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PARIS — IN A SMALL park in Rive Gauche, the Parisian district known for its art and culture, is one of the highest murals in Europe, an 88-foot old stairwell that has been turned into a colorful collection of squiggly figures designed to cheer up patients in the nearby children’s hospital.
Located just a mile southeast of the Eiffel Tower, Victor Wembanyama has enjoyed this little corner of the city since he was a child, a beacon of color and happiness in an area that is otherwise drab and melancholy. The mural’s artist, the late American pop art icon Keith Haring, picked it for this very reason, wanting to lift spirits. Haring was Wembanyama’s favorite artist as he was growing up and falling in love with art and basketball.
The title of the work is “Tower.” Wembanyama, a 7-foot-5 teenager who has been riding an international hype train over the past five years, understandably relates.
Basketball prospects and art are both subjective — beauty is often in the eye of the beholder — but the rarest are those in which there’s universal agreement.
Wembanyama is the most anticipated prospect in a generation, making Tuesday’s NBA draft lottery (8 p.m. ET, ESPN) an event with potentially historic consequences.
His games and practices in France are packed with NBA scouts and executives, even from teams with no hope of drafting him as the No. 1 pick in June. LeBron James called him “an alien.” Stephen Curry said he gave off “cheat-code-type vibes.” Giannis Antetokounmpo said, “I think he’s going to be one of the best to play this game.”
But as all this has been raging around him — the brands that are calling incessantly, wooing him…
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