THERE’S one thing Victor Wembanyama has already proven above anything else in his basketball career: He stays true to his word.
About a year before he would don a San Antonio Spurs jersey in his official NBA debut in October 2023, the 7-foot-4 center said his goal was to “be like something you’ve never seen.”
And oh boy, has he delivered.
Wembanyama, 19, has had people looking at him in disbelief since he devoted himself to hoops just like his mom Elodie and several other members of his family.
Born in Le Chesnay — a small town outside of Paris, France — he grew up following Elodie around gyms in his hometown as she coached different youth basketball teams.
And his visits would leave a lasting impression.
“When he was five years old, everyone thought he was 10,” recalled Emmanuel Saravas, who would train the hoops prodigy at a local club Entente Le Chesnay-Versailles.
Before Wembanyama actually turned 10, he was already 5-foot-10 tall, causing a coach from the French basketball team Nanterre to mistake him for a team assistant during an under-11 game.
The coach, Michael Allard, made sure Nanterre added Wemby to its youth ranks — and the starlet quickly proved to be more than just an unbelievably tall teenager.
“He just played the game with ease — no-look pass, a creator, no pressure whatsoever, no position, three-pointers — he was everywhere,” the center’s current agent Bouna Ndiaye recalled.
“It was such a joy to watch.”
At the same time, Wembanyama displayed stunning confidence and maturity — he would reject an approach from Barcelona, one of the best basketball teams in Europe, because he didn’t feel challenged enough.
Those intangibles allowed him to further improve his feel for the game and polish off the rough edges, such as his proneness to turnovers.
And so as the years went by, the legend of the “unicorn” from France started to spread.
Complete package. Generational talent. Alien. Cheat code. Those would be the other phrases used to describe the young Frenchman, eventually leading to LeBron James comparisons.
Meanwhile, his embrace of the spotlight would only add to the buzz.
“I was built for this, I guess,” Wembanyama told the AP in 2022.
“All of what happens to me, I expected for myself. So it’s just a checklist of expectations.
“I’m not surprised by what’s happening to me. And yeah, this is happening, this is how I can manage it and I think I managed it well.”
After Wemby gave a taste of his talent in the exhibition double-header between his Metropolitans 92 and the G League Ignite in October 2022, the Wembymania took hold in the US for good.
The NBA even showed his Mets 92 games during the 2022-23 season on League Pass, its streaming service.
As he finally arrived for the NBA 2023 draft, he was given an entire auditorium to accommodate all the reporters wanting to attend his press conference.
Other prospects did their predraft interviews in groups of six, speaking to the media while sitting at tiny desks in a conference hall on the floor below.
At the 2023 Las Vegas Summer League, ESPN cameras never stopped following the Frenchman.
The network recorded him coming in and out of the locker room at Thomas & Mack Center before Spurs games even though it produced nearly identical shots each time.
Put on an auction by the NBA, Wembanyama’s jersey from his underwhelming summer league debut would fetch over $40,000 with over six days to go.
The No. 1 pick averaged a solid 19.3 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 1.7 assists while shooting 33.3% for 3 in his first three 2023 preseason games.
But his name hardly ceased to trend on social media during Spurs games, particularly as the center packed his highlight reel with spectacular blocks.
Impressively, the center’s physical attributes allowed him to recover defensively from impossible positions after bad plays, swatting away shots hardly any other player could have reached.
The skillset, the character, the hype — Wembanyama has truly been something the NBA has never seen before, just like he promised he would.
Chapeau bas, Wemby. You’ve accomplished your goal.
