The last year was a new sensation in world basketball. At 19, Victor Wembanyama embodies a new generation of talent Forbes would like to pay tribute. Topping the Forbes 30 under 30 list is the athlete to follow in 2024, the San Antonio Spurs nugget.
“I approach the NBA next season with a lot of humility because I know it’s a different dimension. ”, commented Victor Wembanyama just before the NBA draft last October. “I prepare myself technically and mentally, especially by watching matches and future opponents. I’m very excited to play against Durant, Curry, LeBron, etc. I’ve admired them for a long time and I can’t wait to face them. No worries, I want to beat my models. »
On October 24, Victor Wembanyama made his NBA debut with the San Antonio Spurs. The young prodigy of the French team, who will celebrate his twentieth birthday on January 4, is the subject of special attention in 2023. The No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, drafted by the Spurs, his four-year contract provides an annual salary of €13 million. The club, where Tony Parker, his famous compatriot, shone from 2002 to 2018, won four North American league titles and several individual awards. If the Shining promises to be tough in 2024 as Spurs make a disastrous start to the Western Conference Championship, the young Frenchman, generally spared criticism, intends to turn things around at his club. Despite the complicated collective results, Victor Wembanyama therefore continues to arouse very strong interest in France and the rest of the world. Between jersey sales, audiences and ticket revenue, the Frenchman is already turning the heads of every major league and Spurs marketing executive. Since his arrival at the Texas club, the Frenchman has created a sensation on social networks. He garners hundreds of millions of views online, making him one of the NBA’s most influential players. His videos have generated 508 million views since his arrival in the United States, reports our colleagues at Parisian. Young Victor finds himself in the spotlight both in France and across the Atlantic. “He’s an exceptional talent,” emphasized Lakers representative Anthony Davis.
Pivot seed
Before coming to Texas, the young pivot played 68 games at the professional level, spread between Nanterre, Lyon-Villeurbanne and Metropolitans 92. For Victor Wembanya, playing sports at a high level was almost a given. Her mother, Élodie de Fautereau, herself the daughter of basketball players, played professionally. His father, Félix, originally from the Congo, also played basketball at the amateur level, but was particularly famous for his performances in the long jump and triple jump. Her sister Ève was crowned European U17 basketball champion with France in 2017.
During the 2022-2023 season, Victor Wembanyama literally broke the screen and especially the floors in Betclic Élite, the French first division. The powerful winger, who trained at Nanterre where he stayed two years in the pros, tried out an adventure with ASVEL during the 2021-2022 financial year before joining the Mets and Boulogne-Levallois. At the behest of Vincent Collet, also the coach of the French team, the giant fulfilled the hopes placed in him throughout the season. A natural leader of the team, it was mainly thanks to him that the club from the suburbs of Paris fought its way to the final of the championship. Thanks to his impressive statistics, the 2.24-meter center had a raid during the awards ceremony and won the trophies of MVP, top scorer, top blocker, top defender and top young player of the season. During that year, he even had the right to participate with his team in two exhibition games in Las Vegas against the G-League Ignite, a roster containing the most promising players in the development league of North America. Victor Wembanyama scores 73 points in two games and the entire NBA planet is at his feet.
Since the beginning of the NBA season, Gregg Popovich’s team, in transition, has struggled to exist in the Western Conference, but Wembanyama has put in a number of very good performances. The one who currently has carte blanche on the floor has already scored more than thirty points twice. A sign that he has already reached the beginning of his American dream. The next step in 2024 is to head to the Olympics at home, where we hope to see ‘Wemby’ at the top of his game.
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