Victor Wembanyama will take to the court in Paris on Thursday with the San Antonio Spurs in front of an adoring home crowd, having gone from the French league to global stardom.

The main events start Thursday when Wembanyama and the Spurs take on the Indiana Pacers in the first of two games in Paris. The rematch is Saturday, both happening at Accor Arena, the same building where Wembanyama played in the knockout round of the Paris Olympics last summer when he and France wound up losing to the U.S. in the gold-medal game.

The Pacers are in Paris because someone has to be the opponent to French phenom Victor Wembanyama, but they're getting everything out of the trip.

Wembanyama was born and raised in Le Chesnay-Rocquencourt, a western Paris suburb, and has made it a focus this week to introduce his teammates to Parisian culture and the life he led before he became the NBA Rookie of the Year and likely next face of the league.

Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs are in Paris to play two NBA games against the Indiana Pacers, one on Thursday and one on Saturday. It is a homecoming for the 7-foot-4 Frenchman, who has not played a competitive game in his home country since France lost the gold medal game to the United States at the 2024 Olympic Games.

The teams arrived in Paris on Monday, with practices and other events scheduled throughout the week and then the games toward the end. The Spurs were coming straight from the airport to a light workout in Nanterre — on the court that Wembanyama called home when started his pro career in the French league as a 15-year-old.

A group of Wembanyama’s former coaches, teammates and trainers greeted him and the Spurs at Palais des Sports Maurice Thorez on Monday.

Paris has long been a hotspot for basketball, with deep ties to the NBA through its rich history of French players who’ve made their mark in the sport.