2024 Paris Olympics: Winning Gold at 20 Would Put Victor Wembanyama In Rare Air

The German national team, led by Franz Wagner and Dennis Schröder, was a 4.5-point favorite over France on Thursday. In the days and weeks leading up to their matchup, plenty of fans and analysts pegged Germany as perhaps the biggest stumbling block along Team USA's march to gold.

But after a 73-69 win for France, in which rising phenom Victor Wembanyama had 11 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three blocks, that stumbling block is gone. A 7'4" Frenchman now stands in its place.

For at least the last year, it felt like Wemby would eventually end up here (or higher). He was as hyped as any NBA draft prospect since LeBron James. A month before he landed with the San Antonio Spurs, ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski called him "maybe the greatest prospect in the history of team sports."

Then, he had a rookie campaign that somehow exceeded even the loftiest expectations.

He played at or near an All-NBA level in 2023-24. Catch-all numbers pegged him as one of this season's 15 best players. His basic numbers—21.4 points, 10.6 rebounds, 3.9 assists, 3.6 blocks and 1.2 steals—were nearly unprecedented. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the only player in league history who matched or exceeded all five of those averages for a full campaign, and he did it in his seventh year.

Had his first year and change in the international spotlight ended with just that hype, those numbers and the NBA's Rookie of the Year award, we'd all be more than justified in thinking he'll be an all-timer. And when I say all-timer, I mean all-timer. It's obviously early—Wemby just turned 20 in January—but no one has started a career like this.

It just so happens that basketball's biggest international tournament followed up that rookie year. The 2024 Games are in France, Wembanyama's home country. And he's undoubtedly been one of the stars of the event.

Since the knockout round tipped off, Wembanyama has struggled with his shot, but that did little to neutralize his overall impact. France dropped longtime national team star Rudy Gobert from the starting lineup because Wembanyama can mostly replicate his rim protection while also being a significantly better and more versatile offensive player.

The creator-to-finisher ratio may be a little out of whack (at times, Wemby has certainly over-dribbled), but having a 7'4" player who can get shots for himself and teammates, hit threes and finish plays as a rim-runner or offensive rebounder gives France an offensive dynamic that really no other team in the tournament has.

But of course, at least for now, his biggest impact still happens on the other end of the floor.

Wembanyama's ability to both shut down the paint and cover an incomparable amount of ground on the perimeter was the driving reason Germany managed just 69 points on Thursday.

He didn't spend much time specifically matched up with Franz Wagner, but the one-man defensive scheme helped eliminate driving lanes. Wagner went scoreless in the second and third quarters and finished the game 4-of-10 from the field.

And beyond all of that, watching Wembanyama is just an absolute spectacle. Players his size are exceptionally rare. Players his size, who handle the ball like a guard, move around the floor like a wing and finish inside like a center, well, they didn't exist before he came along.

Giannis Antetokounmpo is five inches shorter and doesn't have the jump-shooting mechanics that Wemby does. Nikola Jokić and Joel Embiid can't move or defend like him. Other top-tier rim protectors, like Gobert, are far more limited offensively.

The only comp that might make some sense is Kareem. But even there, Wembanyama feels more like the next link in the evolutionary chain than a perfect analog.

Now, this once-in-the-history-of-the-sport talent has a chance to ratchet up the hype even more. His teammates, like Mathias Lessort, Guerschon Yabusele and Isaïa Cordinier, certainly deserve a lot of the credit for getting this far, but the well-rounded contributions of the senior team rookie have been indispensable. And he may have to find yet another level to beat the juggernaut waiting for them in the gold-medal game.

Through five games, Wembanyama is averaging 13.8 points, 10.2 rebounds, 3.6 assists, 2.2 steals and 2.0 blocks. He'll need every bit of that and more to overcome the star power and depth of Team USA.

The Americans were pushed to their limit by Serbia and will likely be locked in for the final game.

If Wembanyama caps this last 12-14 months off with a gold in Paris, especially one that comes at the expense of the globe's greatest basketball power, we might have to adjust our expectations again.