VILLENEUVE-D’ASCQ, France (AP) — This was Victor Wembanyama’s opening ceremony.
No Eiffel Tower, no Celine Dion, no Zinedine Zidane, no Rafael Nadal, no Serena Williams and no floating cauldron required. Just a 7-foot-4 kid with the eyes of the basketball world on him for his Olympic debut.
And he didn’t disappoint.
Lighting a torch of sorts for the French gold-medal hopes, Wembanyama had 19 points, nine rebounds, four steals and three blocked shots, and France opened its run at the Paris Olympics by beating Brazil 78-66 in a Group B game on Saturday before a sold-out crowd of flag-waving, song-singing, wave-doing fans who came looking for a show and got one.
“You can’t underestimate the power of the crowd, the home crowd,” Wembanyama said. “I think it’s really going to be the sixth man for this whole tournament.”
Did he consider this an opening ceremony?
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Wembanyama said. “It was way better.”
Wembanyama — the NBA’s rookie of the year for the San Antonio Spurs last season — and his teammates skipped the opening ceremony in Paris on Friday night to rest for their Saturday game. Lille is about an hour from Paris each way by train in ideal circumstances, but the vandalism that disrupted travel on Friday would have only added to the transit time, and being out in a downpour for a few hours probably wouldn’t have been the ideal night-before-a-game plan going into the Olympics.
So, this was his first official Olympic event. He won the tipoff against Brazil’s Bruno Caboclo to get the party started and France — which trailed by 12 early in the second quarter — eventually shook off the slow start and found its footing.
Put simply, Wembanyama was why. Brazil was powerless against him.
“I think he did pretty damn good,” France guard Evan Fournier said. “He can do so many things that sometimes it’s like a burden because he doesn’t focus on just one thing.”
There was a three-possession display in the second quarter where the 20-year-old Wembamyama would post up almost in the same spot on the right block, wait for the ball, then just go to work.
— The first one: He turned and spun toward the baseline, went airborne, had his head and body well behind the backboard, and used his absurd wingspan to lay the ball in anyway.
— The second one: A couple possessions later, he spun to the middle this time, going over everyone for a left-handed dunk as he tumbled to the floor.
— The third one: And then he split the difference, turning and going in a straight line for a double-clutched, right-handed dunk punctuated by a big scream after tying the game at 34-34.
It was still close late — Nicolas Batum’s 3-pointer with 1:21 left put France up 10, and an alley-oop dunk by Wembanyama on the next possession sealed the win — but at least the first victory is out of the way. France next plays Tuesday against Japan; a win there would be enough to clinch a quarterfinals spot.
“It’s huge to get the first one,” France center Rudy Gobert said. “We have very high expectations for our team, very high goals. We know how each game matters.”
The anticipation for Wembanyama was very noticeable throughout Pierre Mauroy Stadium in Lille well before the game. Fans lined up on the rail of the catwalk, jockeying for positions to snap photos of the young star of the host country’s Olympic delegation.
Wembanyama didn’t waste time providing highlights: about an hour before tipoff, as he was beginning his warmups not long after being greeted by a thunder of cheers and people craning with their phones for a picture or some video, he casually swished a half-court shot.
“I knew it was going to be a good day,” he said.
He wasn’t wrong.
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