: 原標題：Inside the decade-long plan to bring Victor Wembanyama to NBA glory
: (在把 Victor Wembanyama 帶進 NBA 榮光的十年大計之幕後)
: 來源：https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/37651212/
: 作者：Brian Windhorst, Jonathan Givony
（接著編譯第三、第四部分）
第三部分：
NANTERRE 92 IS a nearly 100-year-old family-operated basketball club located
a few miles from Paris' city center. The club is renowned for its incredible
rise, advancing from the very bottom of the French basketball infrastructure
up 11 divisions in a 24-year span. It culminated in an improbable top division
title in 2013. All with the same coach and led by the well-respected Donnadieu
family. The story was made into a movie in France.
楠泰爾是一支距離巴黎市中心有數哩之遠、具有近百年歷史的家族式籃球俱樂部。該俱樂
部以其令人難以置信的崛起而聞名，在二十四年的時間裡從法國籃球的最低級別聯賽連升
了十一級，最高潮是在二零一三年獲得了不可能的頂級聯賽冠軍。這一切都是在同一個教
練的帶領下，由備受尊敬的Donnadieu 家族領導。這個故事在法國被拍成了一部電影。
There is a spartan headquarters, where the handful of cups and trophies that
Wembnayama helped them win over his years there are treated with special
reverence. A few blocks away is a basic three-story dormitory, where
teenagers from its training program are housed in narrow rooms with miniature
kitchens and shared bathrooms.
在一個簡陋的總部，文班亞馬在隊內的幾年裡幫助他們贏得的一些獎盃，被特別尊重地對
待。在數個街區外的是一個基本型三層宿舍，來自培訓項目的青少年被安置在狹窄的房間
裡，有微型廚房和共用浴室。
It's like a basketball Hogwarts, the teenagers living, studying and playing
together. On the green doors of each room are placards commemorating eventual
pros who called each room home during their formative years. Wembanyama's
name is affixed to his old quarters, where the club had to special order an
extra-long bed for him to sleep in.
正如籃球界的霍格華茲般，這是這些青少年們居住、學習和打球的地方。每個房間的綠色
門上都貼著紀念牌，紀念那些在成長過程中以每個房間為家的最終職業選手。文班亞馬的
名字被貼在他的舊宿舍上，這也是俱樂部不得不為他特別訂購一張超長床的住處。
There were a number of teams that offered similar accommodations and roles
for the growing Wembanyama, both inside and outside of France. It included
Spanish powerhouse FC Barcelona, where Wembanyama visited and played one
summer, and INSEP, France's elite academy that has produced stars such as
Tony Parker, Boris Diaw and Evan Fournier.
能為文班亞馬提供相似居住環境、位置的球隊，不論在法國境內、境外，都有很多。這些
球隊包括西班牙豪門巴塞隆納（即他曾效力過一個夏天的球隊），以及法國國家體育學院
（曾出產多位球星的精英學府）。
Wembanyama, though, had connected with the coaches he'd had at Nanterre when
he was playing for their youth teams. It was away from home but not far. And
there was the recent and improbable title that had given the team so much
momentum.
不過，文班亞馬與他在楠泰爾為青年隊效力時的教練有聯繫。這裡離家看似很遠，但並不
遙遠；還有最近實現的冠軍，給了球隊很大的動力。
The club retains the same facilities and charm to this day, which helps
explain why he chose the little engine that could and later played a role in
his eventual departure.
時至今日，球隊保留了相同的設施和魅力，這也解釋了為什麼他選擇了這個小引擎，後來
在他最終離開時發揮了作用。
So at age 14, Wembanyama left home and moved in, a giant step toward his goal
of becoming a professional.
在十四歲那年，文班亞馬離開家並搬進宿舍，朝著成為職業球員的目標踏出巨大的一步。
"I was so much prepared for that. Especially at that age, you know? It's
almost like you want to leave your house," he says. "Of course, and then you
start realizing that what you left was precious."
他說：
「我為此作了許多準備。特別是在該年齡段，你知道嗎？這幾乎是你想離開家的時候；之
後當然也會開始意識到，你留下的一切都是寶貴的。」
More important than all of that was that Nanterre was committed to letting
Wembanyama shape his game in the way he preferred. He wanted to play all over
the court, to learn all the positions, and the Nanterre coaches would let him.
更重要的是，南特爾專注於讓文班亞馬以他的方式塑造比賽。他想要打遍整個球場、習慣
所有的位置，而教練們也讓他這樣做。
"Victor's coaches at Nanterre, they all understood that you have to let him
play his game," says Jeremy Medjana, a Paris-based agent who began working
with Wembanyama when he was 15. "Don't pull him around the basket and ask him
to play just back to the basket because you're going to kill the kid. Victor
is a complete player, you have to let him play."
自從文班亞馬十五歲時，就和他合作的駐巴黎經紀 Jeremy Medjana 說：
「在南特爾的教練們都知道，『你該讓他打好自己的比賽』。不要把他拉到籃下，要求他
只背對著籃筐打球，因為你只會殺了這個孩子。他是一個完整的球員，你必須讓他（盡
情）發揮。」
While he attended a high school nearby during the day, he was kept under the
watchful eye of coaches from Nanterre, who had an office at the school where
his five meals a day were kept in a special refrigerator. For a while,
Nanterre officials charted that Wembanyama was growing about a centimeter a
month.
