Victor Wembanyama wants to talk about something important. Kind of life-changing, he says. It’s a book. Well, books. , a six-part series of fantasy novels that follow a monster hunter with supernatural abilities. Took him three years, Wembanyama says, but he finally finished them. “It’s incredible,” Wembanyama says. “Following the same characters for years like this, it feels like you know them.” It’s not just universe that draws him in. It’s . . , a Japanese manga series. “Any good art piece,” the 20-year-old says. If coaches from Paris to San Antonio have sharpened Wembanyama’s basketball skills, characters in Middle-earth and Westeros have molded his mind. “The experiences are so detailed that you learn the lessons that the author tries to teach as well,” Wembanyama says. “It’s not just a story, it’s a fantastic story about somebody that’s also full of lessons.”
It’s mid-September and Wembanyama has folded his 7' 4" frame onto a couch inside the Spurs’ practice facility, escaping, briefly, the still scorching San Antonio heat. These are the conversations Wembanyama enjoys. About arts and literature, science and science fiction. “He is naturally curious,” says Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. Last season, Wembanyama’s agent, Bouna Ndiaye, arranged a meeting between Wembanyama and Thomas Pesquet, a French astronaut. “If you heard them talking,” Ndiaye says, “you wouldn’t know which one was the astronaut.” During a late-season trip to Utah, Wembanyama met with Brandon Sanderson, a fantasy novelist. In August, Popovich arranged for Peniel Joseph, an associate dean at the University of Texas and a leading expert on the history of the Black Power movement, to speak to a group of players about voting. Wembanyama—who, as a French citizen, can’t vote in U.S. elections—stuck around after to ask a few follow-ups.
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Wembanyama doesn’t find his inquisitiveness particularly unusual. “I just like to understand things,” he says. Others see it differently. “You tell him something, and it could be about anything, and he picks it up,” says Spurs general manager Brian Wright. “And the next time you talk to him, he will know more about that subject.” His representatives describe a client determined to grasp the nuances of every deal he is involved in. Jordan Howenstine, the designated Wemby guy on the Spurs’ PR staff, thinks Wembanyama could have had a career in aerospace engineering. Popovich imagines a writer. Wembanyama thinks he could have been a physiotherapist. It’s as if his impossibly rare blend of size and skill have denied his true calling. “I have plenty of ideas,” Wembanyama says. “Life is going to be about more than just basketball.”
But he is good at basketball. Last fall, Wembanyama entered the NBA with lofty expectations. By any metric, he exceeded them. He averaged 21.4 points and 10.6 rebounds per game, while leading the NBA in blocked shots. He ran away with the Rookie of the Year award and finished second in the race for the league’s top defender. The notes the Spurs provide the media detailing Wembanyama’s accomplishments are 11 pages long. He played in 71 games, silencing skeptics who wondered if his lanky frame would hold up to the rigors of an NBA season. “I learned so much,” Wembanyama says. “Playing 70 games, I’d never done that in my life before. But it went by super quick.”
When his first season ended, Wembanyama returned to France. He saw family, friends. Played a little paintball. It was relaxing. Sort of. Wembanyama likes structure. A schedule. He refers to himself at times as a “machine.” The NBA, with its limitless resources, is perfect for him. “We have the best ,” he marvels. Most of his time is spent at the Spurs’ facility, where everything he needs—chefs, coaches—is under one roof. “He wants his life to be in order,” Popovich says. At 9:00 each night, Wembanyama puts his phone into airplane mode and disappears into a novel. “It’s kind of a paradox,” he says. “I’m more tired when I’m on vacation.”
The Spurs’ season ended in early April and by May, Wembanyama was back in San Antonio. Popovich gave him a list—three pages long— of things to drill down on. Half offense, half defense. For six weeks, Wembanyama worked. After a monthlong Olympic tour with the French national team—Wembanyama averaged 15.8 points per game in a silver-medal-winning effort—he was back. Individual work in the morning. Scrimmaging in the afternoon. At night, Wembanyama was back in the gym getting up a thousand shots—mostly threes. Around the Spurs these days, there is a palpable energy. Like, what you saw from Wembanyama last season was special—but you ain’t seen nothing yet.