Victor Webmanyama appears in Nike ad ahead of Olympics

Plus perhaps his time in France shows he can play power forward, and ESPN predicts how his NBA career will play out.

The 2024 Paris Olympics are just days away, and Nike has released its latest ad featuring clients who are participating in both the Olympics and Paralympics (plus a lot of Kobe Bryant for some reason), with a theme of “Winning isn’t for everyone”. It includes Spurs phenom Victor Wembanyama, who will be playing for the French Basketball Team.

His cameos come at the 25 sec mark, where he dunks and yells while the narrator says “I don’t respect you”, and again at 1:14 with a block and seconds later repeating his yell.

Speaking of the Olympics, Wemby’s time with Team France has been eye-opening. Granted, it has just been in scrimmages, but he looks like he’s on another level than just a few months ago when the regular season ended, with his improved handles and shooting touch on full display. (And France desperately needs it considering guard play is considered a weakness of the team.)

Another potential takeaway: maybe there is some power forward in his future after all. The Spurs struggled with Wemby at power forward next to Zach Collins early in the season, and while that was due many different factors — no point guard, poor outside shooting from both Wemby and Collins, etc. — his play next to Rudy Gobert this summer has been encouraging. Gobert has no shooting range, and yet Wemby has done fine next to him thanks to his own improvements. To wit, here he is running the pick-and-roll himself before sending an alley-oop pass to Gobert in yesterday’s tune-up against Australia.

I imagine Wemby will still spend a lot of his NBA career at center, but if he can handle power forward duties, the Spurs will be much more versatile and able to make more adjustments in the future. (Think 2014 and how they were able rotate between Tiago Splitter and Boris Diaw next to Tim Duncan, depending on the matchup.)

Finally, ESPN put together a panel of writers, reporters, editors and analysts to predict what the future holds for the the NBA’s next superstar. Questions included when Wemby will be the NBA’s best player, how many titles, MVP’s and Olympic Gold Metals he will win, and perhaps more importantly to Spurs fans, will he remain in San Antonio his entire career? Their answer there left it a bit up in the air. It’s easy for Spurs fans to assume yes, but sometimes we just have to remember it’s a different climate than previous eras. (But the answer is still yes not matter what anyone says.)

Several of the Spurs’ most successful players spent their entire careers in San Antonio and had plenty of trophies to show for it. Hall of Famers David Robinson, Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili were Spurs for life, while others such as Kawhi Leonard and Tony Parker — who spent his final season with the Charlotte Hornets — moved on after achieving success under coach Gregg Popovich. Wembanyama is in the unique position of carrying on the San Antonio big man legacy, but several factors are at play in projecting his future in Texas. How long will Popovich continue to coach? And how will the franchise surround the future All-Star? Our panel was nearly split on Wemby’s long-term future with the franchise.

Yes: 52.6%

No: 47.4%

Be sure to click the link to find out what they think on the rest of the topics.