It’s just the first day in the office for Victor Wembanyama, but he already felt at home being in San Antonio.
After a busy week headlined by his appearance in the NBA Draft as the top overall pick of this year, Wembanyama spent his Saturday attaining the warm reception of the entire San Antonio fandom for the first time. As such, he concluded the special day on a priceless dinner with some of the franchise’s greats in Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Manu Ginobili and Sean Elliot.
“Probably in a couple hours, I learned more about the NBA than my whole life before that,” Wembanyama told reporters Saturday during his introductory press conference, according to ESPN’s Andrew Lopez. “It’s so comforting to see these people who are so important to the city of San Antonio and the franchise are such great people and generous.
“They genuinely wanted to share their experience. I feel like they’ve already started to take great care of me. It’s so important to be in a position where it’s so comfortable.”
Wembanyama accepted the torch from the Spurs’ past icons to power San Antonio moving forward, and this move can’t be more daunting to consider in hindsight.
After cementing their place as one of the great dynasties of the game bannered by their five championships in nearly 20 years, the Spurs entered a peculiar place and crashed from mediocrity. They haven’t been in the postseason in the last four seasons, which is an unusual skid considering that they are a consistent playoff participant from 1997 to 2019.
The road back to relevance and contention will truly start from scratch, and the beginning with a once in a lifetime talent in Wembanyama holds a promising future.
“I wanted to say to you directly, we’re excited to grow with you, support you, challenge you — especially coach [Gregg Popovich] — on your journey through life and basketball,” Spurs GM Brian Wright said to Wembanyama. “Your talent is obvious. But as we got to know you, the maturity, the approach, the character, it let us know how special of a young man you are.”
