An immediate attraction across the NBA, standing at 2.24 meters combined with impressive ball-handling skills and basketball IQ, making a play against Victor Wembanyama is a challenge for any player in the league based in North America. Celebrations, often excessive, naturally follow such success.

“Looking back, yeah,” Wemby replied to a question about being guarded by multiple players during the meeting of the San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets in Frost Bank Center on Tuesday evening, “And also when somebody does a good play on me and they are super happy, also looking back, I see it as a compliment. But on the court, it is not what I think about.”

After a sluggish start versus the Rockets, the 20-year-old prodigy from France finished with a 13-point, 10-rebound double-double. He was not enough to prevent a narrow loss for the team coached by Gregg Popovich. The Spurs were forced down to 14-52 in the 2023-24 NBA Regular Season.

“The physicality, the energy,” he described facing the team coached by Ime Udoka, “Every night it’s a challenge, but this is a very aggressive team defensively, so this is the most hard.”

“When you’ve got a guy like Wembanyama, we feel like we have three, four really solid defenders that we can throw on him,” shared Udoka after leading his side to 30-35 without Turkish Alperen Sengun in the lineup, “Guys that are undersized that can kind of move in on him and take him off his spot.”