It’s increasingly rare in the NBA (all professional sports) for a star athlete to sit down for an extended, in-the-real interview. As athletes find other means of communicating with fans, such conversations can become rarer and less filtered into what a player is going through on and off the court.
Few players in any sport say they have had more results in recent years than Victor Wembanyama. The San Antonio Spurs star reached the NBA Finals last season for the first time and, in the process, became a villain at the mouths of the New York Knicks rooted across the globe to end their 53-year championship drought. He ultimately failed in that game, but now he’s ascended to his place as the inevitable future face of the NBA. With the 2026-27 season just beginning, Wembanyama sat down with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” to discuss his career so far. Here are five highlights:
Why is gambling money delayed?
Sponsorships are the norm for the superstar experience. Wembanyama carefully elaborated on who and what he aligned himself with. In the past, he has indicated that he would never work with a soda company, for example, because he would not want to promote useless products. On Sunday, the conference aims to promote athletes with different disabilities.
“I think you’re an NBA player, and if you’re in the league among the stars, you can really do whatever you want to do with your life,” he said. “Sure, you’re always going to do the best you can on the court. But you can be a promoter on the side, you can choose to be a philanthropist, you can choose to be an amateur who promotes gambling and alcohol. You can choose what you want.”
When asked what choice he had made, Wembanyama reiterated that safety was the starting point of his journey. “I think my choice is not final because I’m still growing as a person,” he said. “But I want to promote healthy, and by healthy, I don’t mean only food, but healthy habits that make people’s lives better. And in the future, that also make society better.”
A poorly understood narrative
The public perception of Wembanyama has changed quite a bit over the course of one season. He was one of the league’s breakout stars last season, and his consistent success in the largely overlooked city of Laton earned him a lot of admiration from casual fans. However, his foul play, first in the second round against the Minnesota Timberwolves and then, of course, against the Knicks, turned him into an overnight villain. While Wembanyama claimed he didn’t pay attention to that sound in the Finals, he learned from it after the fact.
“It shows my goals more than anything else,” Wembanyama said. “Going out there, you have to play basketball, you don’t have to beat the crap out of people. At least if you want to win.” If the finals had lasted beyond five games, he might have learned a lesson.
In Game 5, Wembanyama committed a foul on Jalen Brunson that many later argued was significant, but because the Knicks streak ended then and there, the NBA was not forced to review it. Wembanyama was just one point away from being suspended for a hypothetical Game 6 at Madison Square Garden. Now, Wembanyama wants to make sure he doesn’t find himself in that situation again.
Victor Wembanyama on 60 Minutes: Spurs star explains why ‘criminal’ title didn’t bother him in NBA Finals
Robby Kalland
Why does he not believe in going barefoot?
Shoes are perhaps the single most important piece of equipment in a basketball player’s arsenal, however, as much as possible, Wembanyama prefers to wear them. “I try to walk barefoot as much as I can, and wear the smallest shoes,” he explained. For him health.
“Because big men have always had foot problems,” Wembanyama said, alluding to the NBA’s long history of injury-prone centers. “I find even more and more that the feet are responsible for so much more that follows. It’s funny that I was just talking to a rookie. I walked barefoot and he sees me walking without shoes and he goes, “I don’t know you don’t just wear shoes””.
Wembanyama believes that “if you have good foot strength, which carries a good foot, everything else can be adjusted the right way. Knee, hips, back and everything.” So far his methods seem to be working. His longest absence in the NBA came from a blood clot in his shoulder, and while he dealt with some of the same lower-body injuries that many players sustain in the offseason, he managed to maintain eligibility in both his first and third seasons. The game hasn’t dropped yet this year.
Life in the US can feel shallow
Wembanyama has lived in the United States for more than three years now, yet he acknowledges how atypical his American existence has been. “When they ask me what it’s like to live in the US, I always answer, well, I don’t know. I don’t live a normal life in the US,” he said. “I live the life of an athlete, a rich man, the life of someone who cares about everything no matter what I do. It’s not a regular American life. It’s the best country in sports.”
That atypical experience gave him a unique perspective on life in the United States, and he sees both the pros and cons of growing up in France. “It’s nice to feel like you’re never judged for being ambitious,” he argued. “Bad, I say, I think the social interaction here is more shallow. Not as deep as in other countries.”
Wembanyama is hardly the first foreign-born star to thrive in the NBA, but he can easily outshine all who came before him. The NBA has obviously had MVPs and international champions, but it has never had a foreign face. Eventually, Wembanyama is expected to stand alone on the bench, once the old guard of legends like LeBron James and Stephen Curry have given way. That puts him in a unique position to try to influence the way the stars are acting. He already seems to be trying to do that in the way he chooses sponsors and only time will tell how much more his prospects in the NBA will trickle down to his contemporaries.
What he learned from Gregg Popovich
Wembanyama was never shy about how he was moved to the ground with the spurs. He called her “a free winner” and called both the history with the French players and the presence of “the greatest coach of all time”, as well as before San Antonio won the 2013 NBA Lottery. While that coach, Gregg Popovich, retired after suffering a stroke, Wembanyama started his career with Popovich on the sideline, and revealed that the biggest lesson was “about humility.”
“He often said something when we were in the movie: after a win, you’re rarely as good as you thought you were. And after a loss, you’re rarely as bad as you thought you were,” Wembanyama said.
It’s a formation that will have to continue this season as they try to pick up the pieces of the spurs following the finals loss to New York. San Antonio blew double-digit leads in all four losses in that series, and film inevitably shows the many ways in which they failed against the Knicks. But the Spurs got to the Finals first, well ahead of schedule, and while they don’t work on the interior, they should keep what they’ve done.
It certainly seems as if they have done so this season, losing four straight in the first two games of the season. The Spurs are now the championship favorites following a rash of injuries to the Thunder and maintaining even the keel over the offseason will be essential if they want to favor that status.