HE SIGNED autographs outside Barclays Center hours before the 2023 NBA Draft, and then once inside, it was 7:18 p.m. when an ESPN cameraman rushed over to where Victor Wembanyama signed whatever he could for screeching fans leaning over a barrier above.
The 2023 NBA draft: A 7-foot-3 tree grows in Brooklyn.
And has already grown on the entire basketball world.
Young boys leaned over with T-shirts and Sharpies and cried, “Victor, Victor!” when he left the players’ area minutes later. He looked up and smiled. When he returned from wherever he went, he stopped and signed, and flipped one of the boys’ Sharpies back up to him before he returned to his predraft seat with family and friends.
The Next Big Thing … Biggest Thing since LeBron.
And just like LeBron James, if he is the generational talent everyone is certain he will be, you will only need to know him by his first name, and not only because Wembanyama is a chore to spell and more difficult to pronounce. Unless you prefer Wemby.
Which is what they were chanting before and after the Spurs made him San Antonio’s Eiffel Tower: “Wem-by, Wem-by, Wem-by!”
Wembymania inside Barclays Center, not to mention all over San Antonio.
If you didn’t know he was French, you could have confused him with the All-American teenaged boy.
The signage in blue capital letters high above read: “THE FUTURE STARTS HERE,” and it sure has for Gregg Popovich and the Spurs.
The kid seems too good to be true.
Nearly 45 minutes after NBA commissoner Adam Silver embraced him on stage and posed for photos, this dream night still hadn’t completely sunk in for The Next Big Thing.
“Probably the best night of my life,” he said.
He had walked in his dark green suit into the interview room with a white Spurs jersey draped proudly around his neck, which he removed and held on his lap when the questions began.
That five-minute wait while the Spurs were on the clock? So near and yet so far.
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“Longest five minutes of my life,” Wemby said.
He retraced his first steps after hearing his name called first and held up his Spurs jersey and said: “Then someone gave me this.” He laughed and added: “Someone knew this was happening somehow,” and everyone in the room laughed along with him.
He said all the right things and seemed sincere when he said them.
The sky is his limit, and it almost seems like he can reach up and touch it. He has skills you simply can’t teach a man his size, and rare instincts. If Kareem Abdul-Jabbar decides to teach him the skyhook, good luck defending him. Good luck anyway.
“Some players have tried to win the championship, to win a ring for years, and haven’t made it,” Wemby said. “I don’t want to be one of those.”
Popovich had a press conference in San Antonio and you know he will have Spurs legend Tim Duncan tutor Wemby.
“Tim Duncan, if I got the opportunity to work with him, I can’t really think of a better role model,” Wemby said.
When someone asked what excites him most about the start of his new adventure in San Antonio with the Spurs, he cracked up the room when he said with a mischievous smile: “Breakfast tacos. I’ve heard a lot about breakfast taco.”
He is humbled by how his new city has embraced him.
“I think there’s murals of me in the city center of San Antonio,” Wemby said. “It’s just incredible. I could not ask for a better welcome than this. I really love the fan base, man.”
He was a Tony Parker fan, and since his countryman was once a Spur, that made him a Spurs fan. Only 19 and a master at political correctness.
He wants to be coached hard by the great Popovich. “He’s not intimidating yet, but I’m sure he’s going to get intimidating when I meet him in real life,” Wemby said.
There were three questions in French that he answered in French. When he left the interview room he chatted for a couple of minutes with purple-haired new teammate Jeremy Sochan. A family of four flew in from San Antonio last Saturday to witness history.
“The road is going to be very long for me to reach the top,” Wemby said, “but I’m ready to learn from anybody.”
He will need to put meat on those bones. The Knicks better get him early when they play him. Everyone else better, too.
