Basketball player Victor Vembanyama went to the San Antonio Spurs

The NBA club “San Antonio Spurs” turned out to be, perhaps, the main sports lucky of the year. It was he who happened to choose in the next draft of the strongest basketball league, apparently the most amazing player who has ever appeared in it. French junior Victor Vembanyama is a basketball player with the height of a giant center and the technique and marksmanship of a toddler guard.

The draft procedure has its own rules. And one of his points says that each club is given five minutes to think before announcing the name of the newcomer, whom he decided to take. San Antonio, the winner of the draft lottery, was the first pick and used almost all the time given to him by the rules. But it was, of course, not five minutes of doubt about whose name to say, but a classic theatrical pause to add another bright touch to the show at New York’s Barclays Center. San Antonio, to the thunderous applause of their fans watching the broadcast of the ceremony at the club’s home arena AT & T Center, naturally named Victor Vembanyama.

Drafts, in terms of the specifics of the recruitment of young basketball players presented at them, are different. There are times when you can’t see the obvious frontman. There are obvious frontmen. And there are drafts, long before which it is clear to everyone that the guy who will definitely leave with the first number is not just a great talent, but a unique one, a future legend of legends. But this, of course, happens insanely rarely. So far, the last draft in the exceptional category was the one that took place exactly two decades ago. In 2003, the Cleveland Cavaliers were the envy of everyone because they got the rights to LeBron James, who recently crowned his phenomenal, predictable career as the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. And now a player with exactly the same pre-draft status has appeared – and even, perhaps, even more extraordinary than James.

In America, the hysteria surrounding Victor Vembanyama actually began long before the New York draft. And there was nothing strange about it.

Any basketball fan, professional or amateur, would be shocked to see even a snippet of the now 19-year-old boy playing in the French top league for the Metropolitan 92 club.

Of course, people taller than Vembanyama also got into the NBA, but 221 cm (and some sources indicate even more solid figures) is impressive anyway. As well as the arm span, which generally reaches 241 cm.

But the thing is that growth in this case is not the main thing. If we were talking about the classic giant center, who, in order to adapt to the NBA, lacks only half a dozen kilos of muscle mass, no hysteria would arise. It was created by a unique set of qualities for a player of similar physical parameters.

Video clips illustrating the possibilities of Victor Vembanyama consist of many episodes. And those in which he fights for the ball under the ring or covers other people’s shots are by no means the absolute majority. No less than those in which, for example, deftly working with the ball, he beats his opponent at the three-point line, and then, with amazing naturalness for a center, or something, hits the basket from a distance.

That is, being a giant, Vembanyama has the technique, the sense of the ball, characteristic of the kid-defenders.

The numbers confirm its uniqueness perfectly. The French League is a strong European championship with many great players. But this past season, youngster Vembanyama outperformed them all on three stats, averaging 20.7 points per game, 10.2 rebounds and three blocks per game. Although America finally fell in love with him, when in October last year the Metropolitan 92 played two exhibition games with the G-League team (this is, in fact, a league for running youth under the NBA) Ignite. Vembanyama shot them with a total of 73 points, and the Frenchman’s performance also included his predecessor in the role of a very special child prodigy. LeBron James, after these meetings, did not hesitate to use two exhaustive words in relation to Victor Vembanyama – “unicorn” and “alien”, meaning that it was simply impossible to imagine a basketball player with his arsenal before existing in reality. Now he has found himself in the NBA and will help restore its former positions to its five-time champion, which has slumped heavily in recent times.

Alexey Dospekhov