In Thursday night’s 2023 NBA Draft, the San Antonio Spurs select the 7’5″ French star Victor Wembanyama as the number one overall pick.
The 19-year-old with an eight-foot wingspan will join the likes of Jeremy Sochan, Keldon Johnson, Devin Vassell, and Malaki Branham.
The future for San Antonio basketball is here with power forwards Wemby and Sochan, the 6’8″ 20-year-old hailing from Poland. The ninth overall pick in last year’s NBA draft averaged 11 points and around five rebounds in 56 games. This Spurs team last season already relied heavily on their youthful core, as their top five scorers in total points were all 25 years old or younger. Under president and head coach Gregg Popovich, the Spurs have 28 draft picks over the next six seasons, including 11 first-rounders. Here is Popovich making the phone call on draft night to Wembanyam.
San Antonio has hit big historically when they had the first overall pick in the draft, going all the way back to 1987 with David Robinson, their first ever number one overall pick, as he went out to win two NBA titles and NBA MVP in 1995. Robinson also won Defensive Player of the Year in 1992 and is a former 10-time All-NBA and All-Star selection. 1997’s Tim Duncan exceeded expectations even for a former number one overall pick, as he played till 2016 and is a former three-time NBA Finals MVP, two-time NBA MVP, and 15-time All-NBA and All-Star selection.
Despite not having an official head coach at the moment, the Spurs expect Pop to return as the coach for the next NBA season under a new deal, as the three-year he signed in 2019 has expired. But any retirement rumors may be put to rest for now with the selection of the French phenom, as he said Wembanyama will play for the Spurs in the summer league starting July 3 but that he didn’t know to what extent.
“As I said before, I’ve only spoken with him on the phone a couple of times, so I got to get a better feel for where his head is at,” Popovich said. “Talked to his people who’ve trained him his whole life. They’ve been with our people, and we’ve got to make those decisions once we’re all together. But he’ll be there at some point.”
After making the selection, Pop gave praise to Wembanyama’s parents for how they have raised him to handle the pressure of being a highly touted prospect expected to deliver in the pros.
“He’s got a great disposition, a good combination of intellectual ability and an emotional intelligence at the same time,” Popovich said. “He understands what hype is. He understands all the attention he’s getting, but he still welcomes it, and deals with it. … So I think he understands that there’s a way to handle that responsibility and still let people feel somewhat close to him. So he doesn’t need a lot of advice in that area.”
At the AT&T Center in San Antonio during the draft, Spurs fans were elated with the pick, as Spurs managing partner Peter J. Holt was as well when they won the chance to take him first overall by winning the lottery this past May. Wemby made a statement to the fans and commented on their reaction to him being drafted to their team.
“I need to see footage of this,” Wembanyama said. “My message to them is I’m going to give 100 percent, make all that’s in my power to make this franchise win, to have an impact on the franchise and the fan base and the community.”
San Antonio didn’t make it a quick decision, however, as they used up all five minutes they had on the clock before turning in the card. Wembanyama called it the “longest five minutes” of his life.
“This is when I started getting the butterflies, and it’s where I started seeing my family get silent,” the 19-year-old French superstar said. “Everyone watching their watch. Then I got called, and I went to the back. I was congratulated by a lot of people there. I saw Adam Silver, shook his hand again, and gave him a hug.”
The Wembanyama era with the Spurs has now kicked off, as he is considered by many to be a generational player, a fluid shooter with his size that also has the range to defend and play above the rim.
“I can’t really describe it,” the Wembanyama told ESPN reporters following the pick. “One of the best feelings of my life. Probably the best night of my life. I’ve been dreaming about this for so long. It’s a dream come true. It’s incredible.”
San Antonio general manager Brian Wright said after the draft that Wembanyama’s name garnered interest from their international scouts when he was 15. Since then, the Spurs and essentially all other NBA teams around the league have followed his career path up to this point.
“You start hearing of this young player with tremendous talent, tremendous size, and so we started to see him, some of us maybe when he was 16, 17,” Wright said. “He always played up, and so the rumors of him had spread, and obviously as we all go see him, we saw the unique talent that he was.”
Wemby averaged 20.7 points, around ten rebounds, and three blocks per game in the French LNB Pro A League during the regular season. He led the league in all three categories and was named the league’s MVP, taking his Metropolitans 92 squad to the French league finals.
Wright followed up and stated this about Wembanyama’s growth as a player: “But you look over the course of that time period, just how he’s grown and developed as a player to now leading his team to the championship of the French league and that’s no easy task. That’s one of the best leagues in the world, and he did that carrying that team on his shoulder. So his evolution has been fun to watch.”
Wemby also showed out in two national exhibition games back in October, as his team took on the G League Ignite, scoring 37 points and 36 points in back-to-back games. The Ignite were led by third overall pick Scoot Henderson, who was selected by the Portland Trailblazers in this past NBA draft.
Wemby now plays with the winningest coach in NBA history, despite Pop and the Spurs not having winning seasons the last four years. Going 22-60 last season gave San Antonio a 14% chance of winning the lottery to award them the highly touted power forward. Under Pop, the Spurs made 22 consecutive trips to the playoffs from 1998 to 2019, which is tied for the longest such streak in NBA history. But San Antonio’s record has been less than stellar, going under 0.500 each season since the 2018- 2019 season.
On lottery night, ESPN’s Brian Windhorst that Wembanyama was “trying to win a ring ASAP.” After the draft, he tempered his expectations by saying this:
“Some players have tried to win the championship, win a ring for years, and haven’t made it. I don’t want to be one of those,” Wembanyama said. “My goal is going to be to get closer and closer every time to the ring and to learn how to make it.”
Pop acknowledges that even more eyes are now going to be on him and the comparisons people are going to make for a well-regarded prospect, stating “he will have a target on his back and has to be himself and not anyone else – not LeBron James, not Kobe Bryant and not Duncan.”
“He’s Victor, and that’s who we want him to be,” Popovich said.
