Spurs star Victor Wembanyama dominated the Indiana Pacers on Thursday, but to be frank, Wembanyama dominating is nothing new. He finished the game, a 140-110 win for San Antonio, with 30 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and five blocks, a stat line that would represent a career-best for most players, but it was one he had already achieved twice in his young career. We’ve come to expect excellence out of Wembanyama, the second-year French superstar. It’s no longer a surprise when he delivers it.
But there was something different about his performance in Paris Thursday. It was most evident with a bit more than 10 minutes remaining in the fourth quarter and the game safely in hand for the Spurs.
Wembanyama got the ball back after missing a 3-pointer, and after taking a step on a drive, he picked up his dribble and had no clear shot when decision time arrived. Most players desperately fling up a shot in that scenario hoping to get fouled. But Wembanyama? He casually threw himself an alley-oop off the backboard and finished with the slam.
This wasn’t just dominance. This was showmanship, a flare for the dramatic befitting the future face of the NBA. This wasn’t the first time Wembanyama pulled off this maneuver, but to do it in front of the fans in his native France meant something a bit more meaningful. He wanted to put on a show in Paris, and he succeeded.
And that’s a formula the NBA can and almost certainly will try to replicate.
NBA should send Wemby, Spurs to France every season
In a sports media landscape that increasingly favors events over inventory, the NBA has fought to give fans a reason to watch games before the postseason. That was one of the driving forces behind the creation of the NBA Cup and the player participation policy. The league wants signature events, and wants its star players at the center of them.
Thursday’s game was proof of concept. Wembanyama will soon be the NBA’s signature star, and sending him to Paris for a few games every year is a chance to build one of these signature events around his growing fame and eagerness to please his hometown audience. His presence made all of the difference on Thursday.
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The NBA has held regular-season games in Paris before. They largely haven’t been especially meaningful. The Bucks and Hornets played there in 2020, but it was a double-digit Milwaukee victory, and the only Frenchman on the floor, Nic Batum, shot 1 of 8 from the floor. It was a similar story in 2023, when the Bulls blew out the Pistons and French guard Killian Hayes shot 2 of 13. The closest of the three previous Paris games came last season between the Nets and Cavaliers, but it featured no French players. For a league that has prioritized growing the game abroad, these outcomes were less than ideal.
But with Wembanyama now in place, the NBA can make significant inroads in France by planning around his presence.
The NBA is full of young, dynamic French players to pit against him. Maybe next year he plays against 2024’s No. 1 overall pick Zaccharie Risacher. Maybe the NBA could even try to rile up the French crowd by sending Joel Embiid, who spurned the French national team in favor of Team USA, to Paris for a game against the Spurs. There are plenty of possibilities here to create signature, regular-season moments. We know Wembanyama will deliver on his end of the bargain.
Most teams would likely prefer to avoid mid-season trips to Europe. Basketball players rely on structure and routine during the season. Travel is hard on the body. So are extreme time zone shifts. Paris is six hours ahead of the east coast. But the NFL has found success sending the same team to London every year, the Jacksonville Jaguars, in part because the knowledge that they will be there every year has likely helped them plan ahead and adjust to it. If there’s a team equipped to handle that, it’s the Spurs, who have been at the forefront of bringing international basketball to the United States for decades now.
The next era of NBA basketball will likely be defined by that trend. The league’s international population and fandom grows by the year, and Wembanyama is well on his way to becoming potentially the greatest foreign-born player the league has ever seen.
The NBA did a great job of leaning into that with this game on Thursday. Hopefully, it was the start of a tradition that lasts the rest of his career.
