{"id":547540,"date":"2026-01-19T21:51:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:51:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/547540\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T21:51:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T21:51:12","slug":"how-victor-wembanyamas-all-star-starter-nod-secures-team-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/547540\/","title":{"rendered":"How Victor Wembanyama’s All-Star starter nod secures team history"},"content":{"rendered":"

Add another honor to the growing Victor Wembanyama<\/a> legend as he secures a unique spot within the storied history of the San Antonio Spurs<\/a> franchise. In being selected as a starter in the 2026 All-Star Game, the recently turned 22-year-old becomes only the fifth Spur ever to start in the annual NBA classic.<\/p>\n

Not on that list are Pro Basketball Hall-of-Famers Tony Parker and Manu Ginobili<\/a>, who are widely regarded as two of the best six players in team history.<\/p>\n

While the selection marks Wemby\u2019s second consecutive All-Star nod, it’s his first as a starter<\/a>. With the distinction, he joins San Antonio icons Tim Duncan and David Robinson, both of whom, like Wembanyama<\/a>, are big men who went first overall in their respective drafts. The 2023 top overall draftee appears on his way to navigating turnarounds as Duncan and Robinson did before him.<\/p>\n

Robinson’s rookie year marked the greatest single-season turnaround in league history at the time. It was a record that stood until the Spurs broke it again, by a game (36) in Duncan’s first year as a pro, eight seasons later. The Spurs won their first-ever championship in Duncan’s second year.<\/p>\n

As of this latest Wembanyama accolade, the Spurs sport 29 wins through mid January and sit second in the Western Conference standings. They won 34 games all of last season.<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard, who earned 2014 Finals MVP honors, and Alvin Robertson, an NBA Defensive Player of the Year and four-time All-Star, round out the players in franchise history who’ve been selected as starters. San Antonio has now had at least one All-Star selection in 43 of the 49 NBA All-Star Games since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, tied with the Los Angeles Lakers for the most of any franchise in that span.<\/p>\n

A look inside Victor Wembanyama’s 2025-2026 season<\/p>\n

The Spurs’ leading scorer for a third straight season has helped guide the Spurs to a 29-13 mark<\/a> by averaging a career-best 24.5 points to go along with 10.9 rebounds, three assists, and 2.6 blocks in just under 29 minutes in 28 games. He is also shooting a career-high 51.6% (238-461) from the field and 38.2% (47-123) from beyond the arc. The 2023-2024 Rookie of the Year is the only player in the NBA averaging 20-plus points, 10-plus rebounds and two-or-more blocks. He leads the NBA in blocks per game and ranks fourth in rebounding.<\/p>\n

This season, the 2023-2024 Defensive Player of the Year runner-up extended his streak of consecutive games with a block to 101, which represents the third-longest streak in NBA history and set a franchise record. On January 13 at the Oklahoma City Thunder, he blocked the 500th shot of his career<\/a>, becoming the second-youngest player in NBA history to have 500 blocks and fourth fastest ever to 500 at 143 games, joining Robinson, Manute Bol and Mark Eaton.<\/p>\n

In a November victory at the Chicago Bulls, Wemby became the first player in NBA history to record 35-plus points, 10-plus rebounds, 5-plus assists, 5-plus three-pointers and 5-plus blocks in a game.<\/p>\n

The 7-foot-5 phenom will suit up for the World Team on February 15 in a new format<\/a> with two teams of players born in the United States and one team of international players competing in a round robin tournament. All-Star Starters were determined through a weighted vote by fans (50%), current NBA players (25%), and a media panel (25%).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Add another honor to the growing Victor Wembanyama legend as he secures a unique spot within the storied…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,6,7218,2144,969,474,4075,4074,534,693],"class_list":{"0":"post-547540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio-spurs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-nba-all-star-game","11":"tag-reporting","12":"tag-san-antonio","13":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","14":"tag-sanantonio","15":"tag-sanantoniospurs","16":"tag-spurs","17":"tag-victor-wembanyama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}