Spurs star Victor Wembanyama brings books to games; that's not all that makes him different

Let's start with this: He brought a book to the All-Star Game.

As if the NBA needed more proof that San Antonio's Victor Wembanyama is different, the latest example came Sunday in a locker-room video posted by the league. Wembanyama was getting settled in before the games and Denver's Nikola Jokic was puzzled by what the Spurs star had with him.

“You really brought a book?” Jokic asked.

“I read before every game,” Wembanyama said.

Even at All-Star weekend, Wembanyama didn't change who he is. He got himself and Spurs teammate Chris Paul disqualified from the skills competition at All-Star Saturday night after finding what he thought was a loophole in the rules and could increase the chance of winning. He brought the book on Sunday. He was visibly frustrated when his team lost the All-Star tournament final.

San Antonio knows, and has known, that Wembanyama is the face of the Spurs. The rest of the league has probably figured out that he's one of the faces of the league — the game globally, too — and is well on his way to super-duper-superstardom, if he's not there already.

LeBron James had nothing but rave reviews for Wembanyama when the 7-foot-3 French center — who just turned 21 last month — was coming into the league. James heaps the Wemby praise even higher now.

“I’ve seen one quote that he says that nobody better call him past 9 o'clock at night because he’s either reading or he’s asleep. I think that’s super cool. I think that’s super dope,” the Los Angeles Lakers' star said. “That lets you know where his mind frame is at, where he is at intellectually, and I think he’s been great, obviously, for the franchise with the Spurs. But he’s going to be great for our league for so many years to come.”

Wembanyama was the unanimous rookie of the year last season; he's the favorite, according to BetMGM Sportsbook, to be defensive player of the year this season. He is almost certainly going to make the All-NBA team. He will likely get MVP votes.

All for good reason.

His scoring average is up. Rebounds per game, up. Shooting percentages, up. He's already taken 403 3-pointers and blocked 176 shots this season — no player in NBA history has ever finished a season with those numbers, and Wemby did it this year by the All-Star break. He's averaging 24.3 points, 11 rebounds, 3.8 blocks and 3.7 assists; the only other player to finish a season averaging all that was Kareem Abdul-Jabbar in 1975-76.

Golden State's Stephen Curry was asked what he marvels at when he watches Wembanyama.

“Everything he does,” Curry said. “Everything.”

The Spurs have been through some things this season.

Gregg Popovich, the franchise patriarch and someone Wembanyama calls the best leader he's ever known, had a stroke in November and coached only five games before needing to be replaced by assistant Mitch Johnson — who, by all accounts, has done an admirable job. The travel has been brutal, even by San Antonio standards: the Spurs went to New York for a few days over Christmas, spent a week in France for the NBA Paris Games, were in Los Angeles when wildfires were ravaging that city and are now dealing with the annual rodeo road trip that displaces them for much of February.

Paul says the team has had chances, pointing to how 10 of San Antonio's 29 losses have been by five points or fewer.

“I think we can really put something together after the break," Paul said.

With Wembanyama, all things are possible and the Spurs are most certainly in the play-in tournament mix. San Antonio — which added De'Aaron Fox around the trade deadline — is 3 1/2 games out of the final play-in spot with 30 games left to play. It's not out of reach.

“Gaining a bit of confidence because we have such changes in the season,” Wembanyama said, asked what the Spurs need to do for the stretch run. “Also defense, I think, is the key. Going back to the status of one of the best defenses is the key.”

Let that be yet another example of how he's different. At the All-Star Game, he was talking defense. It's who he is. It's how he approaches the game. He plays the right way. He studies. He gets his rest, does his homework. And his fellow All-Stars seem to be taking notice.

“I think it’s great for a person like him to be so competitive and so focused and so driven in all aspects of his game, no matter where he is,” New York All-Star guard Jalen Brunson said. “It could be preseason, it could be in All-Star, he’s going to have that same mindset. That’s what we’ve seen. And obviously the things he does on the court are just abnormal for someone his height. He's ridiculous, and to see how he works, his preparation, I think I admire that most.”

Around The NBA analyzes the biggest topics in the NBA during the season.

