Why Victor Wembanyama is the NBA's next big thing

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Eight days after Chicago's NHL team won the right to select Connor Bedard, another teenage phenom touted as a generational talent is up for grabs in tonight's NBA draft lottery. The big (and we do mean big) prize is Victor Wembanyama, the 19-year-old French phenom who many are calling the best basketball prospect since LeBron James went pro two decades ago.

Wembanyama's exact height remains something of a mystery after he didn't attend the draft combine. But he's listed between 7-foot-3 and 7-foot-5, which would make him one of the tallest players in the NBA. Like a traditional centre, Wembanyama's height (and eight-foot wingspan) create nightmares for opposing scorers as he can block or alter their shots without even leaving his feet.

What really sets this big man apart, though, is that he plays offence like a guard. Wembanyama can handle the ball, create shots for himself and his teammates, shoot threes from anywhere, hit stepbacks and throw down highlight-reel dunks. "Kevin Durant crossed with Rudy Gobert," is how the Ringer's Kevin O'Connor described him, implying Wembanyama is a mix between one of the most unstoppable scorers in NBA history and a three-time Defensive Player of the Year.

Wembanyama put his extraterrestrial array of skills on display last fall in Las Vegas, where his French-league club Metropolitans 92 played a pair of exhibition games against the NBA's G League Ignite — a developmental team featuring guard Scoot Henderson, expected to go No. 2 in the draft. Wembanyama scored 37 points with seven 3-pointers and five blocked shots in the first game