Told ya! – Victor Wembanyama vindicates Gregg Popovich’s belief in international talent

San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich has said that the recruitment of French-Congolese star Victor Wembanyama has validated his decades-long belief that the NBA needed to expand its basketball scouting beyond the US.

Popovich served in the United States Air Force in the 1970s, and toured Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union with the U.S. Armed Forces Basketball Team, which he captained. He said he realised then that the NBA’s scouting was myopic, and needed to expand beyond US borders.

He views Wembanyama, a 7-foot-4 power forward/center who drew inspiration from France’s Tony Parker, as proof of what the US was missing out on during his time in the Air Force.

“He’s just the newest of so many fine players around the world who have made the league better and more exciting,” Popovich told international media in a virtual press conference.

“It’s been a long process – those four decades [since Popovich began working in the NBA] – but it’s only going to grow. I think there are about 125 players [from] outside of America who are in the NBA right now.”

Popovich has been at the forefront of the league’s embrace of international stars, with Parker (France) and Manu Ginobili (Argentina) winning four of his five NBA titles as head coach alongside him.

“When I was in the military, I traveled with various teams in many places in the world and knew at that time, back in the ’70s, that there were players all around the world, and people here in America just didn’t realize it or respect it – or both,” Popovich said.

“In the ’80s, when I became an assistant coach and came over to find these players or to scout them… I was like a kid in a candy store. There were so many great players in that time. At that time, Yugoslavia was one of the strongest, for instance.”

As for the modern era, Popovich made special mention of African basketball, which has grown tremendously since he served as Team Africa’s head coach at the 2015 NBA Africa exhibition game. Wembanyama’s father, Félix, is from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Although Wembanyama himself was not produced through Africa’s youth basketball systems, several NBA stars were, including reigning MVP Joel Embiid, who rose through the 2011 Basketball Without Borders Africa camp in Johannesburg.

In 2017, the NBA Africa Academy opened in Senegal, and as the Spurs look to build a team for the next generation, Popovich suggested that Africa could possess some of the key building blocks not only for his team, but also for their competition.