Inside Victor Wembanyama’s ‘violent’ offseason training to get his mind and body back

This kid is a freak. And he’s going to be so unbelievably good one day. Here’s some excerpts:

SAN ANTONIO — As Victor Wembanyama swatted away another one of his shots, something dawned on Julian Champagnie. The Spurs wing just watched his teammates take turns trying to score on their star center, then going back down the other end of the floor to try to do it again.

One by one, they went at Wembanyama and met the same fate as many players across the NBA. But they got to catch their breath in between as they waited their turn, strategizing how they might get past him.

There was just one player who didn’t get a single break: Wembanyama.

The drill is simple. He defends a one-on-one sequence against every player in the gym without a breather. Once he’s taken everyone on, he sprints down to the other end of the court and goes right back into it.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone work out like that,” Champagnie told The Athletic. “It’s crazy to see.”

…

When Wembanyama returned, he went to work with a vengeance. “My training this summer, it was brutal,” he said. Hence, the defensive drill from hell.

“This summer, I chose to do something much more violent,” Wembanyama said at Spurs media day Monday. “Maybe that takes away from some time I can spend on shooting the basketball, but it doesn’t matter. I wanted to get my body back.”

…

He spent the spring going to hospitals, confronting the mortality of his career and even his life. The man who has tried to outwork everyone to take care of his anomalous body faced a dangerous anomaly anyway. After the clotting issues were relieved and he was cleared to travel again, he decided to get away from all the pain and frustration of his situation.

His journey to regain control started in China and Japan. He ventured to a Shaolin temple in Zhengzhou, China, to practice Chan meditation and Shaolin Kung Fu. It’s a place to find one’s self, where you connect with cultures that center on the gratitude of life’s nuances. The smallest connections fortify the biggest understandings.

“It makes you understand lessons that nothing else could have made me understand,” he said.

…

Returning from a moving journey like this can make American life feel surface-level in comparison. But Wembanyama arrived stateside reinvigorated with purpose.

He was fueled with the desire to conquer his situation, and not just by working harder than before. China and Japan opened his already curious palate to all sorts of new experiences around his game.

“For someone of his age, he is so intentional on the variety of ways that he tries to improve as a player and a person,” Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson said. “It’s really something I’ve never witnessed or experienced in my time.”
…

For Champagnie, what stands out is the discipline. Wembanyama’s habits are intense and consistent every day. Waking up early, leaving late, coming back, leaving late again, he does two-a-days and he makes the rest of the group last the whole day. Champagnie saw Wembanyama performing that routine five, six times a week when most players could barely muster it more than a few times before the weekend hits.

Now that training camp has arrived, the impression Wembanyama left in Los Angeles is making an impact in San Antonio.

“At his age, it’s eye-opening to see somebody come in and demand excellence and demand greatness,” said Spurs newcomer Lindy Waters III. “He can’t do that without putting himself on that pedestal and making sure that nobody can come at him and say anything. … It’s easy for him to demand that and it makes me want to work harder.”

Now that the season is almost here, Wembanyama feels reinvigorated.

“I’m so much more under control and my conditioning has gotten so much better, but that comes at a price and what I’ve done this summer is world class,” Wembanyama said. “Even in the field of professional sports, I don’t think many people have trained the way we’ve trained this summer.”

That’s why Johnson — in his first season as the head coach after filling in for Gregg Popovich following the Hall of Famer’s stroke last season — is not afraid to say he wants the team “to be in the reflection of Victor.”

“I just really am in awe sometimes of just the levels that he goes (to),” Johnson said. “The things he thinks about that may be a small nuance, but he feels like, ‘If I can add this to my world being, mindset, whatever it may be.’ … I know I wasn’t thinking like that at that age.”

…

There is a sense of awe and inspiration when teammates talk about Wembanyama’s work ethic and open-mindedness. At this point, they’ve seen him do every kind of gravity-defying dunk and block every impossible-to-reach shot. There’s not much he can do physically on the court that will register more than a “wow” here or there.

But they are still trying to wrap their head around his dedication to getting better.

“It’s super motivating. You see a guy like that, it’s just like damn, his mind is set on one thing and that’s being the best he can be,” Champagnie said. “It’s just cool to see. He pushes himself every day and he doesn’t take no for an answer. He’s going on his own path and it’s inspiring.”

Spurs forward Jeremy Sochan said he expects the public to be shocked by what Wembanyama will bring this season.

“I think the consistency is what makes me look at him and be like, ‘He’s going to be crazy in a couple of years,’” Champagnie said. “Even more crazy than he is now.”

After a journey away from the court and around the world, Wembanyama is back and, he says, better than ever. He will forever be living on borrowed time in the NBA. If that blood clot returns, that could be it for him. Eleven-time All-Star Chris Bosh had to retire when it happened to him at age 32, and Wembanyama now knows there is only so much he can control.

But he is going to find what he can control and push it to the max. Now he’s ready to take another big step in his massive shoes toward what could be one of the greatest careers we’ve seen in this league.

“I can assure you, nobody has trained like I did this summer,” Wembanyama said. “And this is my best summer so far. I can tell the progress is just incredible. I feel better, I look stronger and the scale says I’m heavier. So everything is a green light.”

His body put him through a battle, but he’s fighting back.