Pregame, Wandering

By the beginning of the fourth quarter of the 2 p.m. Bucks-Nugs game on Friday, the bottom bowl of the Thomas & Mack Center was mostly full. There was a man in the row below me wearing a white Wembanyama Spurs jersey. Crispy, bleached ivory white. He had a tattoo of a sarcophagus on his left arm and went to work on some chicken tenders. Looked excited, anxious, ready. There was still another game to go before the French extraterrestrial’s debut, but the vibes were raging. The man in the new jersey voice-dictated messages on his Apple Watch and bounced to “Hats Off.” One text said: “Sometimes you got to flex.” Another said: “I love you.” He smiled at his watch, ate another tender, and rapped along—“She know what I can bring to the table.”

The arena was ready. Plenty to see, plenty to hear. Tim Duncan jerseys, Tim Duncan shirseys, a tank top with that Halloween photo of Duncan and an eyepatched Tony Parker pointing guns at a fake Joey Crawford. Back to the shirseys. So many Duncan shirseys. Walk the concourse at the right time and you’d think they were passing them out at the door. Wembanyama, too, was well represented in the sartorial sense. Plenty of no. 1 San Antonio jerseys running around. A dad in a Wemby jersey sat next to his son in a Jeremy Sochan jersey. Both wore backward hats and the son fumbled with a hot dog. Skee-Lo’s “I Wish” played over the speakers and the father was into it, nodding his head, pointing at the court. The boy followed the direction of his father’s hand, looked where he was told, started nodding too.

Other things seen: Tarkanian in the rafters, Wembanyama Metropolitans 92 jerseys, the Michelob Ultra Courtside Experience, and a kid saying, “For some reason the blue Sharpie shows up better.” There was a whole lotta sweat, a whole lotta throwbacks, a whole lotta cross-body-bag and bucket hat combos. So much Austin Reaves gear. A horrifying amount. There was a man in a purple Kobe jersey, Tommy Bahama sunhat, and yellow fanny pack. The jersey was untucked and he wore the fanny outside of it, wrapped around his waist like a belt on a dress.

An elderly husband and wife walked by in matching Wemby jerseys, looking like they had been waiting on this day since Kawhi left. There was a man with arms like sycamores wearing a bootleg McDowell’s All-American game shirt, and two Polo’d guys talking in the beer line.

“Are we gonna take a nap after golf?”

“Obviously.”

Behind them was a woman in a Boogie Cousins Kings jersey. She had a tattoo of a giraffe on her arm and discussed the absurdities of the San Francisco housing market with one of the concessions workers. She ordered two Coors Lights, “For myself and a friend.”

When it got close to tipoff I looked for a place to set up shop for the game. There was a dude on the walkway of the upper bowl recording a video of himself saying, “I’M HERE AFTER PLACING A 2,000-DOLLAR BET ON HIM TO BE [unintelligible bro-ish warbling], I’M HERE AT HIS FIRST GAME,” and the flow of traffic in the aisle forced me down the steps. I stopped at the base of the stairs to watch him some more. He was young, maybe early 20s, wearing shorts with what looked like ice cubes on them. He wasn’t pleased with his first take and went again. A friend held the phone for him while a nice family of six waited to walk to their seats. There was a mother, father, two Giannis jerseys, and two Booker jerseys. The dad stared at the kid recording the video with extreme disgust, looked like he wanted to throw him through the floor, said nothing.

Saw the kid later and realized it wasn’t ice cubes on his shorts, but dice. He was walking past Alvin Gentry. Gentry was standing in front of the Coffee Works on the main concourse, right beside a sign hawking $15 acai bowls, hollering to someone, “Hey, how’s your son doing?” I didn’t wait for the answer. There was basketball to watch.

The Debut

A summer league crowd is ready for anything and wants to love. They want to scream. They want to be loud. And the good people of Thomas & Mack were thirsty for the Frenchman, ready for the start of the rest of their basketball lives. Place was essentially packed. There were a few flecks of empty seats at the top of the arena, weird Tetris blocks of limited space, but for all intents and purposes, it was Wemby fully loaded. Minimal applause for all Hornets starters. The Spurs contingent was a livelier bunch. Wembanyama, for some reason, got the fourth spot in the announcements from the PA guy. Poor Blake Wesley got the hammer spot. The come-down off the roar for Wemby was significant—the sound fell off a cliff.

Sometimes you go to the amusement park and it rains. The jumper just wasn’t falling. A herd of Lakers fans peppered Wemby with drunken grievances and advice. Real evolved stuff like, “Post up,” and, “It’s a vibe you can’t buy.” Every time he caught the ball the place vibrated with expectation, ready for him to make shit boom. The ball would be in his hands not half a second before the calls for him to shoot would start. If he had the defender one-on-one, the arena would get party hungry and start clamoring for heads. Every time he touched it the place reacted like he was only a few points away from some all-time scoring record.

Wembanyama’s performance wasn’t all bad. Nine points, eight rebounds, three assists, and five blocks on 2-of-13 shooting. There were some flashes, sauce, moments of invention, clarity. And to see him in person, even from the tip top of Thomas & Mack, hundreds of rows up, the proportions are cartoonish; defensively it’s clear he is equipped with one hell of an eraser. But he was also passive and not exactly flying around out there. It was an inexplicable yawn of a performance for the most part. A bewildering bummer.

