My season inside Wemby’s world: An up-close look at the many dimensions of Victor Wembanyama – The Athletic

The most remarkable thing Victor Wembanyama did this season didn’t even happen during a game.

In early January, the San Antonio Spurs’ 7-foot-5 French superstar was near the hoop during pre-game warmups and saw a few balls stuck in the net at the same time. Instead of just grabbing the balls out of the net with his hands, he walked over, did a scissor-kick straight over his head and high-kicked them out of the basket.

The backstory behind that feat — owing to a mobility expert with the highest-recorded kick in the world — was as fascinating as the accomplishment itself.

As I reported that story, it became clear that it illustrated the many layers of Wembanyama’s mythology. There is always a story behind the act. Just take his founding of the Jackals supporters club and its connection to his blood clot diagnosis, which he explored in a sit-down interview with The Athletic.

When The Athletic asked me to move to San Antonio from Boston this season to be on the ground with Wembanyama and the Spurs every day, we wanted to peel back the layers of the most captivating up-and-coming athlete on the planet and humanize the man known as “The Alien.”

Here’s what I’ve learned about the NBA’s Next Big Thing:

His Body

The initial draw into the world of Wemby is the enormity of his body — and what he can do with it. He’s listed at 7-foot-4, but evidence ranging from side-by-side comparisons to conversations with people around him indicates he is actually about 7-foot-5.5 barefoot.

The first time you witness Wemby’s grace, you are floored. The other human beings his size have either been plodding trees who can barely get up the floor or rail-thin gazelles who can’t handle the G-forces their bodies generate at full speed. Wembanyama has somehow found a middle ground. He uses the force within his body with such control that he can leap above everyone, then return to the earth and immediately leap above everyone again. I am desensitized to what he does after a year being around him, but just about every night, he does something I’ve never seen before.

Wembanyama incorporates the best elements of the greatest players past and present while also doing stuff our brains can’t process. Opponents are so scared to drive on him that fans and commentators have invented multiple terms just to describe the way they run away from him — Nopes, Neverminds, Hell-nahs, U-turns, to name a few. He’s taken just one dribble to get from half court to the hoop. He blocks shots over the backboard. He dunks over mountainous men.

These aren’t just a product of his natural physical gifts. They come from a lifelong focus on developing his body through various forms of training, meditation and even martial arts. He and his camp have made a deliberate choice not to pile on pounds to his lengthy and therefore vulnerable frame. Instead, they have focused on strengthening every little muscle in his body and maximizing his coordination and proprioception. He incorporates various forms of isometrics, calisthenics and myofascial training to get in touch with his body.

Just from covering him, I have learned about things like the connectivity of the Myofascial Front Line, the vitality of foot and ankle exercises and how training on your hands can be as powerful as training on your feet.

Wembanyama prepares his body in almost every way imaginable, and it’s reflected in his endless versatility on the court. His body isn’t just a spectacle; it’s a temple that has managed to hold up to the increasing rigors of playoff basketball.

Victor Wembanyama towers over the competition with grace. (Alex Slitz / Getty Images)

His Mind

Wembanyama has been able to push his body beyond any known limits because of the way he trains his mind. It’s not just that he is intelligent, quick or wise. It’s that he prioritizes his mind-body connection. Wembanyama made news this past offseason for traveling to China to train at a Shaolin monastery. His purpose was to gain a deeper, more spiritual connection to his body and mind.

He didn’t just want to understand what was there, but also the impact of what had just been removed. In February 2025, midway through his second NBA season, Wembanyama was diagnosed with a blood clot in his right shoulder. After fully recovering several months later,  Wembanyama spent his summer traveling across the world to find inspiration and a sense of self. When he returned, he worked with a renewed vigor and a deeper purpose.

He is intentional about this work in ways I’ve never seen before when covering the NBA. He is often the only player in the locker room before his pregame on-court warmup. He quietly puts his shoes on and then he meditates, every game, while camera crews wait. When he finally exits the room to take the court, it is one of the few moments where you can feel the air pressure change in the room.

After seeing it a few times, I started taking a few moments myself to breathe and meditate before going off to yap about everything from travel woes to the efficacy of a box-and-one zone against a five-out offense for the next few hours. It’s one of the clearest instances of Wemby leading by example, not just to his teammates.

On the court, Wembanyama has mastered the cat-and-mouse game as a defender, even if he’s the biggest cat out there. He manages to fake players into trying to shoot in his vicinity, then blocks their shots in ways that catch them by surprise. Even when he can’t get to the ball, it often sails over the rim. He has quickly developed a feel for how to pass on the move, making him that much more dangerous as an offensive player.

He treats his mind like a temple, composing his life carefully with no wasted moments. He doesn’t go out, doesn’t drink and goes to bed early. He spends his downtime reading; playing chess and other board games; or just meditating. He is meticulous about what goes into his body and brain, trying to keep every little corner of his existence honed.

His Heart

Even before Wembanyama had an intellectual grasp on the game, he never held back from imposing his will on it.

It all starts with his preparation. His offseason consisted of drills that multiple people in attendance for his workouts told me they had never seen before. He would defend every player on the floor one-on-one, then sprint down the court and do it all over again without a break. He’d finish when he would finally collapse in exhaustion. Those “violent” workouts have improved his conditioning to the point that he can now dominate in double overtime of an intense playoff game, when even getting up and down the floor was gassing him last year.

