Victor Wembanyama drafted No. 1 overall by San Antonio Spurs
The San Antonio Spurs selected Victor Wembanyama, the 19-year-old French basketball star, as No. 1 in the NBA draft at Barclays Center in Brooklyn on Thursday. This officially kicked off the NBA career of one of the most anticipated prospects in league history.
He had grown up in the suburbs of Paris and dreamed of this moment since he was 12 years old. He had long felt that he was different from everyone else, like he could be great – and not just in basketball.
He now has a chance to show the NBA
Wembanyama cried when interviewed on ESPN after being picked. “I’ve dreamed about it so many times,” he said, adding, “I’m crying, man.”
The Charlotte Hornets selected Brandon Miller of Alabama with the number 2. The Portland Trail Blazers selected Scoot Henderson, of the NBA’s G League Ignite, with the third pick.
Fourteen players from outside the United States were selected first overall in the NBA draft. Wembanyama is the first top international pick not to play high school or college basketball in the United States since Italian player Andrea Bargnani, who was selected first by the Toronto Raptors in 2006.
Standing over six feet tall, with the agility and ball control of a much shorter player, Wembanyama has drawn comparisons to NBA stars such as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Kevin Durant. He has long admired those players, but he has often said that he does not want to be like anyone in particular. He has said he wants to be “something that has never been seen before and will never be seen again”.
At a draft night party at the Spurs arena in San Antonio, the crowd chanted “Wemby” an hour before the draft had even started.
On Wednesday, the NBA took the unusual step of hosting a press conference just for Wembanyama before the other draft prospects addressed the news media in groups.
“Welcome to San Antonio,” a Texas reporter said at Wembanyama’s press conference. With the draft still a day away, the reporter was quick to add, “Not yet.”
Wembanyama smiled.
“Not yet,” he said.
Wembanyama had already been projected as the number 1 choice for this draft ahead of the 2022-2023 season. The Spurs won the draft lottery in May, as Wembanyama watched with friends and family in France.
“I just thought I was lucky that they got picked as a franchise with that culture and that experience in winning and making, creating good players,” Wembanyama said on Wednesday. “I really can’t wait.”
The Spurs have a strong history with French players and with the top pick in the draft.
They drafted French point guard Tony Parker at the end of the first round in 2001. He won four championships with the Spurs and was named the Finals Most Valuable Player in 2007. Another French player, Boris Diaw, spent more than four seasons in San Antonio and was a member of the 2014 championship team.
The Spurs have also had great success making first pick in the draft. In 1987, they used the No. 1 pick to take David Robinson, who won the league’s MVP Award in 1995, was a 10-time All-Star, and won two championships with the Spurs. In 1997 San Antonio selected Tim Duncan first overall. Duncan went on to win five championships and two MVP Awards, and he was named MVP three times in the Finals.
Coming into a team with such a history might seem like a lot of pressure for a teenager like Wembanyama, but he doesn’t seem to be impressed.
On Wednesday, Wembanyama was asked for an expert comment, who said his career would be a disappointment if it wasn’t like Durant’s or Hakeem Olajuwon’s.
Wembanyama calmly rejected the premise.
“I have such high expectations of myself that I’m immune to all these things,” he said. “So I really don’t care.”
Wembanyama grew up in Le Chesnay, west of Paris, but left at the age of 14 to live about 20 minutes away in the dormitories of his boyhood club, Nanterre. He went to high school across the street. He has played professionally in France since he was 15, often competing against and with players much older than him. It meant he got few opportunities to lead a team.
But last season he played for Metropolitans 92, a French club based in the Parisian suburb of Levallois-Perret. Most of his games were broadcast on the NBA app.
“It was only this year that I had the chance to learn this kind of responsibility,” said Wembanyama. “It’s the best thing I’ve learned in my career so far.”
The team had drawn up a plan to prepare Wembanyama physically and mentally for the NBA. In turn, Wembanyama became deeply invested in the growth of his teammates.
One day in April, he told his agent Bouna Ndiaye that he needed a second athletic trainer because the first one was overworked. Ndiaye, assuming Wembanyama intended a second trainer for himself, found one and was willing to pay the second trainer’s salary to satisfy his client. But Wembanyama told him that the coach was for the whole team.
“He said to me, ‘Yes, but you don’t understand,'” Ndiaye said. “My teammates need that. Because I believe in this team.’”
The club eventually agreed to hire another trainer.
Wembanyama was named the most valuable player of his French league, the youngest ever to win that award, and led his team to a second-place finish. Last week they lost in the final.
He arrived in New York on Monday, excited to experience the city he had only seen in movies and on television.
He rode the subway from Columbus Circle in Manhattan to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on Tuesday. He jumped the turnstile as he exited the train station in tribute to Jacques Chirac, the former French president, who stepped on a turnstile in the Paris metro in 1980. Wembanyama threw out the ceremonial first pitch for the Yankees game against Seattle and laughed after sailing wide.
Otherwise it would have been difficult for Wembanyama to just go see the city. The anticipation of the heights his career could reach was already building before Thursday’s official welcome to the NBA
Santul Nerkar contributed reporting from San Antonio.