{"id":857868,"date":"2026-08-14T13:50:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857868\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T13:50:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T13:50:10","slug":"wemby-reportedly-training-with-french-rugby-team-ahead-of-new-nba-season-after-spurs-finals-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/857868\/","title":{"rendered":"Wemby Reportedly Training with French Rugby Team Ahead of New NBA Season After Spurs&#8217; Finals Run"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">After spending last offseason working in the Shaolin Temple and learning Kung Fu to help his on-court game, San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama has taken his training to the rugby pitch. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">According to French digital media outlet Rugbyrama (h\/t L&#8217;Equipe&#8217;s Maxime Aubin), Wembanyama and Spurs teammate Harrison Barnes have been training with a rugby team in Provence, France. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">Wembanyama conducted work at the Shaolin Temple last year in an attempt to train his body and mind in different ways to help improve his NBA game.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">Master Yan&#8217;an, a warrior monk at the Temple, explained the goal of his work with Wembanyama to ESPN&#8217;s <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong mui-mlpnpn\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48818786\/how-34-generations-shaolin-warrior-monk-training-helped-build-once-generation-nba-superstar-victor-wembanyama\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Ramona Shelburne<\/a>: <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">&#8220;I told him: You play basketball, and I do kung fu. If you want to be great, you have to do things that other people can&#8217;t do. There are two parts to climbing the mountain. The daytime is for your body. Your endurance, your strength. The nighttime is for your mind. Your awareness.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">The approach seemed to work. Wembanyama set career-highs in scoring average (25.0 points per game), rebounds (11.5) and finished third in MVP voting to help lead the Spurs to the NBA Finals. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">There&#8217;s no exact indication of what Wembanyama is getting from his work with a rugby team, but it&#8217;s a sport that requires great strength, a strong core and high-level stamina. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">Wembanyama already possesses many of those traits, but there&#8217;s always room to grow when you&#8217;re only 22 years old. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium mui-m06sf4\">If rugby has anywhere near the same impact on Wembanyama&#8217;s game that the Shaolin Temple did last year, the rest of the NBA should be terrified about what he can become on the court. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After spending last offseason working in the Shaolin Temple and learning Kung Fu to help his on-court game,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-857868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}