His competitive fire has been revelatory. He vowed to make the All-Star Game real and competitive again, and delivered. He treats wins over the Thunder like Super Bowls, particularly targeting big man Chet Holmgren because people dared to compare the two of them when they were younger.

Yet, he does it all while supporting his teammates and making it clear he is a piece of the team’s puzzle — the biggest piece, sure, but a piece nonetheless. He can puff his chest out and stake his claim as the best player in the league, as he did in a locker-room debate with me in March, while still respecting his place within the team construct. That MVP debate started with a question, as he asked me how much I value defense. He constructed his argument methodically like an experienced debate show guest, leading to the eventual thesis that the typical merits of the MVP debate cannot capture how unique he is.

Wembanyama has found a way to balance traits that seem contradictory. He is quiet and stone-faced when he operates, yet brings out a ferocious roar in big moments. He has gone from struggling to handle physicality to relishing it, even embracing his scars from drawing fouls.

Now, in the deepest parts of a title run, his furor has become his greatest asset. After letting it get to him for one brief but fateful moment when he was ejected for a flagrant elbow in Game 4 of the Spurs’ second-round series against the Minnesota Timberwolves, he atoned the next game with a first quarter for the ages to put the series out of reach. He showed up to Oklahoma City for Game 1 of the conference finals Sunday and did it again.

In his first playoff run, he is showing he is already built for the biggest moments.

Victor Wembanyama is not afraid to show his emotion on the court. (Photo: Alonzo Adams / Imagn Images)

His Soul

And yet, Wembanyama has also shown he can be vulnerable when the moment calls for it. He opened up about the emotional experience of his blood clot diagnosis and the fear that basketball would be taken away from him, as athletes can’t play on blood thinners. It immediately felt powerful to hear a player of his magnitude publicly confront his mortality so openly.

While he has become more selective since then, he has managed to endear himself to the masses. He takes long pauses before answering questions at the podium, putting together answers that are often thoughtful and refreshing.

These news conferences have become open forums for moral adjudication and showcasing his unique personality. He has taken a stand for “ethical basketball” and wants to play in a way that is “growing to be so beautiful.” When asked about the criticism over him crying when he won his first playoff series, he made a declaration that struck a chord with people around the world.

“Personally, I refuse the burden of hiding my emotions,” he said.

Seeing someone stepping into such a grand level of celebrity while rejecting the notion that they have to stop being vulnerable was inspiring in a world of filters and hashtags.

As much as he has to maintain a buffer from the countless hands reaching out toward him everywhere he goes, he has enjoyed meshing with the people. Last year, he played chess in Washington Square Park with New York locals, and has even built a community of his own.

He created the Jackals, the NBA’s first true ultras supporters group that has become far more than just a section of loud fans at every home game. Wembanyama handpicked every member of the group and was intimately involved in every step of the group’s creation. He did everything from hosting the tryouts, to studying the film on the applicants, to running the captains’ orientation himself. He even led a two-hour cheer session while he was injured earlier in the season.

He’s not afraid to use his voice more directly, either. Following the civilian shootings by immigration officials in Minneapolis back in January, Wembanyama was one of the first players to speak out against the killings.

“Every day, I wake up and see the news and I’m horrified,” Wembanyama said. “I think that it’s crazy that some people might make it seem or make it sound like it’s acceptable, like the murder of civilians is acceptable.”

But what cuts through in the end is how Wembanyama embraces being a part of something bigger than himself. He has rarely put himself above the team in his words or his actions. He’s not perfect — nobody is —but his concerted effort is apparent.

He was a perfect fit for the Spurs culture and it has been a perfect fit for him.

His Path

So what’s next? After shocking the Thunder on the road in Game 1, the Spurs showed they are a serious threat to win the title in their first postseason together. It’s a far cry from when Wembanyama declared the Spurs were aiming for the No. 6 seed during training camp, which was a bold statement at the time.

By February, it was becoming apparent he had figured things out and was fully healthy. Since then, he has been the best player in the sport. He watched Shai Gilgeous-Alexander receive his second-straight MVP trophy before Game 1 last Sunday, then had the best game of his life. The path forward for Wembanyama should be filled with rings and MVP trophies, with the first of those potentially arriving this season.

Off the court, Wembanyama is poised to become one of the most famous athletes in the world. If he wins a championship, it will instantly catapult him to the point that nobody will need a refresher like this. Between his captivating interviews, mysterious marketing and innovative play, he has all the makings of a global superstar.

During Monday’s fourth quarter, I asked a coworker if I had become too desensitized to Wembanyama’s heroics.” By the end of overtime, it was apparent that we were watching an arrival we will remember forever.

I thought about where I was during Game 6 of the 2012 Eastern Conference finals, when LeBron James had that moment. By halftime of that game, it was pretty clear that the NBA had changed forever. He then went on one of the greatest runs we’ve ever seen over the next decade and counting.

I also thought back to the fourth quarter of Game 4 of the 2022 NBA Finals, when Steph Curry reached a level of invincibility that turned that series with the Boston Celtics around. That was the night Curry went from a revolutionary who defined an era to one of the greatest players in NBA history.

Wembanyama’s performance in overtime on Sunday was the third transcendent moment I have witnessed. It was the passing of the torch, the confirmation that Wembanyama’s trajectory is at the same level of LeBron’s and Steph’s.

Perhaps, even beyond.