At the Men's Euro Basketball Championship, a French team without its stars but with its youngsters
The French men's basketball team is about to take a leap into the unknown. One year after winning the silver medal at the Paris Olympics, Les Bleus are preparing to compete in the Euros with a more experimental squad. In Latvia, Finland, Poland, or Cyprus—the country hosting the competition from August 27 to September 14—coach Frédéric Fauthoux's staff will rely on a squad stripped of its stars, whose composition was announced on Sunday, August 17.
Notably missing will be Nicolas Batum and Nando De Colo, who retired from international football after the Olympic epic. The Blues will also be without Victor Wembanyama, who is still recovering from a deep vein thrombosis in his right shoulder that has kept him out of action since February, or Evan Fournier, who has an ankle injury. Rudy Gobert is also out, preferring to focus on preparing for the NBA season with his Minnesota Timberwolves franchise.
The absences of the two giants, Wembanyama and Gobert, had already considerably weakened the French center back. And the bad news didn't stop there for Frédéric Fauthoux, who will also have to do without Vincent Poirier, who has a knee injury. The French team will thus travel to Katowice (Poland), where it will play its first preliminary round match against Belgium on August 28, with only one professional center, Mam Jaiteh (2.08 m).
NBA rookies make their debutThe planned or unexpected absences, in any case, open the way to a new generation. This summer, it is embodied by Zaccharie Risacher (20 years old, 2.03 m) and Alexandre Sarr (20 years old, 2.13 m), respectively selected first and second in the 2024 NBA Draft , the North American league's major annual lottery.
They will each be playing their first international competition with the "big boys" and will be coached by some regulars like Guerschon Yabusele and Isaïa Cordinier, both of whom were in Paris at the last Olympic Games. All these great players have certainly started their preparation well, notably by beating Spain twice. On Saturday, the Blues even managed a crazy comeback by overcoming their arch-rivals at Bercy, after being down 28 to 44 at halftime (78-73 final score).
The twelve French players selected for the Euro:
Leaders/backs: Théo Maledon (24 years old, 1.93 m), Matthew Strazel (23 years old, 1.82 m), Sylvain Francisco (27 years old, 1.79 m), Isaïa Cordinier (29 years old, 1.97 m), Elie Okobo (27 years old, 1.91 m)
