With the basketball world’s eyes fixed on NBA Superstar Victor Wembanyama, every team in the NBA is asking one question: Who can stop him?
There has never been a player like Victor Wembanyama. If the perfect player were created in a lab to perfectly play the game of basketball, Victor Wembanyama would be a clone. 7 feet 4 inches tall, 8-foot wingspan, with a soft touch, picturesque jumper, crafty handles, elite instincts, and a top-notch mind for the game, he’s the ultimate player the Monstars would have created if they were serious about world domination. When he’s at his peak, there’s nobody else like him. During his Western Conference Finals series against the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder, Wembanyama averaged 27.3 points, 10.9 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 2.7 blocks, 1.4 steals, and insane shooting splits of 40% from deep and 89.5% from the free-throw line.
During the WCF series, the whole basketball world watched Wemby work, filling fans with awe and GMs with horror. So who is capable of stopping Wembanyama from completely taking over the game? Intuitively, the most obvious counter to Wemby would be a player like Rudy Gobert, a lanky, similarly fast and coordinated 4-time Defensive Player of the Year, but in their matchups, Wembanyama has averaged 22.6 points, 9.4 rebounds, and shot 44.9 percent from the field. Okay, so maybe Gobert has lost a step; how about a younger, quick, lanky center like Chet Holmgren? Well… that was his matchup in the 2026 WCF series we talked about earlier, and Holmgren just couldn’t out-muscle or adequately keep up with Wembanyama, leading to an ugly result for OKC. Okay then, what about a beefier defensive big man like Walker Kessler? Nope, Wembanyama averaged 23.5 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 49.5% shooting from the field in their matchups. Dang, well, if none of these lanky big men are working, perhaps another giant would work, one who’s more muscular than Wemby and equally as tall. What about Zach Edey? Actually, yeah, that worked; in their 3 career head-to-head matchups, Wembanyama was held to 19.7 points on 39.7% shooting from the field against Edey and the Grizzlies. In fact, the Grizzlies have held Wemby to his fourth-lowest shooting percentage of any opposing team. Only trailing the Denver Nuggets, Detroit Pistons, and Cleveland Cavaliers, who hold the best mark at 40.0%, slightly higher than Wemby’s mark in games against Zach Edey. Overall, the muscular 7-foot-2 Donovan Clingan has also been effective, holding Wemby to 41.7% from the field. 7-foot-2 Kristaps Porzingis has also been modestly successful in their two matchups, holding him to 19.0 points and 10.0 rebounds.
Statistics have shown that an ideal “Wemby Stopper” must have these 3 characteristics. They must be at least 7-foot-2 to neutralize Wemby’s high release point and length. The player must be stronger than Wemby, possess a more muscular build, and have a larger overall mass in order to block, bump, and box out Wemby’s slender frame. And third, the player must have considerable mobility in order to react to and counter Wembanyama’s speed and agile change of direction. This is backed up by the 3 examples from earlier: Edey, Clingan, and Porzingis, each correlating in order with their combine agility drill scores and Wemby’s opposing field goal percentage.
With all that out of the way, here are the 3 potential “Wemby Stopper” prospects for NBA GMs and national team coaches to keep their eye on.
Luigi Suigo, 7-foot-2.75 center, Villanova Wildcats (Italy)
The most obvious selection for the next Wemby Stopper, Italy’s Luigi Suigo, has been praised as perhaps the most similar prospect to Victor Wembanyama overall in the past few years. He is enormously tall, measuring barefoot just one centimeter shy of 7-foot-3 and weighing 289 pounds at the 2026 NBA Combine; he has 3-point shooting capabilities. He is European and has many of the skills traditionally associated with European bigs, like ball-handling, playmaking, and outside shooting. By our own metrics at World Basketball Scouting, he is the 2nd-best 2007-born international prospect not in the NBA today.
Suigo has a solid resume and is far from a novelty player fans rally behind for his height. He’s played and held his own professionally for KK Mega Basket of the ABA in Serbia. He has appearances and All-Star awards at multiple Basketball Without Borders camps, as well as genuine draft stock in the most recent 2026 NBA Draft. However, he chose to withdraw to pursue American college for one year in hopes of raising his draft stock into a Lottery selection. Suigo is already NBA material and is certain to be playing for many more years to come with his outstanding frame and overall excellence in the finer aspects of the game. It will be fun to watch Suigo at Villanova this year in the NCAA, and the San Antonio Spurs would surely not mind if he stayed in college for even longer.
Jérémy Gohier, 7-foot-5 center, Nanterre 92 (Canada)
Sometimes your greatest admirer can be your strongest adversary. That’s why 15-year-old Quebecois giant Jérémy Gohier represents. Another giant out of Canada, following the aforementioned 7-foot-4 Zach Edey and current tallest basketball player in the world, Olivier Rioux, Gohier has undeniable potential and god-given talent. This summer, playing up 2 age groups at the 2026 U17 World Cup in Istanbul, Gohier excelled in limited minutes, showing off a very fluid game and natural game that felt far closer to Edey’s than Rioux’s. On the AAU circuit, he has been dominant as well, using his 275-pound frame and unmatched reach to bully the smaller players in his age group.
Despite being a much more powerful player than Wemby has ever been, Gohier is looking to follow in the footsteps of “the Alien” with a move to play at Nanterre 92 in France for his next season. The exact same club that developed Victor Wembanyama in his youth days. Gohier made this decision deliberately, trusting in the same coaches to teach him to become the same caliber of player as Wembanyama and eventually play professionally for their team. As a player, Gohier sees himself not as a center but as a small forward. He values the ball-handling, dribbling, and touch for a small forward and sees his skill set being best matched for a professional projection at some form of forward position. It is hard to deny that Gohier has advanced soft skills and that his size would benefit him at a forward position, but it would take a lot of growth in his speed, perimeter defense, and agility to be able to successfully stay out of the 5 spot at the professional level. I’m sure if you follow social media at all, over the next few years you will be able to stay very aware of the development and NBA trajectory of this viral star.
Cherif Millogo, 7-foot-3 center, St. Francis High School (Burkina Faso)
A player that American basketball recruiting fans have known for a while now but the international basketball community has barely heard of, Cherif Millogo is a very dynamic Class of 2027 center originally from Burkina Faso in West Africa. Millogo was brought over to the United States early in his youth development by CATS Academy in Massachusetts. He was booked as a player with tremendous promise who had unteachable size and athleticism. Despite not playing at CATS Academy due to an ACL tear, Millogo transferred to St. Francis High School in California for his junior year, where he caught the attention of many college scouts, averaging over 19.5 points and 11.5 rebounds per game. He’s bouncy, explosive, strong, and very sound technically, with a solid stroke from deep and great rim-protection capabilities.
Millogo is admittedly a bit smaller than you would hope for in your center in terms of weight and muscularity, but that traditionally isn’t a problem for West African players who tend to put on muscle easier than most. Millogo is currently ranked as the 73rd-best player in the Class of 2027 by 247Sports and holds Division I power-conference offers from 10 schools, including Kentucky, Arizona, BYU, Alabama, and USC. There is still plenty of time before Millogo decides where he is going to play next, and he certainly isn’t likely to be a one-and-done prospect, but Millogo has all the tools to become an NBA player and a solid path to get there.
Obviously, nobody can truly stop Victor Wembanyama, but Father Time himself, and with a growing premium on oversized centers with sturdy builds and long wingspans, these three are the best equipped currently to develop into the “Wemby Stopper” fans and GMs are looking for every day.
