Victor Wembanyama’s on-court warmup session before games when he played in France would last for about an hour. It consisted of plenty of stretching, lots of passing and dribbling drills, then a little bit of shooting.
The basics. The skills. Nothing else.
“It’s what you’re taught to bring to the game,” he said at the time, a year or so before the San Antonio Spurs made the French star the No. 1 pick in last year’s NBA draft.
Taught in some places, perhaps. Taught everywhere, not so much. There are many in the NBA — from Commissioner Adam Silver on down the line — sounding a bit of an alarm about how the development of young players in the U.S. differs from the process in other parts of the world, and how the model that seems to focus more on playing than practicing maybe isn’t the best method.
This year’s draft will once again reflect the shifting tide.