PARIS — With Victor Wembanyama as the point of interest, France coach Vincent Collet introduced an prolonged checklist of 19 gamers Thursday for his preliminary roster for the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Contemporary off successful the NBA Rookie of the 12 months award, the 7-foot-3 Wembanyama will bolster France’s medal aspirations alongside key gamers reminiscent of Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum, and Evan Fournier.
In Gobert and Wembanyama, France boasts two of the NBA’s greatest defensive gamers. Gobert gained the NBA’s Defensive Participant of the 12 months award for the fourth time of his profession, narrowly beating out Wembanyama.
“The important thing to constructing the staff will likely be establishing an uncompromising protection,” Collet mentioned at a information convention. We’ve profiles that excel on this space.”
The roster, to be trimmed to 12 gamers for the event, contains newcomers Bilal Coulibaly, Ousmane Dieng, and Killian Hayes, who all additionally performed within the NBA this season.
Notably, the checklist options 5 level guards, compensating for the absence of Thomas Heurtel, who has performed the place usually for France for the final decade however is overlooked due to his Russian membership affiliation.
The French staff, which took silver in Tokyo, will play quite a few powerful opponents in warmup video games earlier than the event, together with Turkey, Germany, Serbia, Canada, and Australia.
On the Olympics, France will likely be in Group B alongside Germany, Japan and the winner of an upcoming qualifying event.
