The night ended as it often does this season: with a defeat. However, the context was very different this time. Victor Wembanyama participated last night in Indianapolis in his first All-Star weekend, this great NBA celebration at mid-season. Selected for the Rising Star Challenge, the mini-tournament of the best prospects in the American League, he failed, with Bilal Coulibaly and his team, in the semi-finals, in his first match, against a team… from the G-League, the antechamber of the NBA, facing players who were mostly unknown to the general public, but who were hungry to show themselves.
Even for a friendly match, even for a weekend of jokes, the defeat is a stain, while on the other side, his rival for the title of rookie of the year Chet Holmgren won his semi-final, then his final. “This defeat does not damage my experience of the weekend, but the truth is that I am in a hurry for it to be over,” he confided after the meeting. This weekend is a great experience, there is a great energy, but I can’t wait for it all to end because I need these few days of rest before the season starts again. » The rookie doesn’t have much to complain about in his match (11 points, 7 rebounds, in a match where the first team at 40 won), even if a little fun on a few balls, which some took for casualness, seemed to annoy the public.
“In front, they played hard”
For his part, Bilal Coulibaly also says he has mixed feelings. “In front, they played hard,” notes the Frenchman from Washington. They were aggressive and we weren’t. But I still had fun, especially around the match, with the enthusiasm of the public. » No alley-oop between the two friends, who rarely shared the floor together, as they had promised each other.
This Saturday evening, Victor Wembanyama will participate in a final event, the skills challenge, a succession of ball handling exercises. “My weekend schedule is quite full,” he notes. As soon as he arrives in Indianapolis on Thursday, he spends some time with his family, then with Bilal and the relatives of the two players. The two “General Managers” (sports directors) of the Spurs and the Wizards pass a head in the suite of the two basketball players and their entourage.
Friday morning, Wemby is invited to the “Tech Summit”, where he jokes with Adam Silver, the boss of the NBA, about the possibilities that artificial intelligence will soon offer to basketball, before going to meet schoolchildren afternoon in an establishment in the city. He made the journalists laugh, too, during his press conference, when he declared: “I have been told all my life not to skip steps, but that did not stop me from climbing the steps four steps at a time. four. »
Then again when asked about such an early participation in this All Star weekend: “If someone had asked me if I saw myself here when I was a child, I would probably have answered: why not earlier? When I was little, one of my goals was to participate in the 2016 Olympics with the national team… I already had very high expectations. » In the evening, he arrives at the gym where he must compete for the Rising Star with a cowboy hat on his head. But it was he who bit the dust.
