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Apr 06, 2023

Spurs earned the right to select Victor Wembanyama thanks to a chair

It's no secret that superstitions and sports go hand in hand and according to

It's no secret that superstitions and sports go hand in hand and according to the latest anecdote by ESPN's Zach Lowe, the Spurs and their higher ups are very aware of the supernatural.

On his podcast, The Lowe Post, Lowe revealed to his viewers just how the Silver & Black got to be so lucky in claiming both the No. 1 overall pick and generational talent Victor Wembanyama. The insider for ESPN was in Chicago for the Draft Lottery and had the honor of sitting inside the secret NBA lottery drawing room on Tuesday, May 16. After it was revealed that the San Antonio Spurs had won the 2023 Wembanyama sweepstakes, Lowe sought out Spurs CEO R.C. Buford to extend both his congratulations and say a simple hello to the once San Antonio general manger.

"After the Lottery, I saw R.C. Buford and thought I had to say hi," Lowe revealed to his special guest Jonathan Givony. "I asked him the stupidest question possible, the only question: did you flashback to the Tim Duncan lottery in 1997? And I'm expecting some spiffy, Spursian answer like, 'we’re very lucky, we’re going to be able to develop another great player.'"

But after a monumental occasion like that, Buford was feeling anything but Spursian at that moment.

"R.C. looks at me and starts laughing, ‘you’re God d*mn right I did," Lowe tells Givony. "I was sitting in my office when we won the 1997 lottery, and I was sitting in a blue leather chair, It's my lucky chair. From that moment on it was lucky my chair."

Victor Wembanyama of Metropolitans 92 reacts during the Betclic Elite match between Metropolitans 92 and Strasbourg on April 08, 2023 in Levallois-Perret, France.

And thusly, when Buford's daughter C.C. eventually went off to college, the CEO gifted her the blue chair. Perhaps, never thinking once that this once prized valuable that has brought all of San Antonio a world of joy would be in his possession ever again. Well earlier that day on May 16, Buford arrived at his hotel room in Chicago to find that very same chair sitting front and center in his room.

"The chair is in the room, with a card on it because it was his birthday," Lowe continues telling Givony. "At that point, the lottery gods were like, 'you know what, you've gone the extra mile, [Wembanyama] is going to the Spurs.'"

And so, it was written.

It should be noted though, neither Spurs fan nor NBA prognosticators know if Wembanyama will even have half the career as five-time NBA champion Tim Duncan. But what is certain, however, is that that blue leather chair of Buford's deserves — as Lowe puts it — its "own private room" in the AT&T Center.