{"id":7,"date":"2026-05-26T10:28:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:28:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=7"},"modified":"2026-05-26T10:28:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T10:28:07","slug":"victor-wembanyama-is-unlike-anything-the-nba-has-seen-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longdistancemoversusas.com\/?p=7","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama is unlike anything the NBA has seen before"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

We have found the<\/em> unicorn \u2014 and he speaks French.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Victor Wembanyama is a 7-foot-4 NBA player with an 8-foot wingspan who can dunk the basketball without jumping. The San Antonio Spurs center, who is only 22, routinely slaps opponents\u2019 shots into Row P, shoots 3-pointers with aplomb and dunks on everybody, including the battered souls of the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference finals this past week.<\/p>\n

Read more Hello world!<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pity if you missed the Game 1 double-overtime heirloom in this best-of-seven series. It may qualify as the seminal playoff performance by a player 7 feet or taller in history. Forty-one points. Twenty-four rebounds. Three blocked shots. And a no-one-saw-it-coming 3-pointer from a few feet shy of half court to tie the game in the waning seconds of overtime.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0next Wemby sighting will be Game 3 Friday night in San Antonio, where the Spurs hope to take a 2-1 series lead.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think [Wembanyama] is the first perfect big man that\u2019s ever been created,\u201d Shaquille O\u2019Neal, the retired Hall of Fame center and \u201cInside the NBA\u201d analyst, said this week. \u201cI don\u2019t usually enjoy the way the big men play now, but I accept the way he plays. \u2026 It\u2019s perfect.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Reggie Miller, the Hall of Fame shooting guard once known for his own pulsating late-game shots from roughly the arena parking lot, said Wednesday night that Wembanyama\u2019s performance put him \u201con the global map.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you saw that game, the only thing I could compare it to was the first time Michael Jackson moonwalked across the stage at the MTV Awards. The world knew him after that.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cWemby,\u201d they call him, and he is arguably France\u2019s greatest gift to the U.S. since the Statue of Liberty. His sinewy frame stretches from baseline to baseline, those Gumby-esque arms emerging from the rafters to pin an unsuspecting player\u2019s shot against the glass. He is unlike anything the NBA has seen before, redefining the role of the center position every night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wembanyama is known as a front-line player in hoop parlance, meaning he often plays in the painted area close to the basket, where other tall and large players have traditionally played in the past. But Wemby often plays the frontline by himself<\/em>. It\u2019s as if a pterodactyl morphed into human form and decided to swat basketballs out of the air for his own amusement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He\u2019s hardly a classic pivot; more often he\u2019s a 7-foot-4 (possibly 7-foot-5), 235-pound guard trapped in a point guard\u2019s body, chucking up 3-pointers galore. He apparently declared himself open after leaving the womb.<\/p>\n

Legendary big men have, in the past, forced basketball to change its rules. Six-foot-10 George Mikan and 7-foot-2 Wilt Chamberlain were so dominant in the post in the 1950s and 1960s, respectively, that the NBA widened the key twice in 14 years, from 6 feet to 12 feet and then to 16 feet. The NCAA outlawed dunking between 1967 and 1976 because no one could stop UCLA\u2019s 7-foot-2 Lew Alcindor \u2014 later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar \u2014 from stuffing the ball nearly every possession.<\/p>\n

Then, in the early 1990s, came an athletic behemoth nicknamed \u201cShaq,\u201d a 7-foot-1, 350-pound force of nature with equal parts brawn and skill. Shaquille O\u2019Neal demoralized opponents, dangerously shattering two backboards his rookie season and eventually wearing the NBA into submission. (Nearly a decade after O\u2019Neal\u2019s NBA debut, the league finally legalized zone defenses to allow teams to double-team him more easily, and it invented \u201cShaq-proof\u201d breakaway rims to prevent glass blackboards from shattering and steel stanchions from being dislodged from their moorings.)<\/p>\n

But Wemby feels almost like nth<\/em>-power change, the Claude 4.6 of the hardwood. He doesn\u2019t merely dominate the paint; he often squares up from 25 to 30 feet away on the perimeter, swishing shots as if he were a shooting guard from the last millennium. He has made 20 more 3-pointers in his first three seasons (392) than the greatest long-distance shooter in the history of the game, Stephen Curry, did in his first three years. (Though, to be fair, Curry was injured for all but 26 games of his third year.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Wemby\u2019s deep, deep jumper Monday night would have been called ill-advised by any coach. Yet the piano-wire-thin kid took it and buried it, forcing double overtime. It was the classic \u201cNo, no, no, no \u2026 YES!\u201d response from the bench, another moment to ponder the possibilities.<\/p>\n

He also has this merciless competitive mentality, a kind of athletic assassin instinct previously seen only in the likes of Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and Larry Bird during their Hall of Fame careers. When Wemby was just 20 years old in his first season in San Antonio, a journalist\u00a0asked what he was trying to communicate to other players by his dominance. \u201cTraumatizing, sometimes, is the goal,\u201d Wemby said.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I refuse to carry the burden of having to hide my emotions,\u201d he said this past year. \u201cThe paradox is that you become harder and softer at the same time, a humble badass \u2014 it\u2019s a sign of mastery in any craft.\u201d<\/p>\n

San Antonio Spurs President Gregg Popovich, Wemby\u2019s first coach and the winningest in NBA history, calls Wemby \u201cthe most mature, thoughtful young player I\u2019ve ever coached.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Victor Nonga Wembanyama-de Fautereau-Vassel was born outside of Paris in Le Chesnay, France. His father, F\u00e9lix, born in the Republic of Congo, was a track and field athlete who grew to 6-foot-6. His mother, \u00c9lodie de Fautereau, is 6-foot-3 and is a French basketball coach and former player herself. Wemby began his pro career in France at just 15 before becoming the No. 1 pick in the 2023 NBA draft less than four years later, turning the Spurs from lottery-bound to championship hopeful overnight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In modern sports, Kevin Durant was the first to use the term \u201cunicorn\u201d 10 years ago, when the All-Star veteran applied the moniker to then-rookie Kristaps Porzingis, because of the 7-foot-3 Lithuanian\u2019s combination of 3-point shooting, rim protection and ball-handling skills in one lanky frame. Porzingis was special, sure. But Wembanyama has shifted the horizon. At just 22, his ceiling is already unlimited.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m free in the universe,\u201d Wembanyama says. \u201cI do whatever I can and I know what I want to do and nothing is going to stop me from doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have indeed found the unicorn \u2014 and his English is pretty good, too.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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