Wembanyama playing for gold medal, something we should get used to seeing

For the USA, Saturday’s gold medal game is about legacies. For American fans, it’s about memories—getting to see LeBron James and Kevin Durant with “USA” across their chest one last time. It’s about seeing Stephen Curry round out his Hall of Fame resume with a gold medal. It’s about savoring one final run with arguably the greatest collections of basketball talent ever assembled on one court at one time.

For France, it’s about Victor Wembanyama and the future.

That’s not how Wembanyama and France see it. They are dreaming of the upset, of revenge for the Tokyo Olympics gold medal match, of gold.

“Of course, it’s part of a dream come true,” Wembanyama told reporters after helping France beat Germany to advance to the gold medal game. “We can be part of a goal that we set for ourselves months back. We can write history, even more. A once-in-a-lifetime dream.”

It’s once-in-a-lifetime because it’s in Paris on home soil, but Wembanyama and France’s Olympic dream is going to live on in Los Angeles in four years and Brisbane in eight and numerous other international tournaments beyond those.

As was his rookie season seemed in the NBA, these Olympics have felt like the start of the Wembanyama era.

That’s not to say Wembanyama is carrying his team; rather, it’s the play of Evan Fournier, former Celtic Guerschon Yabusele, and Panathinaikos center Mathias Lessort that has been key for Les Bleus in the medal rounds. Wembanyama is putting up numbers, averaging 13.8 points and 10.2 rebounds a game, but is shooting just 37.5% overall and has not been efficient. His impact has been much greater on the defensive end.

Again, that feels like last NBA season. It took a while for Wembanyama to adapt to the NBA game at the start of his rookie campaign, he didn’t look like the Rookie of the Year the first couple of months. Then he figured it out and adapted (plus Gregg Popovich adjusted the lineups around him), and Wembanyama started to look like a force of nature.

The same thing has happened during the Paris Olympics.

“Victor is only discovering FIBA basketball at a very high level,” French coach Vincent Collet said. “He is…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/wembanyama-playing-gold-medal-something-022418550.html

Author : NBC Sports

Publish date : 2024-08-10 02:24:18

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