Team France will head to the 2023 FIBA World Cup with high hopes. The number five ranked side in the world, they've never held the Naismith Trophy aloft but have finished third at the past two incarnations of the event, and with names like 3x Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert leading the charge, they'll be hoping to go even better than that this time around. But they may not have things all their own way. A difficult draw means that an early exit is not off the cards, and they'll have to play at their best to make their way through to the quarterfinals. With that in mind, these are three bold predictions for France at the 2023 FIBA World Cup.
3. France to finish second in Group H
France will no doubt see themselves as the best team in Group H, a group which includes Latvia, Lebanon and Canada. The first two of those teams shouldn't pose any problems for the French, but it's Canada who they need to be most worried about. The Canadians have never finished in the top four at the FIBA World Cup and are the 15th ranked team in the world heading into the 2023 edition of the event, but they're sending a stacked squad to Asia. Headlined by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and RJ Barrett, who are ably complemented by a number of strong NBA-level defenders in Dillon Brooks and Luguentz Dort, this squad has no less than seven NBA players in it and will prove very difficult to beat. France might be the highest ranked team in this group, but Canada can beat them in their match-up on August 25 and subsequently finish atop this group.
2. Evan Fournier to average 15+ points per game
Evan Fournier has not had a great time of it during his two seasons with the New York Knicks. In the first, he averaged 14.1 points on just 41.7% shooting – the lowest of his career – while last season he managed only 27 games and averaged 6.1 points on a woeful 33.7% from the field. But French Fournier is a different prospect to NBA Fournier. In the past, the French guard has been a solid contributor at NBA level, though his lack of passing ability and the fact that he isn't super efficient has prevented him from becoming more than a complementary player. At FIBA level, however, he turns into a different beast. At the 2019 FIBA World Cup, he averaged 19.8 points per game – higher than what he's ever averaged in a season in the NBA despite the fact that FIBA quarters are two minutes shorter – and shot 41% from downtown. A couple of years later at the Tokyo Olympics, his output was similar with 18.7 points per game coming on an elite 53.5% shooting from the field and 37.8% from long range. These performances comfortably outweighed what he was delivering in the NBA at the time, and after averaging just six points per game in the NBA last season he can up that to over 15 at this tournament.
1. France to fail to make the FIBA World Cup quarter-finals
Unfortunately for Team France, even if Fournier does put in the kind of performance for which he's proven so capable when representing his country, they might be facing an early exit at the FIBA World Cup. They should be able to advance out of the First Round without too many problems, but as mentioned above it may well be in second place behind Canada. Those results carry through to the Second Round, where they'll almost certainly face Spain and probably Brazil, the former of whom will likely have not lost a game. In order to advance through to the quarterfinals, teams need to finish in the top two of that Second Round group, and if France are at a one-game disadvantage on Spain and Canada heading into it, they'll have a tough time making up that gap. They're certainly good enough to make the quarterfinals and beyond, but in an event at which they'll be hoping to make at least the final four, the French may be destined for a premature exit.
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