雖然他白天在附近的一所高中上學，但他一直被南特的教練們盯著，他們在學校有一間辦
公室，他的一日五餐被放在一個特殊的冰箱裡。曾有一段時間，南特的球隊人員記錄了文
班亞馬每月長高約一厘米的情況。
"What's funny is that I tried to protect him while getting a little bit too
involved in his life," says Michael Bur, who coached Wembanyama as a
teenager, including when he officially turned pro at age 15. "At 14, he was
very absent-minded like all teenagers. He forgot his shoes, he forgot his
schedule. But on the other hand, in terms of work and the rigor that we put
in place little by little, he already had the work ethic in him."
曾在少年時期執教過文班亞馬的 Michael Bur 說：
「有趣的是，我試圖保護他，同時又感覺有點過於介入他的生活。十四歲時，他像所有青
少年一樣非常心不在焉。他忘記了自己的鞋子，忘記了自己的時間表；但另一方面，在
工作和我們逐步設置的嚴格要求方面，他身上已經有了職業道德。」
It showed almost immediately. Early in his tenure with Nanterre, a troubling
habit emerged, one his coaches struggled to break. When Wembanyama would
shoot, he'd spread the fingers on his left hand, causing issues with the
rotation.
問題很快就出現了。在他早期效力南特爾時，一個令人不安的習慣出現了，而他的教練們
竭力想打破它。當文班亞馬想要投籃時，他會張開左手手指，導致旋轉出現問題。
Then suddenly one day, Bur noticed it had been resolved. The hand was closed
and in perfect form every time, almost overnight. Bur, fascinated, asked his
student what happened. Wembanyama told him he'd spent the previous few days
putting small pieces of paper between his fingers so he'd learn to always
keep them together.
然後突然有一天，Bur 發現問題得到了解決。幾乎在一夜之間，這隻手就閉上了，而且每
次都有完美的形態。Bur 好奇地問他的學生發生了什麼。文班亞馬告訴他，他在前幾天把
小紙片放在手指間，這樣他就能學會把手指放在一起。
"He doesn't want to give back knowledge, he doesn't want to learn just to
learn," Bur says. "He needs to understand what he is doing. He was a player
who was always asking questions, even if it meant cutting me off 15 times
during training, because he always wanted to know why."
Bur 說：
「他不想回饋知識，他不想僅僅為了學習而學習。他需要了解自己在做什麼。他是一個總
是在問問題的球員，即使這意味著在訓練中將會打斷我十五次，因為他總是想知道為什
麼。」
Wembanyama's focus on what he wanted his future to be expanded beyond the
court. As he played in events elsewhere in Europe, he started to believe
English was the language of basketball.
文班亞馬對他希就本身未來的期盼擴展到了球場之外。當他在歐洲其他地方參加活動時，
他開始相信英語是籃球的語言。
"Knowing I would play in the NBA later, I was really interested in English,"
Wembanyama says of his mindset as an early teen. "Basketball people speak
English."
文班亞馬以其少年時期的心態說：
「知道將來我會在NBA 打球後，我對英語起了興趣。畢竟籃球員多說英語。」
He dearly wanted to be a basketball person.
他是真心想要成為籃球員。
"Victor was always focused on his goals. ... I had to fight with him to get
him out of the gym," Medjana said. "After practice he was shooting the ball,
and he could shoot for hours. And I remember with the dad and the mum saying,
'Victor, now! We need to go!' Every day, same story. It was like a battle to
get him out of the gym."
Medjana 說：
「維克多總是專注於他的目標。……我不得不和他爭吵，催他離開體育館。訓練結束後，
他還在投籃，他可以投上幾個小時。我記得他爸爸和媽媽說，『Victor，時間到了！我
們得走了！』每天，同樣的故事。這就像一場讓他離開體育館的戰鬥。」
At first, Wembanyama was on Nanterre's junior team, practicing before and
after the senior team. The older players couldn't help but notice the ultra
tall kid with shocking ability to both dribble and shoot. The French national
team would sometimes use Nanterre's arena, Palais des Sports, as a practice
base before international events, and that's where the country's top players
began to understand, and intensify, the Wembanyama buzz.
起初，文班亞馬在南特爾的少年隊中，在成年隊的前後練習。成年隊球員們不禁注意到這
個超高的孩子，他的運球和投籃能力都很驚人。法國國家隊有時會在國際賽事之前使用南
泰爾的球館——體育宮作為訓練基地，這也是該國頂級球員開始瞭解並加強文班亞馬氣勢
的地方。
In the spring of 2018, then-ESPN draft analyst Mike Schmitz saw Wembanyama
for the first time in practice and took some video of him. Once a player got
attention from Schmitz, who is now the assistant general manager of the
Portland Trail Blazers, the NBA world was usually soon to follow.
在二零一八年春季，時任 ESPN 選秀分析師 Mike Schmitz 第一次見到文班亞馬參與訓練
時，順手拍下了數部影片。一旦一名球員得到現為拓荒者副總經理的Schmitz 之關注後，
NBA 世界通常很快就會跟進。
Eventually Wembanyama was invited to practice and then promoted to play with
Nanterre's senior team, and he held his own. He played for Nanterre in his
first EuroCup in 2019, three months before his 16th birthday.
最終，文班亞馬受邀參加訓練，然後被提拔到南特爾的成年隊打球，他堅持自己的觀點。
二零一九年，在十六歲生日的前三個月，他第一次為南特爾隊參加歐洲聯賽。
He was bumped around by older, stronger players, of course, but he answered
back