Source: Justin Ford / Getty
It’s Victor Wembanyama‘s first season in the NBA, but he’s already got a strong understanding of how important team play is.
On a recent episode of Carmelo Anthony and Kid Mero’s
7 PM in Brooklyn podcast, JJ Redick was a guest, and he dug deep into some stories behind the NBA.
One of them was concerning Wemby and
Drake.
On last year’s
It All A Blur Tour, Drizzy played up on his many NBA friends and used them to open the show in various cities around the country— like
Shai Gilgeous Alexander. He’d have them sitting in a faux locker as the concert’s first track played, and eventually, he’d dap them before hitting the stage as the crowd roared.
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Wemby—one of the most promising rookies since LeBron James—was supposed to be on the stage but wasn’t feeling it because his teammates couldn’t share the moment with him.
“There was a Drake concert in Austin, and [Wembanyama] got asked to come up onstage ’cause Drake was doing that with a bunch of NBA guys this offseason,” Redick remembers. “And Wemby was like, ‘Can my teammates come up onstage with me? ‘Because they are going to be at the concert with me.’ And Drake’s camp was like, ‘No.’ And [Wemby’s] like, ‘Then I don’t want to do it.’ What 19-year-old kid doesn’t want to go up onstage with Drake?”
Records show that Drake was in Austin in September for back-to-back shows on Sept. 11 and 12 last year at the Moody Center, which was a little over a month before Wemby even played in his first NBA game.
The Frenchman’s dedication to his team shows just how focused he is on the game, and Reddick said it’s also a plus that he doesn’t have typical superstar tendencies.
“There’s been anomalies for star players in that they have been low maintenance,” he said. “I would describe myself as somewhat low maintenance. There’s Steph and there’s, like, Tim Duncan. Wemby is one of them. That, to me, is as impressive as anything he does on the court.”
See how social media is reacting to Wemby turning down the offer of a lifetime below.
