San Antonio Spurs‘ Victor Wembanyama is a unicorn.
At least that’s how NBA Hall of Famer Reggie Miller kept describing the seven-foot-four rookie on the TNT broadcast as the Spurs took on the Milwaukee Bucks on Thursday. He’s focusing on Wembanyama’s ability to move unlike any player he’s seen at that size.
The French phenom’s “unicorn-ness” was on display all night. For instance, early in the second Wembanyama threw the ball off the backboard to himself for a dunk.
He somehow topped that in the third quarter when he deflected a pass, picked up the loose ball, and went around the back past Damian Lillard before slamming down a dunk on Brook Lopez despite major contact.
Have fans of basketball seen anyone like Wembanyama before? If anyone has, it ought to be his head coach Gregg Popovich — a Hall of Famer himself who’s coached more than 2,000 games through 28 seasons.
“The answer is no,” Popovich said to TNT’s Jared Greenberg when asked that question during a third-quarter interview. “I don’t know what else to tell you, he’s got a lot of talent … he’s wonderful.”
On his 20th birthday, Wembanyama celebrated by sending the NBA world into a frenzy over that sequence. Here are some of the best reactions: