Before Game 3 of the N.B.A. finals, the San Antonio Spurs star Victor Wembanyama wanted to disconnect and get some fresh air.
But in New York City you can try to disconnect all you want — the city will still find you. Especially if you are the 7-foot-4 superstar in town to take on the Knicks.
So on Sunday afternoon, as he sat in Gramercy Park sketching a statue, someone saw him and shot a video from several yards away. The quiet moment instantly went viral.
Mr. Wembanyama, 22, has long had a fascination with New York City, a place he saw in movies and television shows when he was growing up in a suburb of Paris near the Palace of Versailles. But his quest to win an N.B.A. championship stands in opposition to the desires of many of the city’s residents. They want the Knicks to win this year’s championship. Mr. Wembanyama is attempting to lead his team back from what’s now a 2-1 deficit in the best-of-seven series.
“The Playoffs, it’s like a — I don’t know how to say that word — a whirlwind,” said Mr. Wembanyama, who taught himself English years ago to prepare for playing in the N.B.A., at a news conference on Monday night. “It’s hard to put your head out of the water. Sometimes I don’t even get to watch the game back right away. I need some time off, let my brain cool down, recover. Recover as much for the body as for the mind.”
This trip hasn’t lent itself to much sightseeing. The outing to Gramercy Park was one of the few moments when he was able to spend time in one of the city’s institutions, beyond the hours he has spent at Madison Square Garden. Mostly, he has been resting his body and getting treatment on the bumps and bruises that come with playing in a physically taxing playoff series.
But in the past, he has used his brief visits to experience New York City as much as he can.
The first time he visited was in 2023 when he came for the N.B.A. draft. During that trip, he visited Rucker Park to play on a New York City court famous for its place in basketball history.
He was also invited to throw the first pitch at a Yankees game and insisted on taking the subway there, instead of a private car.
Even back then, two days before he became the first overall pick in the draft, the subway ride was a production. The N.B.A. sent security and social media creators with him. Some friends, family, his agents and this reporter also went along for the ride. There would have been no hiding him even without such an entourage. As he descended into the subway station at Columbus Circle, fans spotted him and called out his name.
He wore a Joe DiMaggio throwback jersey, and his pitch didn’t land anywhere near the catcher. But he laughed at himself and called the whole experience “so much fun.”
The next day during his first official N.B.A. news conference, he said he really wanted to walk around in Times Square, but hadn’t been able to because of the crowds gathering at the hotel.
“I just know I love the city,” Mr. Wembanyama said that day. “I’ll probably try to sneak out at night at some point because I really want to see the city.”
During a 2024 visit when the Spurs were in town for a game, he asked on X where he should go to play chess. The internet told him Washington Square Park, so on a cold, drizzly day in late December, he told his followers to meet him there.
“I’m sure people want to keep me safe, would like me to stay in the cozy hotel room,” Wembanyama told The New York Times a few weeks later. “I just, I’m human, you know. Just wanted to have fun.”
These days the city doesn’t love him back so much. In the long tradition of the antihero who battles the Knicks, he has become a villain to many New York City basketball fans. They think he should be called for more fouls, and they think he’s too physical against their team.
Videos have circulated of fans jeering him as he leaves his hotel.
To get away from all that, he went back to something that has brought him peace since he was a child: drawing.
He didn’t know the name of the park, or whom the statue depicted (it was Edwin Booth, a 19th-century Shakespearean actor and the brother of John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Abraham Lincoln).
He hadn’t seen the viral video that was taken of him and graded his drawing as, “Not bad, pretty good.”
What else did he do to relax in New York?
“I’m not going to tell you,” he said during a news conference, protecting what he could in his fishbowl.
