Long before Victory Wembanyama was pegged as the top pick in Thursday’s NBA Draft, and roughly a decade before the Frenchman grew to 7-foot-4, the basketball phenom was a 10-year-old kid who loved soccer, judo, comics, and any chance to crack up his teammates.
‘Right at the start of my time with him, we went to a tournament in the north of France, he liked to make jokes, he liked to get down on the ground and do the worm and make everyone laugh,’ Federic Donnadieu, Wembanyama’s first coach in the Nanterre 92 youth program, told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview.
The anecdote is a window into the generational talent and his unique potential: While there’s been a dozen or so NBA players who’ve stood as tall as Wembanyama, few have been so comfortable in their massive frames as the 19-year-old dance enthusiast.
‘That showed as well that he was very at ease with his body,’ Donnadieu said of Wembanyama’s dance moves. ‘He never had any problem with his body. It’s more the others who were impressed to see someone as big as that, but for him, that never really bothered him.’
Having been invited by his former protégé to attend Thursday’s draft in Brooklyn, Donnadieu sat down with DailyMail.com to shed light Wembanyama’s journey to the NBA, which will conclude when he’s taken by the San Antonio Spurs with the first-overall selection.
Victor Wembanyama of Metropolitans 92 reacts during a Betclic Elite match in January
Victory Wembanyama’s 7-foot-4 frame is impressive, but so are his athleticism and skillset
Federic Donnadieu, Wembanyama’s first coach, spoke with DailyMail.com about the phenom
Donnadieu was serving as the technical director at Nanterre in the Parisian suburbs in 2014, when a lanky 10-year-old arrived to play for the Under-11s.
‘So my first memory is when I saw him and of course, for a kid of 10-year-old, he was obviously already very tall but what I saw especially was that he had lots of technical ability,’ Donnadieu said.
‘It was exactly what you see today – he was very advanced technically and especially he had a truly incredible technical ability despite his size.
‘In fact, he didn’t play like other big basketball players – who can have difficulties running. Him, not at all. What he enjoyed was to dribble, to shoot. That was what was so surprising.’
Donnadieu’s observations read like a recent scouting report, although he was making them about eight or nine years before Wembanyama was being discussed in NBA circles.
Nowadays, Wembanyama is praised for his rare combination of size, athleticism, and skill – all of which were apparent to Donnadieu when he was just a young teenager.
‘From the start we really could see that he was built like a tank,’ Donnadieu said. ‘But for me, I was 100 percent sure [of his potential] when he was 14 and we were champions of France with him – and other players – and he had been very good and very dominant.
‘I said to myself at that point: If he doesn’t go to the NBA, who can?’
A young Victor Wembanyama is pictured alongside his 6-foot-6 father, Felix
Wembanyama is seen with his two siblings: Older sister, Eve, and younger brother, Oscar
The challenge for Nanterre and Donnadieu was to help Wembanyama develop his skillset while preparing his wiry frame to play against adult men at the professional level.
Admittedly, this was new territory for Nanterre and Donnadieu, who is now club president.
‘The club offered him lots of new things every year – to help him progress more, to give him more to work on,’ Donnadieu said. ‘He started physical training very young with the physical trainers of the professional team. He wasn’t even 14 when he started.
‘Of course, it wasn’t bodybuilding with weights etc. It was isometric work, flexions, really special things.’
Wembanyama was even given a custom bed, measuring over 7-feet in length.
‘He had a special bed at the academy – when he joined, a bed was made to measure so that he could sleep well,’ Donnadieu said. ‘Plenty of little things like that to show him that the club was evolving with him.’
Parents of French power forward basketball player Victor Wembanyama, Elodie (L) and Felix
Victor Wembanyama is pictured alongside his sister, Eve, another basketball star
Nanterre worked hard to preserve Wembanyama’s body, which is particularly important given NBA giants’ reputation for injuries.
Obviously 7-foot-5 Yao Ming was indispensable for the Houston Rockets between 2002 and 2011, getting selected to eight All-Star teams before his Hall of Fame career was cut short by foot problems.
But outside of the Chinese basketball icon, only a handful of players over 7-foot-3 have enjoyed any sustained success in the NBA.
