Before Wembanyama hit the NBA draft, there was Frédéric Weis

ON A SUNDAY evening in May, the Accor Arena in Paris thrums. Thousands of fans scream and shout as Victor Wembanyama, the 7-foot-4 French teenage basketball sensation, warms up with a blizzard of baby hooks, casual 3-pointers and the occasional hammer slam.

As Wembanyama lopes through the layup line, he brushes past a man of similar height standing near the edge of the court: Frédéric Weis, at 7-2, is impossible to miss. Wearing dark jeans, a suit coat and tie and shiny Air Jordans, he is preparing to do color commentary on the game. He watches closely as Wembanyama goes through his paces.

Height aside, there is no comparison between Weis and Wembanyama in terms of their playing styles; Wembanyama, a lithe, spindly teenager, takes more long-range shots in a single practice than Weis attempted in his entire career. The bruising, banging post play that defined Weis’ game in the 1990s is, as he puts it, “totally dead now.”

But Weis, at 46, knows about expectations and hype, knows about dreams and the way they can slip, ever so quickly, into nightmares. More than two decades before “Wembymania” swallowed up global basketball, Weis was the Frenchman in the spotlight, generally regarded as the best pivot, or big man, in Europe. In summer 1999, he was drafted in the first round by the New York Knicks. It was — like Wembanyama’s selection by the San Antonio Spurs — the development in his life that was supposed to make him, supposed to send him on to fame and glory.

Instead, Weis’ world slowly unraveled, spooling out in a blur of bad luck, awful advice, disastrous decisions and a heavy, crippling depression that left him despondent, wondering if he could ever love his family, his son, himself and his sport in the way he knew he was supposed to.

Weis, then, sees Wembanyama in a unique way: an incredible talent, to be sure — “That’s freakish!” Weis…