SAN ANTONIO — The official media attendance at the San Antonio Spurs media day event Monday morning was an even 100. By unofficial consensus, it was the most media ever for the team’s pre-training camp Q&A fest.
Even in the 20-year, four-championship era of the team’s Big Three — Tim Duncan, Manu Ginóbili and Tony Parker — there have been plenty of reporters, photographers, broadcasters and bloggers who have appeared to test Spurs players and coaches. .
This is how Victor Wembanyama, San Antonio’s prize rookie from France, drew for better or worse the most hyped newcomer to the NBA since LeBron James.
Here’s another official stat from Monday’s session: It took coach Gregg Popovich less than 10 minutes to announce he was tired of answering questions about “Wemby.”
To be fair, Popovich, the newly minted member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, was set up for a sarcastic response by a member of the media, and it got a laugh. After the laughter subsided, the league’s all-time winningest coach continued to provide thoughtful answers to many more questions about a teenager whose towering presence at the team’s soon-to-be-retired training facility at One Spurs Lane dominated the last event the building will do. house
The Spurs will open their training camp Tuesday morning at their new, $500 million Victory Capital Performance Center, about six and a half miles northwest of their practice home for the past 21 years. Wembanyama was still in junior high school when plans were made to build a facility so beautiful that Popovich swore he could “move in” and make it his home.
The fact that the most sophisticated and luxurious “performance facility” in the league will be fully equipped and ready for practice on the very day Wembanyama takes part in his first session as a member of a real NBA team (as opposed to a summer -league conglomeration ) seems like another example of what Popovich calls serendipity.
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Popovich knows he’s about to embark on a training camp unlike any he’s done since serving as the Spurs’ head coach in 1996. He knows hype when he sees it and hears it. Popovich has never been caught here and won’t be now. He made the point shortly after he began answering questions on Monday.
“We definitely want to watch his development,” Popovich said of Wembanyama, “but it’s the same with Devin (Vassell) or Keldon (Johnson) or Zach (Collins) or anybody else. We have two questions right now and both have to do with Wemby. I understand that, but there is a team out there. He is no different from anyone else. He has to develop and improve (with) knowledge of the game and his skills like any other player.
“Fortunately for us, he is very coachable, very intelligent. That started for him, from the first day of summer league practice, just getting used to a different kind of game. We’ll be watching him probably for the next two weeks without telling him too much, just so we can understand his idiosyncrasies and the way he plays, how his body works, all kinds of things.
“Everyone else, we know their game, we know what they do, so we have to do the same thing with him.”
Wembanyama was an attention getter for most of his youth and being the No. 1 NBA draft pick puts him in a brighter spotlight. He recognizes the potential for jealousy as he is hailed as the savior of a team that hasn’t made a playoff run since 2019.
After a two-week break from basketball following his brief summer-league appearance, he returned to conditioning and open gym games with his teammates. He’s built relationships with them and he’s confident they know he’s not looking for attention or believing most of the hype.
“I think I quickly learned to know my teammates and they learned to know me,” Wembanyama said. “They know I don’t care. I am here to sacrifice for them, and I think they will sacrifice for me when it is necessary. They know it’s different. Of course, there’s going to be a lot of attention, but at the end of the day, we’re in training and we’re like, ‘Yeah, what can we do today to make this team better?’
“So, basketball first.”
It sounds like “the Spurs way,” and Popovich has already spoken to Wembymania with some of his team leaders.
“We’ve talked about it,” Popovich said. “I talked to the players individually and things like that. If we treat it like it’s not a big deal, you (media) will do everything you do; fans will do what they do. But because I know the players, they’ve got such high character. And, he is used to this.
“This is not the first time he has attracted attention. Doing it organically is better than making decisions ahead of time. Let’s not put anyone in boxes. Let’s just roll with it and see what it is.
“If people start hanging on the top of the bus, then we have to get off. If not, we’ll be fine.”
Spurs starting forward Jeremy Sochan, who attended the 2023 NBA Draft in Brooklyn and is the first Spurs player to welcome Wembanyama to the team, doesn’t rule out the occasional awkward moment but doesn’t think Wembymania represents a threat to team unity.
“I think we’ll handle it well,” Sochan said. “Again, I feel like the Spurs and just the PR team and coach Pop, they know it’s not all about Wemby and that the emphasis is on the team. That is the most important thing. But I think that for every question that will be asked, we will answer it in a positive way and hopefully no negative comments will appear. But, it is what it is at the end of the day, so we will handle it well.”
Wembanyama’s new teammates have seen their share of what Sochan called, “Oh, snap!” moments from Wembanyama during their open gym run.
“Let’s just put it this way,” said Vassell, who spent part of his summer workout with Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant, “I think every game he’s going to do something where you turn around and say, ‘Huh?’
“It just doesn’t make sense. Sometimes he just makes the ring small. He’ll hit a step-back and you’ll say, ‘Did he really shoot that?’ And then he does it. You will all have fun watching him play this year.”
And isn’t that what Wembymania is all about?
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(Victor Wembanyama photo: Timothy A. Clary / AFP via Getty Images)
