Victor Wembanyama’s interest in other sports is part of what makes him great

What can’t he do?

Victor Wembanyama is fully engaged with his rehabilitation from DVT as shown by him … enjoying the offseason while playing soccer with kids in Costa Rica. Amazingly, he wasn’t the keeper. Here he is dribbling on the field.

Well, that’s not all he’s been up to an there were chess matches against fans at Washington Square Park as well. It’s all adding to his status as one of the cool guys in the NBA.

This kind of thing is precisely what I want to see from his downtime. He’s safely back in action and diversifying his skills. Don’t be surprised if Wembanyama’s footwork continues to take leaps.

Playing soccer can have enormous advantages for an NBA baller because practicing those techniques improves agility. The great Hakeem Olajuwon said having a background in soccer was his “foundation,” as those motions helped him produce the lethal fakes and hesitation moves that . On top of that, he told coach Pete Newell at his basketball camp, “I play soccer,” when asked how he was taught to move like he had, according to Mirin Fader’s biography, Dream.

Soccer was also a part of Kobe Bryant’s upbringing. He said in a 2017 interview that it helped him understand space and angles. When asked in 2009 what he would do without hoops, he said playing soccer. His disciple, the former Spur DeMar DeRozan, mentioned two years back on “The Old Man and the Three” podcast that Bryant encouraged him to watch soccer to study how the players moved their bodies.

Wembanyama is a soccer fan who has playfully left word that he’s “ready” to sign with the Paris Saint-Germain Football Club, the biggest team in France. He’s been spotted this season juggling by himself with his legs or with Sandro Mamukelashvili before a game. It was remarkable watching someone that big maneuver like that, and those skills have very likely helped his torque plus reaction time and been good practice for contorting his body through traffic.

Hopefully Wemby’s quest for maximizing himself as a basketball player includes more dabbling into other sports. There’s tons of value one can learn from the philosophies of different sports and apply it to their own. Here’s an example. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra sought the counsel of football instructor Chip Kelly in Oregon to improve Miami’s offense in 2011. The ideas, along with great players executing them, helped the Heat win back-to-back titles.

I wonder what kind of outside-the-box thinking Wembanyama will help the Spurs with in 2025-26.