George Muresan and the late Manute Bol (both 7-foot-7) struggled with injuries and development, Canada’s Sim Bhullar managed to appear in only three NBA games, and 7-foot-5 Chuck Nevitt averaged just 5.3 minutes a game for his career.
There are success stories like 7-foot-4 Mark Eaton, who won NBA Defensive Player of the Year twice, and Rik Smits, who became an All-Star in 1998, but they are in the minority.
Interestingly, unlike some of the other game’s tallest players, Wembanyama’s size is not the product of a growth spurt.
Donnadieu described his growth as ‘very constant,’ and perhaps as a result, Wembanyama remained healthy in Nanterre’s youth program.
‘In fact, his first real injury happened once he was a professional,’ Donnadieu said, adding that Wembanyama diligently stuck to a pre-game warmup routine in an effort to avoid injuries.
Wembanyama pictured in 2021, after starting his professional career with Nanterre 92
The preservation paid off.
Wembanyama made his professional debut with Nanterre 92 at 17 in October of 2019, and would ultimately play 18 French League games with the club before moving on to ASVEL and Metropolitans 92.
But it was in the 2021 FIBA U19 World Cup final against Chet Holmgren and the US team that Wembanyama gained notoriety in NBA circles. The French lost the game, earning silver for the tournament, but Wembanyama was a +30 with 22 points, eight rebounds, and a whopping eight blocks.
Since then, Wembanyama has developed into a dominant defensive force for Metropolitans 92, blocking nine shots and adding three steals while being swept by Monaco in the LNB Pro A finals.
For the season he more than doubled his career average, scoring 21.6 points a game, while adding 10.4 rebounds and three blocks per night.
His 27.5-percent mark from 3-point range could use some improvement, but his 82.8-percent accuracy from the free-throw line suggests his shooting can improve.
As Donnadieu explained, it’s helpful that Wembanyama has a good attitude and work ethic – two things he learned from his dad Félix, a 6-foot-6 Congolese track-and-field athlete, and mother Elodie de Fautereau, a 6-foot-3 basketball coach and former player.
‘A normal family, with loving parents – without overdoing it,’ Donnadieu said of Felix and Elodie. ‘They always respected the club a lot and the coaches – they never looked to overdo it.
‘I would love all the parents to be like them.’
Draft Prospect Victor Wembanyama arrives at Newark Liberty International Airport
In addition to a supportive family, Wembanyama also had good relationships with his teammates and coaches – both good signs as he begins to work with an old-school coach in the Spurs’ Gregg Popovich.
‘[Victor] behaved well and off the field he was very well integrated with the others,’ Donnadieu said.
These were relationships that Wembanyama never forgot. Even when he became an international superstar with Metropolitans 92, he still made time to meet with Nanterre coaches, players, and fans when he returned to face his former team in May.
‘Probably my favourite memory with Victor is from last month when he came back to play in Nanterre against Nanterre for the first time,’ Donnadieu said. ‘He gave a lovely show of love to the club and then he came to see me and we spoke. And it’s nearly the nicest present, the best memory I have because it was completely instinctive, and it was really magnificent. So, his last event there he gave so much pleasure to the club.
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‘It’s that I keep in my mind. This last moment, the first time he played against Nanterre, and I know it was very special for him.
‘Then he took people in his arms – he did a lot to show his love,’ Donnadieu continued, describing a massive group hug Wembanyama shared with fans.
Wembanyama was all smiles as he arrived in Newark before Thursday’s NBA Draft in Brooklyn
Donnadieu hopes to go and see Wembanyama with the Spurs – a club that has previously employed other Frenchmen like Tony Parker, Bo Diaw, Nando de Colo and Ian Mahinmi.
‘It’s certain that we will visit him in San Antonio,’ Donnadieu said. ‘I’d love to see him play, maybe we can organize a trip with some partners of the club.
‘But we wouldn’t ever want to impose on him or bother him,’ Donnadieu continued. ‘We want to let him live his life and his plans… But we would love to go and see him, that’s for sure. We will follow him.’
Asked if the invitation he received to Thursday’s draft is indicative of Wembanyama’s character, Donnadieu didn’t hesitate: ‘I think so. It’s going to be a real pleasure.’
