THE 2023 National Basketball Association (NBA) draft took place last night at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, with ‘Wembymania’ taking centre stage and the San Antonio Spurs in full pandemic mode.

France’s Victor Wembanyama had been touted as the number one draft pick for months, and the Spurs won the draft lottery in mid-May for the NBA draft’s first pick.

It is not often that a player who has yet to touch an NBA court has garnered the attention of the sport’s established stars. Certainly not since LeBron James in 2003, one of the most-anticipated first overall draft picks in the history of any sport, who was the second high school draftee to be a first overall pick — the first being Kwame Brown in 2001. But, having seen clips of the seven-foot-four-inch 19-year-old, it’s easy to understand why the likes of Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant have publicly echoed their sentiments, the former stating, “He’s like an NBA 2K created player…. Cheat code-type vibes.” The latter added, “The league’s really in trouble when he comes in.”

There have been very few players whose journey to the pinnacle of basketball has been as highly followed as his. In figures released by the NBA, Wembanyama is number 8 on its list of the most-viewed players on social media this season — despite not even being in the league as yet. He led the French professional basketball league in scoring, rebounding, and blocks in the just-concluded season, and served (almost) as a one-man marketing campaign for that league. He finished the season with impressive numbers (21.6 points, 10.5 rebounds, 3.1 blocks, 2.5 assists, 0.7 steals), and the San Antonio faithful are banking that he will be a franchise-transforming player since the Spurs have missed the NBA play-offs for four years running.

Most players the size of Wembanyama develop into a stereotypical NBA centre — good at shot-blocking and rebounding, and renowned for game just in the vicinity of the basket — but this is a different king of six-foot-four. He has become elite at handling the ball, dribbling, passing and jump shooting (including from three-point range). He scores at will against the best defenders he has faced, dribbles past players half his size, and his only appearances in the USA in October 2022 only added to the interest in his prospects. The Metropolitans 92 (his professional club in Paris) and the development team G League Ignite played two exhibition games and he scored 36 and 37 points, respectively.

A career in sports was always almost inevitable for Wembanyama. His father was a high jumper, his mother was a former basketball player who is now a coach, and his grandfather, Michel De Fautereau, played for the Paris University Club in the 1960s in the top flight in France. And the athletic genes are far-reaching as his two siblings, older sister Eve and younger brother Oscar, are also basketball players. Now, with an eight-foot wingspan and the potential of being the tallest player in the NBA next season, this young, multifaceted talent will join forces with Jeremy Sochan (also 19) and Keldon Johnson (23 years old) to see if they can restore San Antonio’s glory days.

By almost every statistic the Spurs are one of the most successful teams in the NBA. They’re the most successful regular-season team of all time by winning percentage and, with five championship wins, have the fifth-most titles in NBA history. Moreover, unlike some of the other storied NBA franchises, much of San Antonio’s success is relatively recent (they are the winningest team of the 21st century).

Significantly, one of the individuals most responsible for the Spurs’ success is still with the team, Coach Gregg Popovich. He is the longest-tenured head coach in the NBA, having led the Spurs since 1996 and was there through all the glory years to include the most-ever NBA regular season wins by a head coach. Popovich not only coached the Spurs during all five of their championship runs, but he led the team to the play-offs for 22 straight seasons (1998 through 2019), the longest streak in NBA history.

San Antonio’s only two previous number one picks were 7 feet 1 inch and 6 feet 11 inches (David Robinson and Tim Duncan, respectively). Both went on to have Hall of Fame careers that were spent entirely with the Spurs, including winning Most Valuable Player (MVP) trophies and multiple championships. Additionally, the Spurs have an exceptional track record when it comes to developing international players. Argentina’s Manu Ginobili and France’s Tony Parker both flourished while playing under Popovich, each making multiple All-Star teams and winning multiple titles during their Hall of Fame careers with the Spurs (Parker will be inducted later this year at the same ceremony as Popovich).

Wembanyama won big last night as his NBA career — at least the start of it — will be guided by one of the most accomplished coaches and organisations in basketball, and the NBA and San Antonio won as tickets to watch Wembanyama will be hot commodities next season. However, despite LeBron describing the young phenom as an “alien” and a “generational talent”, and two-time MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo stating the NBA has “never seen someone like that before”, there is no guarantee that Wembanyama’s potential will translate into real world achievement. NBA history is strewn with stories of number one and number two draft picks that ended as unfulfilled promises, while on the other end there are higher draft picks that have been exceptional — Kobe Bryant was the number 13 pick in 1996, and the current NBA Finals MVP (Nikola Jokic) was number 14 in 2014.

One can only hope that the Frenchman’s career lives up to somewhere near where it’s forecast to be as it would be beneficial to the league overall and last season’s 22-60 record for the Spurs would hopefully see a turnaround, to possibly a title contender. Wembymania was created without the bright lights that often come with USA college basketball, it is now left to be seen how the ‘pandemic’ will cope under the spotlight.

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