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INDIANAPOLIS – Victor Wembanyama made his NBA All-Star Weekend debut at the Rising Stars event on Friday night to applause when his name for Team Pau was announced. It didn’t take him long to get going, scoring the first basket of the game on a pick-and-pop with Warriors guard Brandin Podziemski. Wembanyama had a big block late in the game, but it was G League Ignite wing Matas Buzelis who scored a jumper for Team Detlef to end the game and advance to the finals against eventual champion Team Jalen . Wembanyama finished with 11 points, seven rebounds and two blocks.
“I would have liked to have gotten the win, but it’s always fun to face great competition and play alongside other talented players,” Wembanyama said after the match.
There were 31 players selected for the Rising Stars tournament, and Wembanyama entered the weekend as the favorite to win the NBA Rookie of the Year award, as he currently leads all rookies in points per game and rebounds per game, and total of steals, blocks and field goals. He is separating himself from the rest and making his presence known in the NBA.
“I knew how well he played with him last year in France, but now everyone is watching,” Washington Wizards wing Bilal Coulibaly, Wembanyama’s teammate on the Metropolitans 92 last year, told Yahoo Sports. “There are a lot of young talents emerging in France, and a lot of kids now play basketball thanks to Victor and what he is doing in the NBA.”
Wembanyama is the most anticipated player to enter the NBA in recent times. He has exceeded all expectations, but this is nothing new for the 7ft 4in Frenchman, who will also compete in the Skills Challenge on Saturday night. All his life he has had great goals and a different mentality than other players.
When asked during his media availability on Friday what his 12-year-old self would say about his first NBA All-Star weekend, Wembanyama responded: “I would have said something like, ‘Why not sooner? Why not sooner? ‘What took you so long?’ “When I was a child, my goal was to reach the 2016 Olympics with the (French) national team, so unfortunately I arrived a little late. I already had high expectations from a very young age.”
Coach Tim Martin, who has also worked with Dwyane Wade, Tyrese Maxey and Trae Young, has worked with Wembanyama since 2020 and recognized his unique mentality early on. Martin made an early prediction of what Wembanyama’s immediate impact on the NBA would be, telling Yahoo Sports in November 2022: “If Victor were in the NBA today, he would be the best defensive player in the league. He can switch balls. “He can get down, shoot the hole, everything. He’s probably altering 40% of the shots taken when he’s on the court.”
He wasn’t wrong. Wembanyama leads all NBA players with 156 blocks in 49 games and leads all rookies with 56 steals. To put those numbers in perspective, in Rudy Gobert’s Defensive Player of the Year season in 2018, he recorded 129 blocks and 44 steals for the entire season. Wembanyama has done things this season that no other player in the league can do.
“His whole thought process is very methodical, he’s very present and he analyzes the game differently than any player I’ve ever worked with,” Martin recently told Yahoo Sports. “He wants to go through the process and for him to understand every step and what it takes to become one of the best to play the game, that’s where he learns the most.”
In his first season with the Spurs, there have definitely been growing pains. San Antonio has the third-worst record in the NBA (11-44), and his teammates are struggling to find easy shots at times. It may be difficult for Wembanyama to stay in the moment and slowly grow in a rebuild instead of looking toward what the franchise could be in a few years. But he’s apparently made for this.
“I’ve been told my entire life to never skip steps,” Wembanyama said. “Right now I’m just a student of this league. The rise of expectations has been increasing all season, so there’s no reason to change anything in what I’m doing. It’s something I hope continues for years to come because we want be in the playoffs soon and we want to win.
Wembanyama is currently averaging 20.5 points, 10.5 rebounds, 3.3 blocks and 3.2 assists in 28.4 minutes per game. He recorded his second triple-double of the season in a victory over the Toronto Raptors on February 12, recording 27 points, 14 rebounds and 10 blocks in just 29 minutes of action.
“I didn’t expect him to do as much playing less than 30 minutes a game,” Martin said. “No one could have predicted that, and that’s what separates him from everyone else. For Victor to do what he’s doing in less than 30 minutes every game has never been done before.”
In LeBron James’ rookie year, 2004, he averaged 20.9 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.5 assists in 39.5 minutes. James is now in his 21st season and has been named an All-Star 20 times. It’s not out of the realm of possibility to predict that Wembanyama could have a similarly successful career.
Wembanyama welcomes the pressure and whatever levels others think he can reach, he has higher goals for himself. In his first year participating in the All-Star Weekend he is already thinking about his next big goal.
“It’s been a really fun experience so far,” Wembanyama said. “Just playing in the Rising Stars game and everything.” He paused for a moment and smiled, “And next year, hopefully, the big game.”