{"id":535708,"date":"2026-09-29T19:37:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T17:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=535708"},"modified":"2026-09-29T19:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T17:37:21","slug":"victor-wembanyama-i-couldnt-imagine-a-better-motivation-than-losing-in-the-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/victor-wembanyama-i-couldnt-imagine-a-better-motivation-than-losing-in-the-finals\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Wembanyama: \u201cI couldn\u2019t imagine a better motivation than losing in the Finals\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At the <strong>San Antonio Spurs Media Day<\/strong>, Victor Wembanyama spoke with great maturity about dealing with the disappointment of last season\u2019s NBA Finals loss to the New York Knicks and his team\u2019s huge ambitions for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI don\u2019t want to hide anything. I\u2019ve had nights when it was difficult even to fall asleep. Strong emotions, sometimes tormented emotions. But there comes a point when you accept that you have to go through them and experience them all if you want to reach the top.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Honestly, I couldn\u2019t imagine a better motivation [than losing in the Finals]. Now we have to face the reality that we have to play more than 100 games to get back there. We\u2019re ready, very confident and ambitious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wembanyama certainly did not take it easy during the offseason, between commitments with the French national team, a <strong>mini-camp organized in Nanterre<\/strong> with some of his Spurs teammates, and a <a href=\"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wembanyama-trains-with-a-rugby-team-spends-four-days-with-provence-rugby\/\">stint training <\/a>with a rugby team.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBeing together this summer was fantastic. Especially the time in France, which was really touching and emotional for me.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Wembanyama also addressed the Spurs\u2019 ambitions and the growing hostility from opposing fans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe feel like this is our place. We\u2019re fighting to get to the top of the mountain, and we\u2019ll have to move the obstacles we find along the way. That\u2019s just how things go.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[On opposing fans booing him] I take it as a great sign of respect. Fans love you when you play for them and hate you when you\u2019re a rival. That\u2019s their way of embracing competitiveness. I really have nothing against it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Back with the crew \ud83d\ude0e <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/RRyOB9tM55\">pic.twitter.com\/RRyOB9tM55<\/a><\/p>&mdash; San Antonio Spurs (@spurs) <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/spurs\/status\/2104967962822168649?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 29, 2026<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.x.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;We\u2019re fighting to get to the top of the mountain, and we\u2019ll have to move the obstacles we find along the way&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":512038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[967],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-535708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba","tag-san-antonio-spurs-en"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2026\/08\/victor-wembanyama-francia-photo-fiba.webp","digistream_id":0,"digistream":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=535708"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535708\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":535710,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535708\/revisions\/535710"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=535708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=535708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=535708"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=535708"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=535708"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=535708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}