Wemby tried to rattle off a remixed Dream Shake around the five-minute mark of the second quarter and lost the path footwork-wise and wound up on his keester. One of the Lakers guys stood, put his hands on his face like Kevin in Home Alone, and screamed like he witnessed a murder.

There was a clanked 3 off the backboard. Turnovers. Unsureness. Halfway through the third, Kai Jones and his Marcus Smart hair flew in from the rafters to catch a lob over Wembanyama. And the arena sounded like a jet taking off. Jones’s finish was so impressive, and he was feeling himself so much afterward, that a possession or two later, after getting fouled and falling to the floor, he did a kip-up to get back to his feet. A kip-up is always funny because it is never necessary. Unless you’re doing karate or streetfighting, seems like a lot of times it’s faster to just stand up normally. Sick athlete, though.

Later in the third, Wemby got his ankles snatched, with Brandon Miller crossing him up and putting him on his ass. And it’s so hot outside and it’s Vegas and you wonder whether you’re seeing things. Your eyes are presenting you with images that seem like lies. You look around the arena muttering, “What is going on?” This man was here nine months ago putting on one of the more surreal shot displays in recent basketball memory. Now he’s getting outplayed by Kai Jones for stretches? [Rubs eyes.] An electronic ad wrapping the arena says Donald Sutherland is a perfect place to live. But that doesn’t make sense either. [Rubs eyes again, looks back at the ad.] “Downtown Summerlin is a wonderful place to live.” [Rubs eyes again.] “Donald Sutherland kicks ass in Klute.” Another missed shot by Wemby. [Rubs eyes again.] “Space Cowboys is a good movie.” What dark magic is this? What is going on?

By the end of the third quarter, Thomas & Mack sounded like a wake. The crowd had been so primed for wonder, so stoked to see this new impossibility enter the league, so ready for him to dominate, to put on a show. It was supposed to be a radical new beginning. They came to the entertainment capital of the world to be dazzled, and they weren’t.

Near the end of the game I saw Dice Shorts and his cameraman ascending the stairs of the upper bowl a few sections away. They looked dejected, filmed reaction shots, tried to cope. Sometimes it was a shot of Dice Shorts on his phone. Sometimes he clapped. Sometimes he shook his head. Once they switched seats for a different angle. I saw him screaming at the phone, performing for it, pointing at it. They sat near the top, checked the like count on the posts, looked disappointed, betrayed, absolutely furious.

Game Deux

If anyone thought Wemby’s Game 1 performance would do anything to spoil the public’s curiosity, Thomas & Mack was even more full for the Spurs’ second game, on Sunday against the Trail Blazers. Tickets were sold out. In the cab on the way over, the driver wore a Route 66 button-up covered in road signage and fireworks and kept changing stations between classic rock and talk radio. Wild swings from the car stereo. Foreigner: “We can make a secret rendezvous.” Some AM station: “I’ve not been able to find any Vietnam-era night-vision goggles anywhere.” At one point we got stuck behind an 18-wheeler and the driver said, “Always wonderful when you got a big-ass truck in front of you and you can’t see nothing.” Players will most likely have similar frustrations with Wembanyama’s defense. More from the radio: “Reports of UFOs have gone off the scales.”

Once inside, it was wall-to-wall traffic in the concourse, droves of people moving at a crawl. Women in bikini tops and Balenciaga sneakers weaving through merch and concession lines, taking care not to spill their margaritas. A dude with bleached tips and slip-on Sanuks talking on the phone in the bathroom. He held his mouth close to the mic like he was talking on speakerphone and said, “Y’all won’t do shit.”

The arena was practically full and again buzzing. Maybe the energy was not quite as [Kevin Garnett voice] ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE, and maybe there were more skeptics in the mix this time around, but the crowd was still hopeful, still on Wembanyama’s side. Casting directors talk about how when an actor comes in for an audition, the people in the room want them to be the exact right person for the role. They’re rooting for them. They want them to kill it. The summer league crowd handled Wembanyama similarly. He stepped into a warm room, one that was ready to adore him. Stumbles happen, and the free throws need to get sorted out, but talent this tantalizing, this new, this strange, it’s the kind of thing you want to be in the building for.

And this time around Wembanyama’s play was more in line with the astronomical expectations he’s come in with. Twenty-seven points on 9-of-14 shooting, 12 rebounds, three blocks, and a steal. Vegas, baby. City of Second Chances. He shone bright.

It was actual production, but there were also hints of further skills and know-how, interstellar moments when he bumped his head against his current ability while suggesting his future ceiling may well be something on par with the Sistine Chapel’s. There were celestial pull-ups and improbable posterizations, the crowd audible on every touch, begging for magic, getting it. And the fans loved him for it, stayed loud for him, stayed alert as the top pick in this year’s draft led the Spurs on a furious comeback that ultimately came up a hair short. When Wembanyama missed a one-legged runner 3 near the end of the game, it felt like a symbol of both the not-quite-there-yet nature of his current offensive package and his astronomical potential.

The NBA viewing public had come to Vegas like a lot of people, hoping to see some larger-than-life talent put on a show they’ll remember. In the end, Wembanyama gave them one. It’s what stars do. Interplanetary dynamism. He’s a space invader. Don’t let the slow start fool you. Takeover still feels imminent. The basketball universe has expanded. The aliens are here.