Victor Wembanyama is yet to win a championship at any professional level, and the bitter taste of defeat should propel him to the top of the mountain.
In his final season in the French League, Victor Wembanyama's Metropolitans 92 lost in the Finals. In the 2024 Paris Olympics, he had to settle for silver. Then, in his first NBA Finals appearance, the San Antonio Spurs lost in five games to the New York Knicks.
For someone who cares about winning over everything else, he's come painfully close, but doesn't have any hardware to show for it.
At just 22 years old, Wembanyama is already a fixture of "greatest player in the world" talks. Along with Nikola Jokic and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, he's pretty comfortably in the top three. His defensive prowess and competitiveness might be enough to push him over the top.
With three heartbreaks already under his belt, he's expected to take his game even further.
'Heartbreak' to Propel Victor Wembanyama
As Wemby had to watch Team USA accepot gold medals in Paris, he was visably crying.
"I'm learning, and I'm worried for the opponents in a couple of years," he warned.
Well, this summer marks the two-year mark since he had to settle for second place, and experts around the league expect his prediction to come true. He's already expanded his game and looks the part of an NBA veteran, if not an all-time great.
"He's figuring out what works for him," said Zena Keita on The Athletic NBA Daily. "He's figuring out how to move his body. You know, he's a big boy. He's got to figure out how he plays in open space. And he's also figuring this out with the crew around him, which is only going to continue to propel him. So he's got the right mix of folks around him, and he's got the right mentality to continue to get better."
The Spurs have provided him with ample talent to help him get the team to the top, but at the end of the day, San Antonio is following Wemby's personal motivations.
"It feels like he's also had the right amount of heartbreaks and the right type of heartbreaks that are going to make him lock in in a different way that we've never seen before," she added. "So the fact that we can't see the ceiling-it's a galaxy-type situation at this point-that, to me, makes him number one."
Keita readily declared Wembanyama the best player in the world. Even if you think she's too eager, every fan will agree that it's only a matter of time.
