Chris Paul recalls the shock he felt from Victor Wembanyama's past as an academy player

During one year with the San Antonio Spurs, Chris Paul became a valuable mentor for his younger teammates. He was by far the oldest player on the roster, so he was naturally the leader the players turned to for advice.

The biggest beneficiaries of that were the youngsters from the 2024-25 Spurs team: Victor Wembanyama and Stephon Castle. In fact, Wembanyama always hung out with Paul, as they even went to France to train. Wemby himself told Paul about his past as an academy player, which left Paul gobsmacked.

Chris Paul compares Victor Wembanyama's academy past to what happens in the USA

As a player who grew up in the United States, Paul had an established path to the NBA. That is playing through high school, getting recruited to play college basketball, and then getting drafted to the NBA. That has been a long-standing path to the league, but the rise of international players has shown there are other ways to reach the NBA.

For a long time, European players have made their way to becoming top players by grinding it out in the EuroLeague and other leagues around the world. In recent years, many European players have gone through the academy system, which helps develop younger athletes to become the best versions of themselves.

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This is the same system that has continuously produced top-level soccer players over the past few decades. For Wembanyama, his basketball upbringing mostly came from Nanterre 92, a professional basketball club in the city of Nanterre, in the western part of Paris, France.

For Paul, it was a culture shock because it was a completely different setup for him and the rest of the US sports system. However, it was quite familiar for both Wemby and the rest of Europe.

"I was like, 'You were living over there like by yourself at like 15?'... I'm not sure parents here in America are ready to let your kids go live on their own," Paul said on The Late Run show with Ochocinco.

While this has been normalized in Europe and other parts of the world, this feels quite foreign for US-based athletes. Not only are the young athletes playing for an academy system, but they are often getting a good education as well. It functions as a proxy for the high-school and college systems, but they are much more focused on sports development.

It might feel different to what athletes are used to in the NBA, but it has proven to be quite effective. Wembanyama is a product of an academy, and there will be many more in the future that follow in his footsteps.

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