EXCLUSIVE: Nicolas Batum hopes world is ready for Victor Wembanyama
A repost from a Patreon exclusive with Nicolas Batum.
The following is a repost from a Patreon exclusive with LA Clippers forward Nicolas Batum prior to the 2022-23 season about Victor Wembanyama, the prospect who will go No. 1 overall in the 2023 NBA Draft.
Nicolas Batum’s eyes open wide as if he’s observing a storm gathering on the horizon; a basketball squall capable of destroying every ship in the harbor and laying waste to every preconceived notion that came before it.
Victor Wembanyama.
The sheer mention of his name is enough to launch the LA Clippers forward into an allegory about the youngster’s skill and basketball brilliance, something Batum saw at an early age.
“It was in early July 2018,” Batum says, when he first caught an in-person glimpse at the 7-foot-5 savant that’ll be the NBA’s No. 1 pick next June. “He just walked in and started playing with the ball and he was pretty tall. Pretty much 7 feet.”
What set Wembanyama apart from other big men that Batum had seen wasn’t the fact the young Frenchman was already 7-feet-tall at 14 years old, but rather the way he moved while being that size.
“I met big people at that age, but you see they can’t really move well or they have to learn how to walk or play. I felt like he was 6-foot-1, the way he played.”
The NBA hasn’t really seen a big man like this in quite some time. There have been comparisons made that Wembanyama will be the most fluid big man, and naturally athletic 7-footer, since Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. It’s something Batum also heard … three years ago.
“Buzz Peterson, the assistant GM for the Hornets, he talked about him. I was still with the Hornets. He said, ‘It reminds me of Lew Alcindor.’”
Batum showed Peterson a video of Wembanyama, prompting Peterson, according to Batum, to blurt out: “He’s the new Kareem.”
But looking at Wembanyama strictly from a basketball side misses the forest for the trees when it comes to the mental side of the game, something Batum is adamant separates Wembanyama from other players and kids who were that big that early.
“I think he graduated from high school a year earlier,” Batum says as he paints the picture of just how intelligent Wembanyama happens to be.
“The way he speaks English, you feel like he was there for the last 15 years and he just turned 18. It took me a couple [of] years to be pretty decent. The man is still living in France and is already good at it. It’s who he is. He knows he’s unique. You don’t see that very often. Guys like that, guys like him, basketball players — we talk about basketball, but we got to talk about the general athlete, too. Different sports. Guys are just made for it.”
At this point, it’s easy to fall under the impression that Wembanyama sounds too good to be true.
A 7-foot-5 big man who moves like a wing and has all the necessary skills in the world while also possessing a genius-level intellect? It does sound a tad too manufactured. But it’s not lost on anyone how special Wembanyama might be.
When asked about the French prospect late last week, LA Clippers guard Norman Powell was very blunt.
“It’s crazy. He literally looks like a 2K MyPlayer,” Powell bellowed.
“Seven-feet-tall, playing, being able to take the ball off the dribble, take you into the post, footwork is there, everything. You got the turnaround, you got the half-spin, you got the dribble-pull-up 3s, catch-and-shoot from deep. I mean, he’s shooting them from NBA logo range, so I mean it's definitely a new time, especially for the next generation. I feel like they’re getting more athletic, taller, more skilled, trying things that we never would’ve tried growing up, so definitely a fun time in the game.”
Batum has been ringing the bell for a few years now when it comes to Wembanyama. Anyone who would lend a moment of their time has observed Batum waxing poetic about how incredible the kid can be. Even superstars have had the sweetness of Wembanyama’s game whispered into their ear.
“I remember I told Kawhi [Leonard] two years [ago], when I first got here,” Batum says.
“It was my first month here. He did something crazy. We were having dinner and I was like, ‘I got this kid in France.’ It was literally December 2020. I showed him tape on what he just did that weekend. He’s like, ‘Is he for real?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah. You’ll see.’”
Batum talks about Wembanyama like a basketball inevitability. A force of nature the league has never seen before, and also might not be ready for.
“Imagine a guy as tall and can shoot like [Kristaps] Porzingis and can play defense like Rudy [Gobert], can attack the basket like Giannis [Antetokounmpo], and now he’s got [Kevin Durant]’s handle too.”
