Skip to main content
Join

Top NBA Draft prospect Victor Wembanyama has sights set on beating Team USA at the Olympics

Wade-Peeryby:Wade Peery•05/24/23
top-nba-draft-prospect-victor-wembanyama-has-sights-set-on-beating-team-usa-at-the-olympics
(Photo by Christian Liewig - Corbis/Corbis via Getty Images)

Victor Wembanyama is one of the best basketball prospects to come along in the past two decades. The 7-foot-3 French superstar is a lock to be the No. 1 overall pick to the San Antonio Spurs in the upcoming 2023 NBA Draft. While he’s got a remarkably bright future ahead of him in the NBA, the French superstar has his sights set on winning a gold medal at the 2024 Olympics. Of course, all roads to the gold medal in basketball always go through team USA. Wembanyama recently said his goal is to beat Team USA in the final for the gold medal.

Check it out below.

“There could be no more perfect occasion for me to win my first title with the French national team. My goal is to beat Team USA in the final,” Wembanyama said on the 2024 Olympics, which will take place in his home country in Paris, France.

It’s a nice goal to set to defeat Team USA basketball in the gold medal game, but it’s an entirely different story executing it. Just ask Pau Gasol of Spain. That being said, France did make the gold medal final in the 2022 Olympics, only losing to USA by five. Wembanyama could be the prospect to lift them to the top.

He plays for the French national basketball team. The uber-talented prospect has already led France to two silver medals, including the 2021 FIBA Under-19 World Cup. In that tournament, he set the FIBA record for blocks per game in a single tournament.

Earlier this month, he won the LNB Pro A MVP Award, becoming the youngest player ever to win the award. He also won league awards for best scorer, best defender, best young player, and best blocker. He finished his regular season with Metropolitans 92 averaging 21.6 points per game and 10.4 rebounds per game.

Standing at 7-foot-3 with an estimated wingspan of 8-feet, Wembanyama will enter the NBA as one of the tallest players in the league. He comes from an extremely athletic family. His older sister plays basketball professionally and his younger brother, Oscar, played basketball and handball at the youth level. His grandfather, Michel de Futereau, also played professional basketball. Wembanyama’s father, Felix, was a track and field athlete who competed in high jump, long jump, and triple jump.

Victor Wembanyama has been pegged for superstardom for quite some time now

Wembanyama emerged as one of Europe’s top prospects since the age of 14. He was viewed by analysts as a potential first overall pick in his draft class by the age of 16. NBA commissioner Adam Silver noted that the league would be paying particular attention to tanking for the 2023 NBA Draft. That’s because they would have the ability to land a generational talent like the French superstar.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how his basketball career develops in the future.