The brand new training center of the San Antonio Spurs, located in the Cantera district to the west of the Texan city, welcomed its players for a final training session, Monday February 5, before nine consecutive away matches . Like every year, for around twenty days, the “Spurs” are ousted from their room by real cowboys: those from the famous San Antonio rodeo. And since “travel builds youth”, the young Texan squad (youngest team in the NBA) intends to take advantage of it to refine its cohesion, on and off the field. “When we bowled in Detroit, I started with two strikes.”laughs Victor Wembanyama.
The French phenomenon has just passed the halfway point of its first season in the North American basketball league. After Spurs training, he took the time to respond to a few French journalists, before his first “Rodeo road trip”, specific to the Texan franchise.
“It seems crazy to me, but we really did things little by little”, assures Victor Wembanyama. If he is pampered, monitored and protected by his franchise, the figures for his season say the opposite. At a rate of three to four games per week, French has already taken part in 44 meetings in 101 days since his official debut in the NBA. Last year, he only played two more – including the final stages of the French championship – but in 265 days. “More than the physical side, what’s hard is really the mental aspect,” he insists, however, before developing: “Being present on the field every day, applying our 150 technical and tactical instructions, and fighting against opponents who want to harm us every day is not always easy. »
“The game has slowed down a little”
Since LeBron James in 2003, no player had caused such excitement before his arrival in the NBA, so Victor Wembanyama knew he was expected. By the opponents, and by the fans. And the media frenzy of his draft – the scholarship for players not playing in the NBA – has in no way subsided. At each of his outings, numerous cameras are focused on the native of Chesnay (Yvelines), as soon as he arrives for the warm-up. “I surprised myself at how much I didn’t pay attention to ithe said, in mid-January. This doesn’t change my pre-match routines, or even my attitude. » If he has patiently developed his giant body (2.24 m) over the years, “Wemby” has also ” built ” with a view to such media coverage, even if “that’s not what[il] favorite “.
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