Victor Wembanyama Offers a Fairly Spicy Quote About Stars Who Don’t Work Hard

Stephen Douglas | Oct 16, 2024

Victor Wembanyama during a preseason game. / Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

Victor Wembanyama is on the cover of Sports Illustrated ahead of his second NBA season. In addition to the magazine profile, Wemby took some time to sit down and answer some questions on video about Star Wars, aliens and playing with Chris Paul.

He also revealed what he learned during his rookie season and one quote in particular from the video is starting to make the rounds on social media as people try to guess who Wemby is talking about.

Here's the Spurs star talking about how some players have inspired him and some have not quite lived up to the hype.

Wembanyama was asked what surprised him about his rookie season and said, "I think both in a good and bad way it's how truly the best in the game are. How in a good way some of them are really impressive and inspiring in the way they approach the game every night. But others that I used to like and now I'm just like nah. I'm not sure that they deserve you know... they don't seem like they put as much work as I thought."

Fairly spicy, no? Asked if there were players he still admired in the league, Wemby named one of his French teammates but kept coming back to one player.

"Some of the guys it was kind of, some of the guys I've been watching growing up, I'm not disappointed, but I'm like that's it? But some of them, I'm talking like KD, of course, you know I got to know Rudy Gobert more with the national team, I know their work ethic. I know how they view the game and it's really inspiring and I want to do the same. I want to do the same."

After asking what the original question was, he reiterated that it's Kevin Durant. Unfortunately, he did not name any specific names of players whose work ethic he perceives as lacking. Still, it's incredible confidence from the 20-year-old. Not to mention an uncanny ability to sniff out the actual hard workers in the league at such a young age. Being able to identify who is and isn't grinding should be a helpful skill as he continues his ascent and more and more players want to be on his team.

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