Victor Wembanyama, left, speaks to New York Yankees catcher Jose Trevino before throwing the ceremonial first pitch, in New York, June 20, 2023. Wembanyama, the 19-year-old French basketball star, is in town for the NBA draft, and at more than seven feet tall, he’s hard to miss.
Wembanyama is not quite a Spur yet. That won’t be official until commissioner Adam Silver calls his name to start the NBA draft at Barclays Center on Thursday night. But in his final days and hours before joining the team he’s admired since his grade-school days in France, the 7-foot-4 world wonder showed all the ways he’ll be different than the Hall of Famers whose jerseys hang from the AT&T Center rafters.
Could you ever, in your wildest dreams, imagine Tim Duncan letting a documentary crew tail him through a modern-day version of “The Muppets Take Manhattan,” the way Wembanyama did from his hotel to a Major League Baseball game to famed Rucker Park this week? Duncan, like Kawhi Leonard, always viewed interviews and public appearances like colonoscopies. They understood the purpose but never agreed to enjoy them.