The Rookie Season of Victor Wembanyama Was Personal

The regular season is in its final days, which means we're coming to an end of endless Rookie Of the Year debates.

(Well, endless for half the season anyway. If there's still anyone left on Chet Holmgren Island for that award, that's by choice. The lifeboats were there for months.)

Now, I could sit here and discuss Victor Wembanyama's case for Defensive Player Of the Year along with being the top rookie, because it's just been that kind of a season from the first-year center.

Instead, I'd much rather tell a personal tale, if you'll indulge me.

June, 2023.

I was in New York to cover the draft for the first time in my career. I made the decision to go solely because of Wembanyama, and the European connection. 

To those unaware, I'm Danish. And unlike what that lady at LAX believed in 2002 when she said Denmark was the capital of London - yes, this happened - I've always been very familiar with the countries around me, including France.

The day before the draft, my brother Jacob - who was also the camera operator on the trip - and I went to the league's media availability of the forthcoming rookie class.

They had given Wembanyama his own room to conduct interviews, the first time that had happened since Yao Ming in 2002.

I managed to get a question in, which he didn't understand and said "Could you repeat?", and my brother spent the the rest of our week stateside repeating Wembanyama's line back at me. He even made it a ringtone.

You see, there was something special about the experience. Despite also getting to ask questions to about half the players selected in the first round, interacting with Wembanyama, even for the briefest of moments, felt oddly like home. 

Europeans quickly become kindred spirits when it comes to basketball. We might bicker and disagree on multiple topics, but we find common ground, and a sense of mutual respect, when one of "us" makes it to the league.

(I can't even begin to tell you how many messages I got from Europeans outside of Denmark when Gabriel "Iffe" Lundberg made the league in 2022 as the first Dane ever.) 

Wembanyama was far from the first Frenchman in the NBA. That path had been laid for him. Tony Parker, Boris Diaw, Joakim Noah, Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batim, Evan Fournier... the list goes on.

Yet, Wembanyama represented something more. He wasn't just a player who had "good" upside. He was a player who had MVP upside, which is obviously far more intriguing.

Now, make no mistake. Despite the fact that I'm European, and I take pride in my continent currently owning the NBA throne, I'm also an analyst. I made it a point, early, to judge the center fairly.

Over the past six months, I've been blown away by the play of Wembanyama. Not because I was trying to be, but because he forced me to be.

I'd roll out the occasional in-game tweet where I'd critique his tendencies, share my concerns about parts of his game, and no more than a few minutes later, he'd have me eat my words by doing something my brain needed didn't understand until I'd seen the slow motion replay about 15 times.

Victor Wembanyama, right in front of my eyes, turned into the most captivating rookie I've ever seen. And I've followed this league for 26 years.

Now, back to New York.

On draft night, Jacob and I were at Barclay's, having gotten permission to record video of the stage, and the green room area.

Suddenly, the slender Frenchman appears, and walks right past us.

I'm 6-foot-4. Jacob is 6-foot-5. Our dad, before his back started to crumble due to age, was probably 6-foot-6. 

I've spent plenty of time around tall people, NBA players included. Hell, I've literally been run over by Deandre Ayton in Phoenix, because I didn't realize he was running out from the tunnel before shootaround. I was never overwhelmed by the size of basketball players.

For the first time in my life, another person didn't feel real. I looked over at Jacob, whose eyes couldn't detach themselves from Wembanyama, as he headed into the depths of Barclay's. He finally turned to meet my eyes, and mustered a sound I could only interpret as "Dude, did you just have the same experience as I did?".

The hype around the phenom was, as you might remember, utterly ridiculous. But around draft time, people had slowly started changing their tune, and doubts had started developing.

"He'll never live up to it."

"He's going to play 20 games and go down with an injury."

"Maybe he'll be good in a few years."

I decided early on I'd just go with the flow. I had opinions about how I thought Wembanyama would fare, and I disagreed with the people that were too critical, but I always tried to be reasonable, because I had a job to do.

I still think I'm reasonable, when I gush about his wicked stat lines. I still think I'm reasonable, when he's setting, like, 10 NBA records in a month. I still think I'm reasonable when he collects a 5x5 game 24 hours after coming up just short of one.

Because what he is doing is not normal. Trying to normalize it - which plenty of people are attempting, solely to be edgy online - is a direct sign of how ridiculously otherworldly this young man is.

Laughing, shaking your head in disbelief, and re-watching his plays to understand what he actually did is part of the experience. It's part of the allure. And, most fortunate, it's part of my job. 

Victor Wembanyama is in the process of taking over an entire league, and he's not even allowed to drink. There's nothing - and I mean nothing - that makes sense about that fact. And therein lies maybe the greatest basketball story over the next 20 years.

I decided to jump on that story. I want to follow it, closely, to the very end. Because if I don't, I know I'll spend the rest of my life regretting it.

Unless noted otherwise, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball-Reference. All salary information via Spotrac. All odds courtesy of FanDuel Sportsbook.

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