Victor Wembanyama, as eager to acquire knowledge as he is to stuff stat sheets, fit right into NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
SAN ANTONIO — From extraordinary statlines to his out-of-this world physicality, Victor Wembanyama has done just about everything he can to earn his moniker of “The Alien” over his first two NBA seasons with the San Antonio Spurs.
It only makes sense, then, that as his third NBA campaign looms, Wemby would lean fully into the nickname with a visit to NASA in Houston.
The Johnson Space Center shared on Friday shared photos of the 21-year-old Spurs star mingling with team members at Mission Control and towering over a group of astronauts. He even took a ride in a lunar rover on sit, NASA says (although getting in and out of it probably took some high-level calculations, given Wemby’s 7-foot-3 frame).
“He even signed the hatch like a true space VIP,” the Johnson Space Center shared in a post on X. “No simulations needed, just stellar vibes.”
Wembanyama’s fascination for the scientific and even cosmic has become just as much a part of his persona as his stellar play on the court since being drafted by the Spurs in 2023.
Case in point: His Rookie of the Year presentation ceremony in May 2024 was hosted by a planetarium located at San Antonio College, where he stuck around with a group of young fans to catch a presentation on dark matter.
“I like these kinds of questions,” Wembanyama said that day. “Dark matter is a mass we can’t see, but we know it’s there because it’s got influence on gravitational pulls and the speed of gravitational orbits in every galaxy. Its presence inside galaxies is five times higher than regular seeable matter, so it’s a huge mystery. We can’t see it. We can’t observe it, but we can observe its influence. This is dark matter. Very sci-fi.”
Expectations are high for the Spurs this season, which tips off Oct. 22 against the Mavericks in Dallas. If there are any reports of UFOs in the sky overhead North Texas that day, we’ll know why.