Victor Wembanyama has been here before. Though he's set to match up in the NBA with Chet Holmgren for the first time officially in a game Tuesday that'll also serve as an In-Season Tournament contest, going against the player who comes closest to matching his seven-foot-plus versatility is not foreign to Wemby.
2021 U19 World Cup
The United States won the title, and Chet Holmgren took home tournament MVP honors. But Victor Wembanyama stole the show.
“He was a very decisive player,” Wembanyama remembers about the eventual second-overall pick of the 2022 NBA Draft.
Holmgren shot 53.8% from three-point range, 62% overall, while averaging 11.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, 3.3 assists and 2.7 blocks. All in just 21 minutes per game, which are certainly MVP-worthy numbers from the then 19-year-old who led the U.S. to Gold.
Also included in that competition's ‘All-Star Five'?
Wemby.
If the game at Phoenix earlier this month – the one that saw Wembanyama score 10 fourth-quarter points to hold off Kevin Durant and Devin Booker – serves as Wembanyama's coming out party to the NBA, then the 2021 U19 WC Final marked his introduction to the basketball world.
The ‘generational talent' description started to take shape with those games in Switzerland,
On scouts' radar leading up to the competition, the eventual top overall selection in this past NBA Draft nearly knocked off the USA single-handedly. He scored 22 points, grabbed 8 rebounds and blocked 8 shots for France in the Final before fouling out with 2:42 remaining.
But perhaps the numbers even more impressive than those: all that damage came in just 27 minutes – at the age of 17.
It capped a run that also saw him rack up 22 points, 10 rebounds and 8 blocks vs Spain and another 20, 6, and 8 in the quarterfinals against Lithuania.
‘How good is he really?' had given way to, ‘This guy could be really special.'
October 9, 2023: Spurs at Thunder – Preseason
A little more than two years later, Chet Holmgren and Victor Wembanyama met up again in a preseason opener, both as NBA rookies. Though Holmgren had left Gonzaga a year before Wemby's NBA invasion, a season-ending Lisfranc injury in August of 2022 meant that Monday night in Oklahoma City last month represented the first league contest for each.
Holmgren ended with 21 points, 9 rebounds and a block.
The Spurs star countered with 20, five, and one in those same categories. Wemby collected two steals to Holmgren's zero but also turned it over four more times than the Thunder big man who didn't commit a single turnover.
“Definitely, the NBA changed. They're each their own player, Chet is a great player. Chet's his own person, his own style of play and Vic is his own person,” Spurs forward Keldon Johnson said. “I feel like the big man game has definitely changed tremendously.”
With Wemby and Chet set for another ‘first' meeting Tuesday night in Oklahoma City – albeit the first the NBA will record – Wembanyama looks forward to another challenge from the man who figures to be his most formidable challenger for Rookie of the Year.
“[Chet Holmgren is] someone who we got to keep in mind on offense because he's a shot-blocking threat and also a lob threat…somebody we've got to keep in mind. The pair of him and Shai [Gilgeous-Alexander] is gonna be hard to handle but we're gonna make it work.”
It should be lots of fun to see these two battle it out for years to come.
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