There’s no one player in the league, past or present, who seems to possess the ability and potential that the 18-year-old presently has. It means you have to take parts of other people’s games and stitch them together, akin to Frankenstein’s monster.
Then Batum drops the bomb, the proclamation that makes your eyebrows raise.
“He’s way more skilled than Kevin Durant [was as a draft prospect]. If he spends a month with Kareem, works on that [sky hook] …” Batum says as he stares off into the distance as if mesmerized by that fleeting tantalizing thought.
Batum says that “people have apologized” to him over the last two days after seeing Wembanyama play in Las Vegas against projected No. 2 overall pick Scoot Henderson and the G League Ignite. But Batum understands why no one believed him when he touted Wembanyama to all who would listen.
“I can understand. I’m going to tell you I have a 16, 17-year-old kid from France who’s Rudy, Porzingis, Giannis, KD. No one’s gonna believe me, for sure.”
“Just think about those two games in Vegas,” Batum says as he illustrates how incredible it was that Wembanyama came over to play in the two showcase games last week.
“That could be dangerous for him. That could be. You have a 7-foot-5 kid, from Europe, skinny, just 18 years old. All right, you’re gonna come to the U.S. for five days, play two games against one guy who is supposed to be the next big thing as well. You have a 9-hour time difference.
“But you have to play a game on national TV, on ESPN at 18 years old. Everybody is waiting for him like, ‘Who is this kid? We heard about him but we don’t know.’ Man, [the] first half was — he had to get time to adjust in the first half and then he took over after that. Oh my god!”
The whole time Batum talks about Wembanyama, his eyes continually glow and he shakes his head. It feels like a sense of pride.
Wembanyama’s penchant for learning on the fly has impressed Batum. The veteran forward is entering his 15th season in the NBA, and the leaps and bounds to which his French pupil has progressed draws Batum into salivating at what Wembanyama might turn into.
A year ago, Batum says, Wembanyama was only popping when he operated as the screener in pick-and-roll action. Now, though, Batum says the youngster has embraced the physical side of things and started to delve into the paint more.
“Last year, he was way more popping. He didn’t play inside, but that was last November. … Less than a year later, he’s really liking contact, getting inside, driving and post-up, and doing some spin moves. He wasn’t doing that last year. Now he’s doing it. It was less than a year ago.”
Seeing big men move on the perimeter while also being able to score inside is a thing of beauty at the NBA level. Naturally, you think of Nikola Jokic, Karl-Anthony Towns, Joel Embiid — centers who can operate on the block and also stretch the floor.
But Wembanyama is potentially different, and Batum knows it.
“I always say, the best scorers got the total package. I would say [Carmelo Anthony] was unguardable in his prime. KD’s like this too, the best scorers got that. The thing is, he can be one of those guys who has the total package — on the block, off the ball, pindowns, pick-and-roll, spot-up, drive. He can have all of that at 7-foot-5.”
And 7-foot-5 might only be for the time being.
“He’s just 18, so he still might be growing,” Batum says. “Watch Giannis. Giannis kept growing for like two, three years. He ended up at 6-foot-11. Who knows, [Wembanyama] might end up at 7-foot-7.”
In the two games against the G League Ignite, Wembanyama looked like everything Batum touted the young prospect to be.
Wembanyama put up 37 points, 4 rebounds, and 5 blocks in the first game, coming back two days later to post 36 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 blocks.
In the span of three days and two games in Las Vegas, Wembanyama effectively ended any discussion of who the No. 1 overall pick would be in next June’s draft. There was no debate. There was no second guessing.
It was him and … them.
Yet Batum doesn’t think Wembanyama will falter on the road to superstardom. It’s happened at times to several prospects in the past, but Batum believes what separates the 18-year-old from everyone else is what rests atop Wembanyama’s shoulders.
“He knows. He knows who he is, he knows what he can be, he knows the legacy he can have and he’s down to earth. That’s the crazy part.”
It certainly does feel like a storm is closing in on the rest of the NBA.
If what Batum says is true, the league better batten down the hatches.
Wembanyama is coming.
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