Victor Wembanyama wants to talk about something important. Kind of life-changing, he says. It’s a book. Well, books. The Witcher, a six-part series of fantasy novels that follow a monster hunter with supernatural abilities. Took him three years, Wembanyama says, but he finally finished them. “It’s incredible,” Wembanyama says. “Following the same characters for years like this, it feels like you know them.” It’s not just The Witcher universe that draws him in. It’s The Hobbit. Game of Thrones. Berserk, a Japanese manga series. “Any good art piece,” the 20-year-old says. If coaches from Paris to San Antonio have sharpened Wembanyama’s basketball skills, characters in Middle-earth and Westeros have molded his mind. “The experiences are so detailed that you learn the lessons that the author tries to teach as well,” Wembanyama says. “It’s not just a story, it’s a fantastic story about somebody that’s also full of lessons.”
It’s mid-September and Wembanyama has folded his 7' 4" frame onto a couch inside the Spurs’ practice facility, escaping, briefly, the still scorching San Antonio heat. These are the conversations Wembanyama enjoys. About arts and literature, science and science fiction. “He is naturally curious,” says Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. Last season, Wembanyama’s agent, Bouna Ndiaye, arranged a meeting between Wembanyama and Thomas Pesquet, a French astronaut. “If you heard them talking,” Ndiaye says, “you wouldn’t know which one was the astronaut.” During a late-season trip to Utah, Wembanyama met with Brandon Sanderson, a fantasy novelist. In August, Popovich arranged for Peniel Joseph, an associate dean at the University of Texas and a leading expert on the history of the Black Power movement, to speak to a group of players about voting. Wembanyama—who, as a French citizen, can’t vote in U.S. elections—stuck around after to ask a few follow-ups.
