Wembanyama looks ahead to year 2
Rookie phenom sits finale, reflects on dominant season
SAN ANTONIO — Victor Wembanyama can admit it now. He had no idea what he was getting into.
When he stepped off the plane at San Antonio International Airport for the first time back in June, the NBA’s No. 1 overall draft pick surveyed his new hometown and took note of what it lacked.
No desert. No cactus. No horses or cowboys, at least not in his immediate vicinity.
“It was not like in the movies,” Wembanyama recalled Sunday with a smile.
After nine months of settling into his life as the center of the Spurs’ universe, Wembanyama has come to embrace San Antonio as more than the sum of its dusty Texas stereotypes.
He has also learned that, unlike in the movies, not everything goes entirely to script.
Wembanayma’s rookie season ended a game early Sunday, as he was ruled out of the teams 123-95 victory over Detroit in the season finale to get a head start on what should be a busy Olympic summer for him.
His absence did not matter. Wembanyama had already defied the outsized expectations that accompanied his arrival in June, turning in one of the most dominant rookie seasons in NBA history.
He also did it for a team, record-wise, was no better than the team he joined. The Spurs finished 22-60, the same as last season.
They will enter the May draft lottery with the fifth-best odds to pull the No. 1 pick
Regrets, Frank Sinatra famously had a few. Wembanyama has only one – that his rookie season is already over.
“I don’t want next season to stop so early,” Wembanyama said. “I want to keep going, go to the playoffs.”
Popovich, too, said he was disappointed the season was ending at a time in which his team was playing its best.
“I wish the next season started (soon),” Popovich said. “I need about a week and a half, and I’ll be ready to go.”
It was about as definitive as the 75-year-old coach could be about his intention to return for a 29th season on the bench.
For him, general manager Brian Wright, and club CEO R.C. Buford, there is plenty of work to be done to get the club from near the bottom of the Western Conference standings to the postseason.
As the 20-year-old Wembanyama proved in his inaugural NBA campaign, the Spurs have as good of a cornerstone to build around as anyone in the league.
Wembanyama finished his first pass through the NBA averaging 21.4 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 1.2 steals and a league-leading 3.6 blocks. He is the only player in league history to pass those specific thresholds in the same season.
He is almost certain to win Rookie of the Year honors and become the first rookie to be named to an All-Defensive team since Tim Duncan in 1997. Wembanyama is also likely to at least receive votes for Defensive Player of the Year, an honor no rookie has ever won.
“I’ve been most impressed with his consistency,” Popovich said. “Every game he rebounds and blocks shots. He changes shots. He’s a heck of a passer, gets his assists. For a rookie to do that night after night, with the numbers that he’s getting, it’s pretty impressive.”
Wembanyama is the first rookie in NBA history to amass 1,500 points, 250 assists and 250 blocks. Only three other players of any age have reached those numbers at any point in their career – Kareem AbdulJabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon and Spurs great David Robinson.
He is also only the 10th player in NBA history to average 20 points, 10 rebounds and three blocks.
“He was able to do so many great things this year just in one season with all the expectations and all the pressure on him,” point guard Tre Jones said. “He was able to do so many crazy things. Every single night he’s doing something new we haven’t seen before.”
Wembanyama’s teammates see a message in Wembanyama’s strong rookie season.
“He’s like, ‘I’m here, I’ve arrived and there’s not nothing anybody can do about it,’ “Devin Vassell said.
The rest of the league knows it too.
Asked before a game earlier this month if he believes Wembanyama has lived up to the outsized hype that accompanied his arrival from France, Memphis coach Taylor Jenkins said he had – and then some.
“The hype label has got to go,” Jenkins said. “He’s proven it already.”
It appears the only person who doesn’t believe Wembanyama surpassed expectations in his rookie season was Wembanyama himself.
“Maybe it’s the case, but it’s not how I feel,” Wembanyama said. “Every day I try to push harder and to do more – more achievements, more records, more wins. But the next day I always tell myself that I didn’t do enough and to push me even more.”
Spurs forward Sandro Mamukelashvili summed up Year 1 of the Wembanyama experience with a line that ought to make it into the Frenchman’s next Nike ad.
“I feel like even the sky’s not a limit,” Mamukelashvili said. “He’s an alien.”
The next step for Wembanyama is a giant leap. He wants to get the Spurs to the playoffs.
In June, not long after he first learned San Antonio looks nothing like a John Wayne film, Wembanyama was introduced to the city at a news conference at the Frost Bank Center.
There, he announced plans to add to the five NBA championship banners overhead.
As Wembanyama learned in this season of pride and pain, that is more than a one-year process.
Heading into his first full NBA offseason, Wembanyama at last knows exactly what he is in for.
“We’re not going to build something great by saying we want to win championship or really go to the playoffs,” Wembanyama said. “It’s set a new brick every day, and then we’ll build a house.”