When ESPN’s NBA crew previewed Tuesday’s NBA Cup Championship between the Knicks and Spurs, they highlighted the plain carrot: a $500,000 test for every participant and coach on the successful facet. For max-contract superstars, it’s pocket change. For 2-way gamers grinding to remain within the league, it’s life-changing cash.
Victor Wembanyama doesn’t want the money. Between his rookie deal and endorsements, the 21-year-old is sort of set for all times. However make no mistake, this trophy issues to him greater than it does to simply about anybody else on both roster. As a result of for all his particular person accolades, Wembanyama’s trophy case stays conspicuously naked.
A Scarce Trophy Assortment
Rewind to 2017. A 13-year-old Wembanyama teamed up with Bilal Coulibaly on the Hauts-de-Seine U13 choose workforce, a regional all-star squad that includes the perfect younger expertise from the Paris suburbs. They gained the French Nationwide U13 Championship. Victor cried afterward. It was his first main title, and he’s by no means forgotten that feeling.
It’s additionally the final trophy he gained as a focus. Certain, there’s technically a 2022 French League title on his résumé. He was on ASVEL’s roster when Tony Parker’s membership captured the championship. However Wembanyama appeared in simply 16 of 31 video games that season, averaging 9.4 factors and 5.1 rebounds in restricted minutes as a 17-year-old adjusting to professional basketball: respectable numbers for a young person in considered one of Europe’s prime leagues, however hardly a defining contribution. Ask him about that ring, and he’ll let you know, it doesn’t really feel earned.
The next season introduced a distinct sort of ache. After leaving ASVEL for Metropolitans 92, Wembanyama dominated French basketball like nobody his age ever had. He swept the awards: MVP, Finest Younger Participant, Finest Defender, Finest Rebounder, Finest Blocker. 5 particular person trophies in June 2023, proper earlier than the NBA Draft.
However the one which mattered most? Monaco took it, beating Wembanyama’s Mets 92 within the championship sequence. Runner-up.
The Silver Medal Assortment
That phrase “runner-up” has haunted Wembanyama’s profession in methods his particular person brilliance by no means might masks. There was the 2019 U16 European Championship, the place France fell to Spain within the gold medal recreation. Wembanyama made the All-Event Staff. Small comfort.
Then got here July 2021 in Latvia, the U19 World Cup last that also stings. France versus Staff USA. Wembanyama versus Chet Holmgren, the participant he’d be without end linked to in Rookie of the 12 months conversations. France led deep into the sport earlier than Wembanyama fouled out. Remaining rating: USA 83, France 81.
The numbers that night time: Wembanyama had 22 factors, eight rebounds, and eight blocks. Holmgren completed with 10 factors, two rebounds, and 0 blocks. But Holmgren walked away with match MVP honors as the perfect participant on the successful workforce. For the whole competitors, Wembanyama averaged 14 factors, 7.4 rebounds, and 5.7 blocks to Holmgren’s 11.9 factors, 6.1 rebounds, and a pair of.7 blocks. Oh, and Wembanyama was two years youthful.
I watched each single recreation dwell that 12 months, and younger Vic was unbelievable. However the injustice of that MVP award wasn’t misplaced on anybody who watched, and definitely not on Wemby.
However nothing compares to Paris.
The Olympics that ought to have been
It’s the 2024 Summer season Olympics, in Paris. In Wembanyama’s yard, on the game’s largest international stage, with a nation watching its latest basketball icon chase gold. France made it to the ultimate. That they had the lead. That they had the second. After which, Stephen Curry occurred, a kind of transcendent performances that redefines what’s doable in a basketball recreation. Staff USA survived, and France settled for silver.
A brand new alternative beckons
So when individuals ask whether or not the NBA Cup issues to a generational expertise who’s already claimed Rookie of the 12 months, made All-Defensive First Staff as a rookie, and led the league in blocks twice earlier than his twenty second birthday, the reply is straightforward. It issues as a result of Victor Wembanyama remembers each silver medal. He remembers crying at 13 when he gained gold. He remembers fouling out in Latvia. He remembers Curry’s daggers in Paris.
The half-million-dollar bonus is sweet, however Wembanyama’s legacy gained’t be constructed on checks. It’ll be constructed on championship {hardware}, beginning with no matter {hardware} the NBA is keen at hand him. On Tuesday night time in Las Vegas, he will get his first actual shot at including to that trophy case since he was a young person within the Paris suburbs. For Victor Wembanyama, that’s price greater than cash. It is usually the possibility to start out one thing particular together with his workforce.
