Shaquille O’Neal had advice for Victor Wembanyama after the Spurs lost the Finals, and it came with respect attached.
“I say this with respect about Wemby,” Shaq said on Inside the NBA. “As good as he is, he’s going to need to get stronger.”
That is the entire summer offseason in one sentence. Wembanyama is listed at 235 pounds at 7-foot-4. He is the most talented player in the world. He is also the player who just got pushed around by Karl-Anthony Towns and Mitchell Robinson for five Finals games, and the Spurs lost a championship partly because of it.
Shaq specifically called out the physicality. The Knicks bigs limited Wembanyama’s effectiveness by making every catch a war. Towns and Robinson were not trying to block his shots. They were trying to keep him out of the paint entirely, and they did it by leaning, bumping, and using their bodies to deny position.
Wembanyama could not consistently win those battles. That is not a basketball IQ problem. That is not a footwork problem. That is a weight room problem.
The numbers tell the story. Wembanyama entered the NBA at just over 200 pounds. He has added about 30 pounds of muscle since then, which is real progress, but his frame can clearly hold more. Shaq’s suggestion is another 15 to 20 pounds of clean weight, which would put him in the 250 to 255 range and give him a fighting chance against the strongest centers in the league.
The skeptics will say weight slows down skill players. That is the standard argument every time a thin star is told to bulk up. The counter is that Wembanyama is already a mobility freak. He moves like a wing at his size. Adding muscle would not turn him into a Brook Lopez plodder. It would just give him a real base to play through contact.
Shaq knows what he is talking about. He spent his career being the most physically dominant player in the league, and he won four championships doing it. When he says a young big has to add strength, he is not guessing. He is reading off the exact playbook that made him a Hall of Famer.
David West made a similar point on X over the weekend, calling out Wembanyama’s lack of a post game. Both criticisms are connected. You cannot post up if you cannot establish position. You cannot establish position if you can be moved off the block. Wembanyama can be moved off the block. That has to change.
The Spurs have to be hearing the same thing internally. Their offseason plan should include a serious strength and conditioning push, supervised by the team and structured around adding sustainable muscle without losing the mobility that makes Wembanyama special.
This is the type of summer that defines careers. Giannis Antetokounmpo spent his early years getting bigger. Kevin Durant added muscle as he went. Even LeBron James reshaped his body multiple times during his prime. Wembanyama is at the same crossroads.
Shaq laid out the path. Now Wembanyama has to walk it. The Spurs need him at 250 pounds next April or the Knicks are going to bully them again, and so will every other contender with size.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
