A group of Wembanyama’s former coaches, teammates and trainers greeted him and the Spurs at Palais des Sports Maurice Thorez on Monday.

The Texas-based basketball franchise will play the first of its two NBA games in Paris against the Indiana Pacers on Thursday.

VICTOR Wembanyama returned home to be the star of the show at the NBA’s games in Paris. Wemby, 21, paid a visit to the team which helped him kick start his basketball career. He played two

In France, basketball is rapidly growing, and as the NBA looks to capitalize on that, they sent the San Antonio Spurs and Indiana Pacers to Paris to play a series of two games this week. While Accor Arena would likely be sold out anyway, the draw of Victor Wembanyama has been enough for the entire City of Lights to be abuzz with excitement.

Wembanyama is a special talent, and before the whole world knew who he was, he was a kid from Le Chesnay in the Paris region. That is where he grew to love the game of basketball. As he and his team get ready to play a two-game series in his home country against the Indiana Pacers, he was honored with a special basketball court in his hometown.

Officially, Indiana will be the home team on the scoreboard when it plays San Antonio in Paris on Thursday. The Pacers know better. The upcoming NBA Paris Games are this

The centerpiece of the Spurs’ trek to Paris has been Tuesday’s sojourn to Le Chesnay, where Wembanyama was on hand as the city cut the ribbon on an outdoor basketball court adjacent to the gym where he took some of his first fledgling jump shots as a kid.

We know in a season it is not going to be a straight line,” Spurs star Victor Wembanyama said. “The long term is never being questioned."

Paris has long been a hotspot for basketball, with deep ties to the NBA through its rich history of French players who’ve made their mark in the sport.

Wembanyama was born and raised in Le Chesnay-Rocquencourt, a western Paris suburb, and has made it a focus this week to introduce his teammates to Parisian culture and the life he led before he became the NBA Rookie of the Year and likely next face of the league.

One day after Donald Trump was inaugurated and signed dozens of executive orders, San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg revealed some of those orders forced him to cancel an economic development trip to France.