In the wake of Tony Parker, the French have made a place in the United States, in the best world championship. But this is not a guarantee of success for the Blues, especially because it plays a pretty different basketball.
Since France sends players across the Atlantic, a movement that dates back to the early 2000s, it has built a new track record, including a title of European champion in 2013. But rely on defectors of all powerful American league is not the guarantee of success. In preparation, the Blues were moved by Montenegro (80-72), which has only one player in the NBA. Among the internationals stuck in the United States, those who come into selection only intermittently and those who struggle to adapt to the style and the different rules of international basketball, there is a flip side, as told by two former coaches , Claude Bergeaud and Michel Gomez.
Before you see what they are worth on a floor, you must already be able to select the players in question. If, in other sports like football or rugby, the selections are queens, basketball, it is the NBA and its franchises that decide, in the name of a basic principle: it is the Americans who pay their impressive salaries. In Charlotte and Utah, Nicolas Batum and Rudy Gobert earn more than 20 million euros a year. At this price, why let his player risk an injury to defend his country? Claude Bergeaud, coach of the Blues from 2003 to 2007, attended the beginnings of this system: "We were in the middle of discovering that we had to pay insurance for the players." The federation to open its portfolio to cover the risk of a shortfall for clubs. "At the time, we did not find companies to insure our players", he recalls.
His successor to the Blues, Michel Gomez, held the position from 1993 to 1995 and from 2008 to 2009. During this last period, he had to do without Boris Diaw for a qualification tournament for Euro 2009: "The federation had disbursed $ 500,000 in insurance supplement the previous year. The partners did not want to give the pot this time. " Others had declined on the advice of their agents, who had made them understand that they must be well seen from their clubs. Another NBA player, Yakhouba Diawara, had joined the Blues but had to be sidelined as long as his record was not settled. "A sketch" whose coach laughs again.
We play the last game of preparation, it remains ten minutes, and there the sports director of the France team slap me on the shoulder and said: 'It's good, Diawara can play'. He came in, he took the last shoot of the match. His preparation was ten minutes of play.at franceinfo
No question of dealing with the rules: "It's not even possible, if it happened, we would risk a monstrous trial"explains to Franceinfo the general manager of the Blues, Patrick Beesley, who since 2011, deals with relations between the team of France and NBA clubs – a role whose very existence speaks volumes. He assures him that to bring the players moving to the United States is "easier for two years", with the conclusion of an agreement simplifying the management of insurance. American franchises have also come to understand "the interest of letting their players come to the national team", at least for the big summer competitions, which act as beautiful windows while preparing the players for the coming season. This does not prevent this year, Franck Ntilikina could not touch a ball for several days, because of a recent injury and a license from his club that was slow to come. "I think the Knicks (from New York) have a little dragged their feet ", explained Patrick Beesley at Figaro.
And this relative goodwill is only valid for major summer competitions. The France team that won its ticket for the 2019 World Cup was composed only of players who evolve neither in the NBA nor in the elite of European clubs. But they will almost all look at this World Cup from their couch. The situation is cruel, recognizes Claude Bergeaud: "These guys get busted, and in the end they say 'thank you, and goodbye'", to give way to the best.
The lack of availability of French playing in the NBA also complicates the work of the coach. Michel Gomez, very attached to the notion of coherence and cohesion of his team, has bad experience of having to change everything when, after a month of preparation and a week of a qualifying tournament, a major player evolving in the United States finally decided to participate, after refusing. "You imagine, you journalist, work a month on an article, come to the conclusion of your paper, and here we tell you that we have to change the theme.That's what happened to us with this team. we had done fell into the water ", judge the coach, who thought to throw in the towel. On the field, the player in question certainly scored many points, but the team lost his qualifying matches, sealing the fate of Michel Gomez.
Claude Bergeaud, in particular, suffered from the differences between basketball practiced in the NBA and that of the rest of the world. In the American League, for example, the line beyond which a basket is worth 3 points is not placed in the same place; players are not allowed to stay longer than three seconds in the "racket", the area just in front of the basket; referees do not always whistle on the same situations; finally, the style of play in the NBA is more spectacular but less collective.
When players make 82 games a year with another style of play, it's hard to change.at franceinfo
In training, you have to "multiply the game situations" to re-use them. "Tony Parker said to me: 'Claude, when I get into the racket, which remains very clear in the NBA, I do not see anything, in the United States, it's bright'. There he was surrounded by a forest of arms. " The leader of the Blues also had to get used to being caught by two opposing defenders, a rare situation in the United States.
Sometimes their American habits catch up with them during games. Michel Gomez is still in the throes a sequence of a decisive match lost against Turkey. Yakhouba Diawara makes a "screen" on an opposing player, blocking his passage to prevent him from defending on a teammate, but leaving free another opponent. A classic action in the NBA, but "I never ask my players"explains the coach. "We were leading by two points, and on the action that follows, we take a 3-point basket because his player was released." American reflexes have taken over.
Some gambling habits are all the more entrenched as some players are restricted by their clubs to an extremely precise role. "I was able to do one training with Joakim Noah, recalls Michel Gomez. I made him work in pivot, he made me moves superb. I asked him why he was not doing the same thing in the NBA. He told me: 'In the NBA, if I do that, I finish on the bench. My contract is to defend and take rebounds. " Their great talent allows some players, such as Joakim Noah, to move from one role to another, once in France, said Claude Bergeaud. But others could see their career in blue slanted because of what they had learned in the United States.
In search of a large pivot, the former coach had launched Johan Petro, 2.13 m. "But it turned out to be labeled NBA in its style of Thu, he regrets, deviating a lot from the racket (…) and having trouble with permanent mobility in defense " that is expected in international basketball. Petro finally made a long American career. But he "left (Europe) really too soon, at age 19, judge Claude Bergeaud, at least too early to succeed in selection. Today, the coach hopes that France will not have the same regret about Franck Ntilikina, the promising leader of the Blues, drafted at the same age by New York, and who played little in two years.
Claude Bergeaud has not known that success with NBA players. Yet he explains having "taken full force" the critics of those for whom these pioneers French in the biggest league of the world automatically had their place in blue. "The press was only interested in the NBA, so it only saw those playershe recalls bitterly. For her, it was necessary to select them ", whatever their playing time, experience or true level.
"We are the only country that has been blown by the NBA like this", adds Michel Gomez, who is sorry to see today, in the youth teams, players try 3-point shots all the way to emulate American Stephen Curry. "He's a superb player, but you also have to see his bases in defense, his style, his ability to stand out … In France, we only remember the little trick of 3-point shooting."
Should France learn to look a little elsewhere? The two former coaches are delighted that she also has today stars of Euroleague, the flagship competition of European basketball: Thomas Heurtel, Adrien Moerman (both injured and packages for the World) and, especially, Nando of Colo, who won this year. "He likes basketball and quickly realized that in the United States, he was going to get money but not necessarily play", analyzes Michel Gomez, who launched it in blue. "No one has made such a career in Europe – it's unclear whether Tony Parker would have done it." Such a course helps to "to counterbalance the monolithic vision we had in France: basketball was the NBA", summarizes Claude Bergeaud. Who knows ? It is perhaps this player of the Turkish championship, author of a flash passage and missed in the United States, who will win the team of France at the World Cup.
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