Love this part
"When Nanterre would travel to tournaments, to pass time, Boubekri would often read off Trivial Pursuit cards at random, to test his players, particularly Wembanyama, who had a wide range of interests—from science to comic books to art—and esoteric information at the ready. “Victor used to answer the weirdest questions,” he recalls.
On one occasion, as several players huddled inside a hotel room, Boubekri pulled a card he knew would stump him.
“What bird can fly backwards?” he asked.
Naturally, Wembanyama had the answer: le colibri—the hummingbird.
“They were flabbergasted,” Wembanyama recalls. “Karim thought I was joking. Like I had just guessed a random bird.”
Those around Victor marvel at his capacity to store information. “He’s thirsty for knowledge,” says Timberwolves star Rudy Gobert, who met Wembanyama seven years ago and has since become a mentor. Boubekri notes his former pupil’s ability to learn something in a drill one day and unveil it in a game the next. He believes his unusual recall ability and fluid muscle memory work in concert.
“He’s able to reproduce moves very quickly,” he says. At Nanterre, Wembanyama played all five positions. “He’s always been able to try risky things. . . . Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but he’s always been very calm and poised.”
That polymathic skill set transcends the hardwood: Wembanyama also taught himself English and speaks it comfortably, hitting hard R’s and -th sounds with minimal trace of an accent, despite having been to the United States only twice, both in the past six months.
In Wembanyama’s words, “I learn something one time. I’m gonna apply it for the rest of my life.”