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama dunks over Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama dunks past Memphis Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr. during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jed Jacobsohn)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama smiles before the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama dunks past teammates Trae Young and Nikola Jokic during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jed Jacobsohn)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama applauds on the court during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama is defended by Detroit Pistons guard Cade Cunningham during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama dunks past Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama dunks past teammate Trae Young during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Jed Jacobsohn)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama dunks past Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

Dallas Mavericks guard Kyrie Irving, left, dribbles past San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama during the NBA All-Star basketball game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama, center, dunks next to Memphis Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr. during the NBA basketball All-Star game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (Ezra Shaw/Pool Photo via AP)

San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembanyama, center, dunks in front of Memphis Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr. (13) during the NBA basketball All-Star game Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025, in San Francisco. (Ezra Shaw/Pool Photo via AP)

Team Chuck's Victor Wembanyama dunks against Team Shaq's Damian Lillard during the championship game of the 74th NBA All-Star Game in San Francisco, Sunday, Feb. 16, 2025. (Scott Strazzante/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)

JERUSALEM (AP) — Over two dozen families from one of the few remaining Palestinian Bedouin villages in the central West Bank have packed up and fled their homes in recent days, saying harassment by Jewish settlers living in unauthorized outposts nearby has grown unbearable.

The village, Ras Ein el-Auja, was originally home to some 700 people from more than 100 families that have lived there for decades.

Twenty-six families already left on Thursday, scattering across the territory in search of safer ground, say rights groups. Several other families were packing up and leaving on Sunday.

“We have been suffering greatly from the settlers. Every day, they come on foot, or on tractors, or on horseback with their sheep into our homes. They enter people’s homes daily,” said Nayef Zayed, a resident, as neighbors took down sheep pens and tin structures.

Israel's military and the local settler governing body in the area did not respond to requests for comment.

Other residents pledged to stay put for the time being. That makes them some of the last Palestinians left in the area, said Sarit Michaeli, international director at B’Tselem, an Israeli rights group helping the residents.

She said that mounting settler violence has already emptied neighboring Palestinian hamlets in the dusty corridor of land stretching from Ramallah in the West to Jericho, along the Jordanian border, in the east.

The area is part of the 60% of the West Bank that has remained under full Israeli control under interim peace accords signed in the 1990s. Since the war between Israel and Hamas erupted in October 2023, over 2,000 Palestinians — at least 44 entire communities — have been expelled by settler violence in the area, B'Tselem says.

The turning point for the village came in December, when settlers put up an outpost about 50 meters (yards) from Palestinian homes on the northwestern flank of the village, said Michaeli and Sam Stein, an activist who has been living in the village for a month.

Settlers strolled easily through the village at night. Sheep and laundry went missing. International activists had to begin escorting children to school to keep them safe.

“The settlers attack us day and night, they have displaced us, they harass us in every way” said Eyad Isaac, another resident. “They intimidate the children and women.”

Michaeli said she’s witnessed settlers walk around the village at night, going into homes to film women and children and tampering with the village’s electricity.

The residents said they call the police frequently to ask for help — but it seldom arrives. Settlement expansion has been promoted by successive Israeli governments over nearly six decades. But Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government, which has placed settler leaders in senior positions, has made it a top priority.

That growth has been accompanied by a spike in settler violence, much of it carried out by residents of unauthorized outposts. These outposts often begin with small farms or shepherding that are used to seize land, say Palestinians and anti-settlement activists. United Nations officials warn the trend is changing the map of the West Bank, entrenching Israeli presence in the area.

Some 500,000 Israelis have settled in the West Bank since Israel captured the territory, along with east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, in the 1967 Mideast war. Their presence is viewed by most of the international community as illegal and a major obstacle to peace. The Palestinians seek all three areas for a future state.

For now, displaced families of the village have dispersed between other villages near the city of Jericho and near Hebron further south, said residents. Some sold their sheep and are trying to move into the cities.

Others are just dismantling their structures without knowing where to go.

"Where will we go? There’s nowhere. We’re scattered,” said Zayed, the resident, “People’s situation is bad. Very bad.”

An Israeli settler herds his flock near his outpost beside the Palestinian village of Ras Ein al-Auja in the West Bank, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

A Palestinian resident of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank burns trash, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian children play in the West Bank village of Ras Ein al-Auja, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)

Palestinian residents of Ras Ein al-Auja village, West Bank pack up their belongings and prepare to leave their homes after deciding to flee mounting settler violence, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Mahmoud Illean)