France NT head coach: People who don't know basketball think Victor Wembanyama is already Michael Jordan

“[Wembanyama] knows who he is,” Batum said. “He knows what he has to do to be great. Take us home. That’s who you are right now. He’s not scared of the moment.” -via Washington Post / July 27, 2024

“He’s obviously already our leader,” Collet said. “For Victor, the main thing was to go inside, where he’s sure to dominate every time. If he plays too much on the perimeter, he’s like any other player: Some nights you make the shots, and some nights you don’t.” -via Washington Post / July 27, 2024

Donatas Urbonas: Victor Wembanyama on his Olympic debut: “I’ve never experienced 27,000 people cheering for us, cheering for me. It gives so much strength, it’s incredible. You cannot underestimate the power of the crowd, the home crowd. It’s really going to be the sixth man in the tournament.” -via Twitter @Urbodo / July 27, 2024

ClutchPoints: Steph Curry revealed that he, LeBron James and Kevin Durant recreated the iconic photo of Larry Bird, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson from the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona 🤩 “I can’t wait to get that on my wall and get them to sign it. It’s just an honor knowing what we’ve pic.twitter.com/IVEnYuLa3N -via Twitter @ClutchPointsApp / July 25, 2024

Junior Bridgeman, who played for the Milwaukee Bucks from 1975 to 1984, laughed. What the woman didn’t know was that the recently-retired Bridgeman wasn’t merely working at that Wendy’s location. The 6-foot-5 former wing owned it — and others across the city. But Bridgeman understood her point. Salaries for players then weren’t that high by today’s standards. In Bridgeman’s 12-season career, which included a stint with the LA Clippers, he made about $2.95 million and never more than $350,000 in a season. After his career, he built a fast-food empire that, at its peak, totaled more than 450 restaurants nationwide. He became a Coca-Cola bottling distributor with territory across three states and into Canada. He bought Ebony and Jet magazines. His estimated net worth soared to nearly $600 million, behind just Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and LeBron James, among NBA players. -via ESPN / July 24, 2024

Knicks fans were the latest to learn that. “There’s nothing like the Garden,” he says. And throughout New York and Indiana’s Eastern Conference semifinal in May, Haliburton felt one pocket of seats across from the Pacers’ bench was consistently on him the most. As he tells it, a pregame interaction set the tone for their series-clinching win: “So, Game 7 came around, and I’m like, I gotta come up with something to get me going. Like I heard Tom Brady say that one time, like he would look for things to get him going, and Michael Jordan said the same thing—like, sometimes he would make things up. So there’s a dude courtside, he’s chirping to me in warmups … and then he was really talking crazy. And I wasn’t going to say anything, I’m like, I’m gonna let this go. I’m gonna get him later. And then [Pacers teammate and karate black-belt] James Johnson walked over. And James obviously is the muscle of the NBA. And when James walked over, the dude got quiet. So I just went over there. I was like, ‘Why are you quiet now? Like, are you scared of him?’ And then that’s kind of what got us going. “From there I mean, I got hot, I got going and it was like, every bucket I’m looking at him just to keep the blood flowing and keep the juices flowing. And honestly, as a team, we just flowed off that.” -via GQ.com / July 24, 2024