Victor Wembanyama. Remember this name! The 18-year-old Frenchman is turning basketball on its head because he's like a real-life video game character. The 80-inch "alien" amazes even the very best - and makes NBA teams lose games on purpose.
On Thursday, his teammates excitedly pulled this skinny giant aside. Victor Wembanyama should definitely watch a video. In it, LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers, one of the best basketball players of all time, praised the 18-year-old Frenchman as a "generational talent" and as an "alien". James isn't alone in his comments, as Wembanyama has stunned the entire sports-mad United States these days - and is already changing the entire NBA before he even plays in the league.
Wembanyama traveled to the United States last week with his French side Metropolitan 92 for two exhibition games. The two games against Ignite - an NBA G-League team whose purpose is to give young players playing time with "farm teams" so that they can then move to the NBA - triggered an unprecedented hype. Experts knew beforehand that the teenager was good. Just how incredible he already is (and more importantly, how much better he could get) is now known to every basketball fan in the world.
Step-back three-pointers, dribble the ball across the court and pull it to the basket, three-pointers after a pass and out of dribbling. Only established NBA stars bring this tool case into the arena. But they are mostly point guards, physically smaller point guards. The fact that a 2.25-meter giant moves so smoothly, raining and hitting threesomes from outside, plus monster blocks, crashing dunking and footwork and body tricks à la Hakeem "The Dream" Olajuwon and the game with it up front like dominates the rear at will - this has never happened before on the planet. From an 18 year old at that. It's an almost absurd combination of height and ability, of size and skill, as the Americans say. It almost seems unfair. "Wembanyama's skills are the most uncanny thing the NBA has ever seen," said ex-NBA star Richard Jefferson.
Wembanyama plays gracefully and mercilessly. The jaws of the entire NBA world dropped with a loud, excited gasp of disbelief at the two games. Even if it's more about the Frenchman simply showing something that even experts had never seen in this combination, the numbers were also extraordinary. In the two games near Las Vegas, he scored 37 and 36 points. In the first game he hit seven out of eleven threes and delivered five additional blocks. The teenager, who narrowly lost 81-83 in the gold medal match against the USA at the 2021 FIBA U19 World Championship, was called up to the French national team for the next two World Cup qualifiers. In the USA he is now the clear favorite for number 1 in the 2023 NBA draft - but more on that in a moment.
First, you have to let it melt on your lips how seasoned NBA megastars search for the right words to do justice to the unprecedented style of play of the new giant in basketball heaven and the scope of these days in Nevada. "He's like an alien," LeBron James said, more than impressed. "I've never seen anyone as tall as him, but acting so fluidly and gracefully on the floor." Wembanyama's talent and skills "put a smile on my face," said Brooklyn Nets' Kevin Durant. "The league will have a problem when he finally arrives. I'm dying to see what the future holds for him."
NBA Champion Stephen Curry drew an obvious and apt comparison: "He's like a player that you create in NBA2K. I mean those point guards that are over 7 feet tall. It feels like a cheat code. He's got a lot of talent and it's fun to watch." Wembanyama actually looks like a player created in video games in children's rooms all over the world. But on the Playstation, a giant with such a body type stays sane. In reality it often looks different. Kristaps Porzingis or Yao Ming with their vulnerable bodies jump into the memory.
Apart from an injury, it seems that nothing and nobody can stop Wembanyama on his way to glory. "It's an honor that such players speak so highly of me," said the Frenchman after the widespread praise. "But nothing changes for me. I have to stay focused. I haven't achieved anything yet." The teenager will now return to France with the Metropolitans and continue the season there before moving to the NBA in 2023. And with that he triggers an earthquake-like problem.
"Victor Wembanyama is the best pick in NBA draft history," said ESPN pundit Adrian Wojnarowski. Better even than a LeBron James who, exactly 20 years earlier, caused an uproar in the United States at the annual talent education, the draft, without any social media. But Wembanyama is now so good and has so much room for improvement that it will already have a dramatic impact on this NBA season, according to Wojnarowski and many other analysts. That he "destroys" the season and the competition, even if he doesn't take part in it at all. Because for the teenager, a number of teams in the best basketball league in the world now want to lose on purpose and throw away the entire 2022/23 season.
Wembanyama will "start a race to the bottom like we've never seen before," said NBA team executive Wojnarowski. "Tanking" is what football fans call the absurd tactic of deliberately losing in the USA, "going for a swim" or "shipwrecking". The reason: The teams want to get the best possible starting position in the draft in order to get hold of Wembanyama. In order to have perhaps the best player in the world in our own ranks for the coming decades. To add "$500 million in value" (Wojnarowski) to the club.
NBA draft rules dictate that the top three teams with the worst picks at the end of the season have an equal 14 percent chance of winning first place in talent draw. The lot decides. It is not certain that the jewel will be involved in his own club after a losing season. There's even an 86 percent chance that the worst team won't get Wembanyama next year. Of that 86 percent, there's a 47.9 percent chance that they'll only get the fifth pick, because by then the worst team in the so-called lottery can even slip down the drawing order.
But Wembanyama seems worth it for some teams. Often teams jump on the tanking tactic when they realize mid-season that there is nothing left to do towards the playoffs. Now some of them probably want to start bobbing down right at the beginning of the new season or are at least already thinking about it. Even NBA boss Adam Silver issued a warning: "I know that many of our NBA teams are ecstatic at the idea that they can possibly get him through our lottery." But because so many clubs would try, they should rather compete properly on the floor given the bad chances.
On the one hand, the NBA loses credibility as a result, on the other hand, the championship this year is also influenced by the Wembanyama hype. Because experts expect that teams not only lose on purpose, but also trade and give up their own stars in order to have the right pieces of the puzzle together for the planned relegation and the hoped-for new beginning.
Victor Wembanyama won't give a damn about all the spectacle this season. The teenager wants to keep working on his incredible skills and stay healthy. If the NBA isn't completely destroyed by massive tanking by next year, it's finally getting its first real video game star.
(This article was first published on Saturday, October 08, 2022.)
