2023-11-11 13:04:27
In the photo, Victor Wembanyama is around twelve years old. He wears a gray t-shirt with a caricature of Patrick Ewing, the former center of the New York Knicks and the Dream Team version 1992. He still looks down from below with full of admiration, a tall guy measuring 2.16 m who looks at him and smiles. Rudy Gobert is already an NBA star, “Wemby”, who we don’t yet nickname that, is a fabulous diamond to polish from the Nanterre training center.
“I’ve known him since he was 13. I knew it was going to be unique. I don’t think there is any comparison possible with anyone when we talk about him,” Rudy Gobert told us before the start of this very special season, the one that would lead the two men to cross paths for the first time on a basketball court in official competition.
This moment arrived last night during the match between Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs and Rudy Gobert’s Minnesota Timberwolves. A meeting which ended in the final victory for Gobert’s Wolves (117-110) but where “Wemby” particularly shone: 29 points, including several spectacular dunks and baskets from very far away, 9 rebounds and 4 blocks. The two giants often found themselves face to face on the field, even countering each other, in turns, before being side by side at the end of the match, and exchange their jersey for a souvenir photo.
At the end of the game, Gobert (11 points, 10 rebounds) declared his love for his compatriot: “What he does, particularly in terms of placement, is well above what rookies usually do. It is clear that he is well coached and studies the game perfectly. He is already a problem for his opponents, but he will soon be a very, very big problem. He is a winner, a competitor who lives to be decisive in key moments. » Wemby, for his part, almost thought he had gone back a few years: “Playing against Rudy was a very special moment for me,” he declared. But also a difficult confrontation. »
“With me, he has a protector forever”
The two men have remained very close since their very first exchange. They share the same agency that manages their interests – ComSport – but their relationship goes well beyond that. It was built around their extraordinary size. “We have kids who are getting bigger and bigger,” says their mutual agent Jérémy Medjana in the Canal + documentary UN1QUE, “and these kids can’t dress themselves. So we agreed with our NBA players so that they would give us clothes for the young people coming up behind. Rudy and Ian Mahinmi gave Victor a lot of business. »
What the Wolves giant confirms to us. “I gave it to him, not lent it,” laughs Gobzilla. I brought suitcases to Jérémy and he could give them. Victor was the same size: I wear a size 53 and a half. » Since then, Wemby has moved to size 55 but thanks to a few pairs of sneakers and more, a friendship was born between the two golgoths, sincere and undoubtedly eternal.
Rudy Gobert, who is almost 12 years older than his younger brother, considers himself a big brother even if from now on, Wembanyama is one of the rare people on this earth to whom he is obliged to look up to speak to him. “I like it when you tell me that I’m a bit of a big brother to him,” says the eldest, smiling. He knows that I will always be there for him, behind him, with him. With me, he has a protector forever. I recognize myself a little in Victor and it’s a mission for me to be there for him. I have a lot of affection for him. His success is part of mine. »
Two more clashes in January and February before the Games
Until November 10 in Texas, the two men had never had the opportunity to meet on the same floor. Except once in October 2020, in Nanterre. Nothing official, just a two-on-two opposition between four double meters: Rudy Gobert and Vincent Poirier on one side, Victor Wembanyama and his friend Maxime Raynaud on the other. In the short video which created a buzz at the time, the Spurs player already showed the full extent of his budding talent. “It was a nice moment, a sharing of experience between two players who played in the NBA and two young people who had the objective of following in their footsteps,” smiles Maxime Raynaud. We were all in, and them a little less… But we had a lot of fun. » We never knew who won this opposition.
However, we know who won their first confrontation in the NBA. “Except when I play against Spurs, I will never compete with Victor. Never ! », had slipped the native of Saint-Quentin at the start of the season. So it happened. The tough Spurs hosted the Wolves in full swing with Rudy Gobert who found all his range of impactful players a little scattered last season. Control tower of the best defense in the NBA, he has once again become a candidate for the title of best defender of the year, a trophy he won in 2018, 2019 and 2020. His main competitor could well be… Victor Wembanyama who multiplies the spectacular counterattacks.
After this duel, Victor Wembanyama and Rudy Gobert will meet twice: on January 27, still in San Antonio, then on February 27 in Minnesota, 10 days after the All Star Game in Indianapolis where it is not impossible either that they cross. The rest of their shared history will be written in blue, under the jersey of the France team. After the missed meeting of the last World Cup, which Wembanyama preferred to give up to devote himself to his discovery of the NBA, we will have to wait for the Games next summer to see them together in the same racket. Barring a health problem, this time, they will be together.
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