Volcanic eruption and beer shower. The image is more like the England team qualifying for the World Cup final, but it’s for a whole different reason, basketball, and in a whole different place, in San Antonio, Texas, that the hops flowed on Tuesday evening in one of the city’s pubs. Fans of the local Spurs team have indeed had the pleasure of attending the great NBA lottery and discovering that their franchise has just inherited the first choice of the 2023 Draft, one of the most followed in the history of the League, and that they were therefore going to welcome the French Victor Wembanyama, a real star in the United States while he is still evolving this season in Jeep Elite.
After Tony Parker, living legend of the Spurs, here is a “small” (so to speak, the 19-year-old kid is 2.19 m tall) new Frenchy who will land in Texas carrying with him all the hopes of glory of the millions of fans. With Wembanyama, to whom everyone promises a bright future, LeBron James himself having called him an alien, the Spurs dream of returning to the front of the stage quickly.
It’s not for nothing that Peter J. Holt, the Spurs’ representative on Tuesday night in Chicago, where the draw was taking place, let his joy burst as if he had just won the lottery (which is a bit the case, in fact, since with Wembanyama, the Texas franchise will see its value increase by 500 million dollars). “Woo, let’s go, wooooo!” “, he yelled before warning:” I am going to pass out! There are so many people following us, a city, fans. I am very happy for them. »
” Be ready ! “, announces Wembanyama
On the player’s side, quietly installed with his family and friends (including Kylian Mbappe) more than 7,000 kilometers away, in the Nike store on the Champs Elysées, the joy is more contained but the pleasure is real. “I said it, I said it! “Reacted” Wemby “before raising his arms to the sky, proof that the destination seems to suit him, he who declared a few minutes later” love Texas “. There, the one who is supposed to take basketball to a new dimension will find an old NBA sea dog, the immense Greg Popovich, 74, who wrote one of the most beautiful pages of Spurs with Tony Parker in the 2000s.
“Being coached by Popovich, one of the greatest coaches in history, wouldn’t be bad at all,” beIN SPORTS NBA consultant Chris Singleton told us on Tuesday. Popovich, who some said was about to hang up, should finally extend the adventure in order to restore the Spurs to their former glory under the leadership of Wembanyama. In any case, this is the wish expressed on Tuesday evening by the Metropilitans 92 player to ESPN: “I will do everything to win as many games as I can and to win a ring (the title of NBA champion) as quickly as possible. possible. Be ready ! “.