Victor Wembanyama thought he had a time-saving idea; the NBA DQ’ed him and Chris Paul anyway

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This article was published 15/02/2025 (597 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Victor Wembanyama and Chris Paul made history on All-Star Saturday night.

The wrong type of history, that is.

The San Antonio teammates were disqualified from the Skills Challenge on All-Star Saturday night because their shot attempts during the event were not “valid,” as the rules required. And afterward, all everyone wanted to know was who came up with the plan.

“I did,” Wembanyama said. “I don’t regret it. I think it was a good idea.”

The challenge included bounce passes, chest passes, shots from three different locations on the floor and dribbling. On the shots — from the corner over an automated defender, near the top of the arc and at the elbow — players had to either make one or shoot three, whichever came first.

Wembanyama read the rules and determined that if he and Paul simply flipped the three shots from each location forward they would save a lot of time.

And they did. Their time in the first round was 47.9 seconds, easily the best. It just didn’t count after the NBA evidently thought their effort wasn’t in the spirit of taking “valid” shots, like the rules state.

“We had the best time,” Wembanyama said. “Numbers speak for themselves.”

It was a most unconventional approach, but Wembanyama didn’t surprise other competitors with his plan. Golden State’s Draymond Green, who paired up with Warriors teammate Moses Moody in the event, said Wembanyama asked people beforehand if his plan was acceptable.

“It definitely sucked to see them throwing the ball like that,” Green said. “But what I will say is Wemby walked around the court asking everybody, ‘Make one or three attempts?’ And Wemby said, ‘Oh, so I can get all three of them up there?’ So, he asked. Now, he may not have asked the right people. But I will say, in Wemby’s defense, he did ask a lot of people.”

Green and Moody lost to the Cleveland duo of Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley in the final of the skills event. Mitchell reacted by waving two-thumbs-down when Paul and Wembanyama finished, as some in the crowd booed.

“If they weren’t disqualified, I think we probably would have just did the same thing, to be honest with you,” Mitchell said. “Play to win, I guess.”

Mobley indicated that he had similar thinking as Wembanyama.

“I feel like my first round I tried to do a similar thing but made it look like a real shot,” Mobley said. “But that didn’t work really well, so I switched up my strategy.”

Paul also said Wembanyama asked about the strategy beforehand. He said he had a good time nonetheless.

“We tried something that we thought could win,” Paul said. “To see if we had the best time, so … it was fun.”

Green said Paul warmed up taking conventional shots, presumably before Wembanyama — a second-year player and the league’s reigning rookie of the year, who’ll play in his first All-Star Game on Sunday — presented his time-saving plan.

“The old man followed the rookie,” Green said, “right off the cliff.”

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA