Victor Wembanyama just put another wild marker on his ceiling, and Shaquille O’Neal made sure to call it what it was: something the league has barely seen before.
After the Spurs’ 112-111 win over the Dallas Mavericks, Wembanyama walked off with a career-high 52 points, plus 24 rebounds, two assists, two steals and eight blocks in a performance that looked like it came from another planet. At 22, he is still early in his NBA climb, but nights like this make the future feel even more extreme.
Shaq didn’t hold back when talking about the Spurs star.
“We’ve never seen a player like him do the things that he can do,” he said. “I wonder, if he said coming into the game, ‘I need to score 50 tonight.’ I played with a guy who was like that in Kobe Bryant, rest in peace, but, that’s how you respond when you have a bad game.”
That response mattered because Wembanyama had just followed a rougher outing against the Utah Jazz, when he finished with 12 points, 11 rebounds and five assists in a 119-97 win while shooting 5-15 from the field. Against Dallas, though, he came out locked in and stayed that way.
“We’ve never seen a player like him co the things that be can do.”
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) November 5, 2026
Shaquille O'Neal with HIGH PRAISE for Victor Wembanyama after his big time performance 🗣️
(via @ESPNNBA) pic.twitter.com/HLF8Q5Cnr4 https://t.co/KLIuSy2X0m
“He was focussed, he played to his size, scored a lot of points from two earlier, wasn’t really making it from three but it didn’t matter,” Shaq explained. “He was doing everything else and again, when you are a great player you never wanna have two bad games in a row. When you have a game before that and you come back like that, no slumps.”
The numbers from the Mavericks game were historic. Wembanyama became only the second player in NBA history to finish with 50 points, 20 rebounds and five blocks in one game, joining Bob McAdoo, who did it in 1974.
He also became the first player in NBA history to post at least 25 points, 10 rebounds and five blocks in the first half. By halftime, he already had 29 points, 15 rebounds and five blocks, and he never let the pace drop from there.
It was one of the most dominant showings of his young career, and if this is the kind of night Wembanyama can unleash after a quiet game, the league has every reason to keep bracing itself.
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