San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama plays with a classic NBA gene

Hey Austin, in case you haven’t heard, Victor Wembanyama is in town.

With a couple of days to kill.

The latest great San Antonio Spurs post has an intangible that can only be coached up so far. One can’t manufacture competitive fire. He’s out to destroy any opponent that dares step in his way.

And the NBA’s power dynamic is about to change.

At just 22 years of age, Wembanyama plays with the desperation of a 15-year vet making one last playoff run before retirement. He has that killer gene, the same one coach Gregg Popovich, David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker carried in an historic era.

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“Vic doesn’t care whether we’re playing pickup or one-on-one, he’s going to play hard to win. That’s just who he is,” said Spurs teammate Stephon Castle. “He’s trying to change that narrative of not trying to play hard and trying to try to save your body. But that’s the kind of competitor he is and I didn’t really expect anything less from him.”

Winning is a non-negotiable for the Spurs’ 7-foot-4 French condor who goes after every shot on defense as if it was the final seconds of Game 7 of the Finals. He finished with a modest 17 points and 10 rebounds while swatting away five Phoneix Suns shot attempts in Thursday’s 121-94 blowout of the Phoenix Suns in front of 16,258 at Austin’s Moody Center. He even flashed the Hook’em sign to the fans after swishing a 3-pointer in the third quarter.

“Austin is cool,”  Wembanyama said. “These are my people.”

So where did you get this competitive drive, I asked following the game.

“I think it comes from this team toward myself and obviously toward the game,” he said. “That’s the game I love and I try not to take it for granted. I’m on that court and I’m trying to win, you know? When I was a kid, if I saw myself playing soft at any game, I wouldn’t be proud.”

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The Spurs won their seventh straight game and sit in second place in the Southwest Division at 39-16, the Association’s third-best record behind the  Detroit Pistons and the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, who are 1-4 against the Spurs, by the way.

San Antonio isn’t a one-man band by any stretch — Castle and De’Aaron Fox are one of the quickest backcourts in the league and forward Harrison Barnes won a championship with Golden State in 2015 — but there is zero doubt that it all starts with the big man in the middle, just like it did with the Admiral and Timmy during the glory years.

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But Wembanyama is on the short list of MVP favorites as the league lurches toward the playoffs, a list that includes former NBA champions Shai Gilgeous-Alexander of OKC, Denver’s Nikola Jokic along with Detroit’s Cade Cunningham and Los Angeles’ Luka Doncic. And they were all on hand for the NBA All-Star Game in Los Angeles, where thanks to the league’s tallest superstar, the game took on a different look than in recent years. 

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With sagging TV ratings having become the norm over the last decade-plus, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver revamped the game into a round-robin format with one team comprised of international stars and two others of Americans playing four 12-minute games. It was a smashing success thanks to Wembanyama and Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards, who linked up to singlehandedly breathe life back into what have come a tired, defenseless dunk fest of bored millionaires who had one foot on the court and the other in the limo line heading to the airport.

Wembanyama and Edwards played tirelessly on both ends and inspired others, like  former Spur Kawhi Leonard — who later scored 31 points against Wemby’s Team World squad — to go all out. In short, two of the league’s brightest young stars came out playing hard and the others followed their lead.

Wembanyama scored 14 points with six rebounds and three blocks in less than 10 minutes of Game 1. That’s a monster quarter by league standards, but it wasn’t enough after one of teammates left Team Stars guard Scottie Barnes open for a 3-pointer at the buzzer that delivered a 37-35 overtime win. Wemby screamed in disgust. He wanted it.

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 His team lost that day, but the league won. The message was went. The kid is an assassin, just like Jordan. Just like Kobe. 

“I’m not going to lie,” Edwards said to the TV cameras. “Wembanyama set the tone.”

This is a different Wemby, especially from a physical standpoint. Just one year ago, he was struggling following the all-star break before he was diagnosed with a blood clot. He said he had only 5% blood flow in his right arm, which played a role in him being sluggish before doctors ran a battery of tests. 

The timing was brutal. He was in the middle of a breakout season averaging 24.3 points, 11.0 rebounds and league-best 3.8 blocks before the team shut him down for the season after 46 games.

Now healthy and feeling much more energetic in the dog days of a long season, he’s keeping those size 20.5 Nike GT Cut 4’s on the gas, 12 years after the organzation won its last title. The Spurs are growing into a legitimate championship contender and unlike earlier this season when they were playing down to less talented teams, they’re crushing everything in their wake because their best player demands that effort every night, not just from them, but from himself. 

Just ask the Lakers, who were without LeBron James and Donic when the Spurs rolled into crypto.com Arena on Feb. 11 with a fire-breathing Frenchman ready to put on a show for the Hollywood elite in attendance. He scored 37 of his 40 points in the first half of the Spurs’ 136-108 win and became only the third player in 50 seasons to score 40 points in less than 28 minutes. 

“Vic came out and smacked them in the mouth first and it made everybody else follow,” Fox said. “We’ve had times where we’ve played down to a team that hasn’t played well this year, but with Vic, he doesn’t care who they put in front of him. If you have a jersey on and you’re in front of him, he wants to kill you.”

Wembanyama’s averaging 24.2 points and 11.1 rebounds, and while the blocks are down to 2.7 from last season’s 3.8 — he says opponents aren’t venturing into the paint too much these days — the picture is clear. The Spurs, picked to win around 44 games by prognosticators in the preseason, are well ahead of schedule.

When asked about some league followers who believe the team’s lack of playoff experience will hurt them at the money time, he shrugged it off. 

“I think it’s useless to linger on these thoughts,” Wembanyama said. “We will see at the end of the year.”

Beware, NBA. A killer is on the loose.