of victor or seen clips of him playing the first thing that stands out is his absurd height and length seven feet three inches tall with a seven foot ten inch wingspan for some perspective here's six foot four inch 2022 nba draft d jaden ivy here's seven foot one inch chet home grin and over here is victor wenbin yama making chet look like an undersized shooting guard but many scouts and onlookers have said that victor isn't 7-3 he's actually closer to 7-5 which just sounds like a bunch of speculation but you see this guy right here this is zac edie zack's official listed height is 7-4 and victor is a giant but his incredible stature isn't nearly what makes him a potentially generational talent it's what he does with it quick feet even quicker hands agility that is visually startling for a player of his size despite being a skyscraper he can take defenders off the dribble with an explosive first step or use an arsenal of moves to create separation in iso situations the kid is 7-3 and can create shots for himself anywhere on the court similar to kevin durant his high release on his jump shots makes them virtually unguardable although he's not nearly the outside shooter durant is but he does have an inside game far beyond his years where he uses a variety of combinations involving spin moves pump fakes and fadeaways which keeps the defense in a constant state of gambling like a perpetual game of choose your poison ultimately at the moment his strengths are in the open floor and on defense with his speed quick reaction and size victor is virtually an automatic bucket in transition he has the situational awareness and athleticism to create transition opportunities out of thin air and on defense he already possesses world-class instincts and timing and his insane length allows him to seemingly be in two places on the court at once however victor just like every other prospect that came before him does have his weaknesses but all of these weaknesses are things that with the right development can be solved his slim frame his shoddy decision making at times gambling on defense and relying on his length to make up for it the usual weaknesses of most young mega talents but none of that matters because victor isn't just the presumable number one overall pick in the 2023 nba draft he's the draft pick of the decade according to sb nation's ricky o'donnell the last prospect this big this fluid and this comfortable with the ball in his hands might be a young kareem abdul-jabbar one anonymous nba scout said victor can be gobert defensively porzingis offensively with jokic like passing skills another nba scout said when you see something you've never seen before it can feel like your eyes are playing tricks on you and many other scouts share this same opinion most of them struggling to even come up with an appropriate comp for wenbin yama since quite frankly there's never been a player like him in the history of the nba last summer victor faced off against chet holmgren during the u19 feeble world cup final and despite victor being a year younger than chet one nba scout said never have i seen chet holmgren overshadowed physically like he was last year whenever the two met just off of sheer potential victor is one of the most sought after prospects we've ever seen but there's just one small catch these scouts are missing actually it's one massive seven foot three inch catch victor's too damn tall as we previously touched on the history of extremely tall and sustainably great big men is very very short no matter how talented a freakishly tall player is no matter how enticing their physical tools are at a certain point all that height will eventually become a detriment to their game and their longevity this trend of injury-prone ultra big men has become so prevalent that it isn't the exception it's practically the rule believe it or not there are only 5 active nba players who are taller than seven feet and of these five players only three of them are taller than seven two kristaps porzingis being easily the most talented of the three but outside of an injury-riddled porzingis who is the last player taller than 7-1 and made a real impact in the nba stop don't even bother trying to come up with an answer it's yao mein who had his last all-star caliber season nearly 15 years ago which means that this century has featured two two players seven feet two inches or taller who played at an elite level and both of them have had their careers derailed due to injuries it's virtually inevitable since the 2000 nba draft here are the percentages of games missed from lottery picks sorted by height throughout these three height ranges there seems to be no correlating factor between heights and injury generally speaking players ranging from below six feet all the way up to six eleven experience injuries at a very similar frequency but lottery picks from seven feet to seven one have missed 26. 2 percent of all their potential nba games this is a staggering amount now i would add another height range of 7 to and above but there just hasn't been enough nba prospects in that height range the last time a player that tall was selected with the lottery pick in the nba draft was kristaps porzingis in 2015. before chris stops you have to go back to 2009 when the memphis grizzlies drafted seven foot three inch hashim to beat with the second overall pick one spot ahead of james harden five spots ahead of stephen curry and seven spots ahead of demar derozan hashem stayed relatively healthy but spent five seasons bouncing around to numerous teams and finished his career with averages of just two points and two rebounds on 10 minutes per game but believe it or not hashem to beat actually holds an nba record for the tallest and highest drafted player to ever be sent down to the d-league i swear i'm not making that up that's it's a real fact and to find the next absurdly tall lottery pick you have to go all the way back to the 2002 nba draft when the houston rockets drafted yao ming with the number one overall pick who to my estimation is the greatest player over seven feet two inches in nba history to this day xiaoming is criminally underrated the only thing bigger than he was were the standards put upon him coming into the nba and he lived up to that standard but unfortunately the height that made him an unstoppable force on the courts was also the cause of his retirement smack dab in the middle of his prime at the age of 30.
