Victor Wembanyama Is Spending His Off-Season With Chinese Monks

Yahoo! Sports – Victor Wembanyama Channels Inner Monk With New Bald Head Look, Begins 10-Day Shaolin Retreat originally appeared on Fadeaway World.

Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-3 French phenom and San Antonio Spurssuperstar, has once again proven that he is unlike any other NBA player, not just in size or skill, but in spirit.

In a dramatic and unexpected offseason move, Wembanyama has embarked on a 10-day Shaolin Temple retreat in Zhengzhou, China, seeking spiritual growth and personal clarity far from the glamour of the NBA.

I don't necessarily have any facts or evidence to back this up, but my initial gut told me Victor Wembanyama is too young to go full monk. But the more I thought about it, the fact that Wemby is a Frenchman throws a bit of a wrench in my thought process. The French are always doing peculiar things. Carrying loaves of bread on their bicycles, being mimes, surrendering wars, gifting giant 300-foot ladies to other countries, etc. I also feel like Victor Wembanyama is a worldly guy. Earlier this off-season a video surfaced of him playing soccer with some local youths in Costa Rica.

So the combination of Wemby being a weirdo-Frenchman, as well as a noted traveler, leads me to believe spending an off-season with Chinese monks is maybe less of a diversion from his normal life than it would be for most professional athletes. It's not like when Aaron Rodgers went on his ayahuasca retreat in South America then disappeared for a week to sit in a dark room, and it was abundantly clear to everyone that his career was cooked. If we heard news later this week that following the Knicks exit from the playoffs (and on the heels of the entire internet attempting to out him as gay zesty), that Karl Anthony-Towns was on a month long Shamanic healing retreat in Indonesia, we would know that KAT was in the midst of a devestating mental breakdown the likes of which he'd almost certainly never recover from. 

For most athletes, I would look at a Chinese monk retreat as an act of desperation from a man who wants the world to know he's actually fine. That he's actually in the best head space of his life, and is feeling more in tune with his mind and body. Sure they might come out of their Eastern medicine retreat with a better perspective on life, but the last thing you want from the superstar leader of your franchise is to have a "good perspective" on life. Do you think Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan had a "good perspective"? Of course not. They were fucking insane. They weren't happy unless they were actively shitting down their opponents throat and making other people's lives a living hell. So it may seem a little concerning that at age 21, Victor Wembanyama is with the Chinese monks learning how to live and be happy while surviving on so little. But it seems like Victor Wembanyama has always been a little like that. According to things he's said in the past, he's always been a bit of an eccentric guy. 

This is, after all, the same player who once declared that his goal in life was to become a “complete human being,” not just an athlete. His favorite author is Brandon Sanderson, and he spends his off days sketching in notebooks and debating philosophy.

I think he can handle a bit of monking without completely losing sight of what's not important in life. 

Again, I probably also feel that way Victor Wembanyama is from not-America and has roughly the same skin color as the Chinese monks, so despite being 9-feet tall he actually kinda blends in. He has a bit of a reserved, monkish demeanor to him. In some ways his game is a bit monk-like. He's relatively quiet on the court. Not in-your-face aggressive, or menacing. Just a humble center with a hundred-foot wingspan modestly shooting threes and pinning lay-ups against the backboard from center court. Exactly how you would expect an enormous monk to ball.

Also, I don't know if most monks are like this, but the monks Wemby has chosen to spend his time with are apparently karate monks.

The monks, known for their elite martial arts training, mental endurance, and strict self-discipline, have welcomed Wembanyama not as a celebrity but as a humble student.

Karate monks sound pretty awesome. "Elite martial arts training" kind of goes against everything I thought I knew about monks. But I'd imagine karate monks are big on only using their karate skills in times when they're absolutely necessary. I do like the idea of monks who are ulltra non-violent, but if pressed are able to beat the shit out of whoever they please Steven Seagal style.

Just don't go too crazy with becoming a complete human being, Victor. Not quite yet. Save being too good of a person for retirement. Or at least the latter part of your career. You can figure out what matters in life after you make your first billion dollars.