The No. 1, No. 2 and No. 6 picks in this year's NBA draft, Atlanta Hawks forward Zaccharie Risacher, Washington Wizards center Alex Sarr and Charlotte Hornets forward Tidjane Salaün are from France. The No. 1 and No. 7 picks in last year's draft, San Antonio Spurs center Victor Wembenyama and Wizards guard Bilal Coulibaly, are also from France.
Sarr was asked about the amount of French talent in the NBA on Thursday at the Summer League in Las Vegas, and gave this take about their future in the league in an interview on ESPN.
“I think there can be even more in the future,” Alex Sarr said. “I think France can be really a powerhouse for NBA players and it's gonna keep growing over the years.”
Especially in recent seasons, it's clear how much of a global game basketball has become, and how much international influence there is in the NBA. There hasn't been an American-born MVP since James Harden in the 2017-18 season, with Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece), Nikola Jokic (Serbia), and Joel Embiid (Cameroon) winning the award the past six years. Slovenian-born Luka Doncic led the Dallas Mavericks all the way to the NBA Finals.
In the growing international basketball scene, France is beginning to stand above the rest as the country that's producing the most amount of NBA-level talent.
Most notably, Wembenyama, the 7-4 reigning Rookie of the Year, is looking like he could be the best player in the world, not just the best French player, sooner rather than later.
There are already some established French players in the league, like Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert and Los Angeles Clipeprs forward Nicolas Batum. Joining their fellow countrymen in the NBA is a truly elite group of young players.
How good is the new generation of French NBA players?
The NBA has never seen this amount of talent come up together at the same time from a country other than the United States before. Five top-ten picks in the last two years, including two back-to-back No. 1 overall picks and this year's No. 2 overall pick is unheard of.
France becoming a powerhouse will have a lot of different impacts on the basketball world. The NBA has already played regular season games in Paris before as a part of the Global Games initiative and is planning on playing two more this upcoming season between Wembenyama's Spurs and the Indiana Pacers. The NBA would be foolish if they didn't take advantage of the influx of French talent in their league, and should make Paris, or other cities in France, mainstays in the Global Games.
The French National Basketball Team could also end up challenging the United States at the Olympics and the FIBA World Cup. A team led by Wembenyama and Gobert, with young talent like Alex Sarr, Coulibaly, and Risacher filling out the depth chart would be one of the best defensive groups ever assembled at any level of basketball.
With how much autonomy NBA players have now on which team they play for, the French players could all come together and create a French NBA super team of sorts if they want to. While this would be an unprecedented move, in this era of player development anything is possible.
If Alex Sarr is correct and more French talent is on the way, then France is truly on the cusp of becoming a legitimate basketball powerhouse.
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