An image featuring Victor Wembanyama
An image featuring Victor Wembanyama
When the United States faced France for men’s basketball gold at the Paris Olympics last summer, the battle between nations was also a generational showdown.
The American “Dream Team” was led by millennial superstars LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, who have lorded over the NBA for more than a decade. Meanwhile, the underdog French team delighted the locals with a thrilling tournament run after reorienting around Victor Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 center who emerged as Generation Z’s top prodigy when he was still a gangly teenager in the Paris suburbs.
Though Curry brought home gold for the United States, Wembanyama, who turned 21 in January, scored the most points in the championship game and kept France competitive despite its severe talent deficit. Before the medal ceremony was complete, observers were anticipating his revenge at the 2028 Games in Los Angeles and the possible end of the U.S. Olympic dynasty, which dates to 2008. “This is probably our last Olympic gold medal,” declared Shaquille O’Neal, the Hall of Fame player turned commentator.
Discussions about Wembanyama’s potential to become one of the greatest basketball players of all time and one of the most visible global sporting icons inevitably begin with his physical dimensions, which prompt bulging eyes and double takes. Thanks to his 6-foot-6 father, Félix, a track athlete whose family traces to the Democratic Republic of Congo, and his 6-foot-3 mother, Elodie, a French basketball player, Wembanyama now connects three continents — Africa, Europe and North America.
New energy on the court
Before his first exhibition game in the United States in 2022, a video clip of “Wemby” went viral on social media when he ducked sharply while walking through a seven-foot-tall metal detector. His wingspan is 8 feet, and he wears size 20.5 sneakers. He juggles to hone his hand-eye coordination, and tennis balls look like ping-pong balls in his massive hands. At the Olympics, a photograph of Wembanyama went viral again when Japan’s Yuki Togashi, a 5-foot-6 guard, seemingly measured up to his waist.
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Basketball has long been the domain of giants, but Wembanyama does not approach his craft like legendary big men such as Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and O’Neal, who dominated smaller foes near the basket. Instead, he was reared on a modern game that is built on three-pointers, so he spends considerable time away from the hoop like James, Curry and Durant.
Every game he plays feels like a grand experiment: No player his height has ever previously tried to shoot from so far away, dribble the ball through defenders and lead his team’s offense with passes. On defense, Wembanyama brilliantly blocks shots and doesn’t shy away from stopping smaller and quicker players.
Seven-footers who experiment with doing a little bit of everything have been labeled “unicorns.” James said that moniker was inadequate for Wembanyama: “He’s more like an alien — no one has seen anyone as tall as he is but as fluid and as graceful as he is.”
San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama in October. (Albert Pena/AP)
“The Alien” has made a smooth landing in the NBA: He was the No. 1 draft pick by the San Antonio Spurs in 2023 and was unanimously named 2024 rookie of the year. In San Antonio, he joined a no-nonsense franchise with a long championship tradition that has shielded him from the saturation media coverage given to megamarket teams on the coasts. Local fans embraced him immediately, especially once he expressed interest in their signature breakfast tacos and donned cowboy hats.
The NBA league office has taken a keen interest in his development, striking a deal to air his French league games on its app in 2022 and making special accommodations for foreign media when he arrived in New York City for the draft. As a rookie, Wembanyama generated more than 1 billion video views on the league’s social media accounts, trailing only Curry and James, and ranked fourth in jersey sales.
Despite the intense interest that has built up over the past three years, Wembanyama carries himself like the opposite of a social media influencer. In interviews, Wembanyama, who is fluent in French and English, deliberates before answering and actively avoids controversy. He enjoys reading science fiction books, goes weeks between Instagram posts and turns off his phone in the evening to ensure he gets proper rest. He presents as a polished and handsome, if somewhat reluctant, ambassador for brands such as Louis Vuitton and Nike.
Wembanyama is more expressive on the court, where he wears No. 1 to signal his desire to be the best. As the young Spurs struggled to find their footing in his rookie season, Wembanyama cherished their rare wins, often screaming in celebration and high-fiving fans. After leading France past Germany in the Olympic semifinals, he choked back tears as blood seeped through his jersey from a long scratch on his neck. “In our national anthem, we talk about blood, too,” he explained. “We’re willing to spill blood on the court.”
International stars such as Giannis Antetokounmpo and Nikola Jokic have captured MVP trophies and NBA championships, but they haven’t quite dislodged James, Curry and Durant to become the faces of basketball. Candidates for that honor must be skilled and obsessed with improvement, but viewers also expect them to be engaging, marketable, fashionable and business savvy.
Now in his second season, Wembanyama continues to check all the boxes: He became the fourth-youngest player in league history to score 50 points in a game, and he is the league’s tallest and youngest all-star this season. In an unsubtle move to promote Wembanyama, the NBA scheduled the Spurs against the New York Knicks in a showcase game at Madison Square Garden on Christmas Day.
Like superstars from generations past, Wembanyama has a knack for inspiring wonder and stoking debates without really trying. Current and former players have marveled at his ability on their podcasts, and media commentators have argued that he needs to put on more weight and that he should adopt a more traditional style of play by prioritizing dunks over three-pointers. If Wembanyama cares about the noise, he hasn’t really let on.
Only in moments of sharp intensity on the court does Wembanyama’s composed visage show cracks. Underneath: the pure devotion to his craft necessary to carry a sport. After settling for silver against the Americans, he cried openly and buried his face in his mother’s shoulder as he walked off the court. Moments later, he told a reporter he was “learning” and “worried for the opponents in the next couple of years.”
Wembanyama played for France at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. His team won the silver medal. (Evelyn Hockstein/AP)
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