Wembanyama wants to win at anything he tries

We just couldn’t let this stuff go …

Victor Wembanyama’s first win of his rookie season with the San Antonio Spurs came with no fans present, no referees around and didn’t even require the use of a basketball.

It was, of all things, an art contest. The Spurs gave their players a few minutes to sketch The Coyote, the team mascot. Wembanyama thought for a few seconds and went to work. The teenager makes no secret that he loves art and studies it by visiting museums and exhibits. So it should have been no surprise that his drawing topped all others.

“Since it’s a contest, I gave 100 percent,” Wembanyama said. “I wanted to win.”

Get used to that, San Antonio. You too, NBA. The league’s newest phenom — a long-hyped French teen who stands 7 feet, 3½ inches tall and doesn’t turn 20 until Jan. 4 — is finally here, after being taken No. 1 by the

Spurs in this year’s draft.

And he wants to win. Everything.

“I mean, it’s incredible to watch,” Spurs forward Doug McDermott said. “He just does some things that you can’t really explain, that fans would be surprised by. He’s so coordinated for how tall he is, just a very unselfish player, can make any play and he’s very comfortable shooting from anywhere. So, it’s going to be a lot of a lot of fun this year.”

Maybe for the Spurs. For opponents, not so much. Some already have gotten a taste of what’s coming.

Enter Thomas Bryant. The Miami Heat center is a big man — 6-foot-10, somewhere around 250 pounds, shoulders about as broad as one can find even in the land of giants that is the NBA. The Heat were playing the Spurs earlier this month and Wembanyama received a pass at the edge of the lane. He took one dribble, took off from outside the restricted area that stretches a few feet from the basket and dunked over Bryant with absolute ease (pictured).

All Bryant could do was stare at the Heat bench, his face in complete disbelief.

“We’ve seen the footage, we’ve read about him, we’ve heard what everybody said about him,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “But until you actually see it, live, in person, there’s no real way to describe it.”

And Spoelstra knows what Wembanyama will be able to do for the 74-year-old Popovich, the all-time winningest coach who probably won’t hear questions about retiring anytime soon. They were oft-asked in recent years; then the Spurs got Wembanyama and Popovich signed for five more seasons.