Chris Paul spent one season in San Antonio, but it was enough time to become a steady voice for the Spurs’ younger players. As the oldest player on the roster, he naturally became the guy they leaned on, and Victor Wembanyama was one of the biggest beneficiaries.
Paul and Wembanyama spent plenty of time together, including a trip to France to train, and that gave Paul a closer look at how the Spurs star came up. What Wembanyama told him about his background as an academy player clearly stuck with him.
For Paul, who came through the standard American route of high school, college basketball and the NBA draft, the setup was eye-opening. The U.S. path to the league has long been familiar, but Wembanyama’s story showed him just how different the development pipeline can look overseas.
European players have increasingly reached the NBA through academy systems, which are built to develop young athletes from an early age. It’s a model that has long been common in soccer, and in Wembanyama’s case, it centered on Nanterre 92, the professional club in Nanterre, in the western part of Paris, France.
Paul said the idea of that kind of independence at such a young age was hard to wrap his head around.
"I was like, 'You were living over there like by yourself at like 15?'... I'm not sure parents here in America are ready to let your kids go live on their own," Paul said on The Late Run show with Ochocinco.
That system may feel unusual from an American sports perspective, but it has become a proven path. Wembanyama is one product of it, and he won’t be the last.
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If teams load up on Wembanyama, the Spurs have downhill answers in Stephon Castle, De'Aaron Fox and Dylan Harper, and if the series turns into a more physical grind, they can lean on size and depth with Luke Kornet, Tarris Reed Jr. and eventually Jayden Quaintance. That flexibility is what makes them so awkward to prepare for, because they can survive a defensive slog or turn it into a faster, more open game without giving opponents much comfort either way. [Read more 🡒]