The idea of Victor Wembanyama and the NBA playing a regular season basketball game in Paris is hardly new. Wemby, of course, was already a veteran of the French Pro A League before he became a San Antonio Spur in the fall of 2023 while still a teenager, and as CBS SPORTS’ Sam Quinn reminded yesterday, the league has certainly tried to extend its global reach on several previous occasions:
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 yesterday during evening-time in Paree and during a time usually reserved for a coffee run in America Wembanyama put on a truly Moulin Rouge level show during his first officially sanctioned homecoming just 20 days after he became a legal adult. As Quinn continued:
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 at a time when the NBA is charting a course where world appeal is their area of growth, and their upcoming deal with Amazon Prime Video capable of providing a global, measurable showcase to have this sort of presence of someone with so much talent and so much upside is both timely and fortituitous. It should have mattered more to those who were voting for perhaps the poster child of its fading past, the All-Star Game. But instead, we got this news mere hours later from the likes of CLUTCH POINTS’ Jedd Pagaduan:
On Thursday night, the first 10 players to make it to the 2025 NBA All-Star game in San Francisco were revealed (five from each conference). As is the case with this sort of thing, not everyone is pleased with how the voting has turned out. In particular, San Antonio Spurs fans are all up in arms after seeing their guy Victor Wembanyama, who’s been nothing short of phenomenal in his sophomore season, miss out on a starting spot(.)
(F)or some fans, it’s a bit perplexing how James and Durant got the nod over the nascent Spurs star, especially when he’s been averaging 24.6 points, 10.8 rebounds, and 4.0 blocks per game thus far this season — making him quite the two-way force.
“Should have been a starter over KD for sure,” X user @loynerlucas wrote.
“Wemby not getting the All Star start is insane. This is exactly why you can’t count all star appearances as a real accolade,” @ICouldLearnMore added.
“The fact that LeBron is starting instead of Wemby is horrible,” @royal__T19 furthered.
“Yeah the nba is cooked. Putting Lebron over Wemby is pathetic and looks bad on them,” @JoshuaOndike expressed.
Yet as BLEACHER REPORT’s Paul Kasabian reminded, in this particular situation that verdict isn’t quite so final:
The All-Star Game format is different this year, as it’ll be a four-team tournament with three teams of NBA All-Stars and one team consisting of the Rising Stars Challenge winners. So there will technically be 15 starters, and Ball and Wembanyama could very well be on the court when festivities begin.
And with Wembanyama eligible as a Rising Star as he is still just in his sophomore campaign, it might be the best possible storyline for the NBA to consider to inject any sort of curiosity into the upcoming weekend in San Francisco that is struggling for relevance with both its fans and participants.
Durant in particular has been critical of the game, and the Hail Mary response from the league to create this “tournament”, along with a modified version of the Elam Ending that the league previously tried to do as a homage to Kobe Bryant hasn’t exactly moved the needle of curiosity. But with the motivation of a jilted starter capable of lifting up an entire team to competitive levels far above their existing pay grades–as demonstrated by the fact that the Spurs are actually sitting within 1.5 games of a play-in spot in an overly competitive Western Conference with a win total just past the halfway mark that is within three games of their entire 2022-23 season total–all of a sudden can add a bit of needed intrigue. Wemby would also be playing in the otherwise inconsequential Rising Stars game on Friday night, which certainly will add to the overall reach of the weekend.
He has already provided a reason to watch a midafternoon midseaon game. He’s destined to provide lots more reasons to watch lots more games in the next couple of decades. We may get our first glimpse of this come Valentine’s Day.
Courage…