It’s a testament to the exceptional pipeline of French basketball talent that two members of Les Bleus make this list.<\/p>\n
Alex Sarr<\/strong>, at 20, is France\u2019s towering defensive presence and one of the most promising centers in international basketball. Standing 7-foot (2.13m)<\/strong> with a 7-foot-4 wingspan, he combines a trifecta of rim protection, deft offensive touch, and mobility rarely seen in a player of his height \u2014 and especially at his age.<\/p>\n Like Risacher, Sarr was part of the French U19 team that won silver at the FIBA U19 World Cup, and he was drafted No. 2 overall by the Washington Wizards in 2024. As a rookie, he averaged 9.8 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks per game, earning All-Rookie First Team honours and showcasing his ability to impact games without dominating the ball.<\/p>\n With France\u2019s star bigs absent, Sarr has already shown he can step up. In his senior debut against Montenegro in a EuroBasket warm-up, he tallied 19 points on 7-of-10 shooting (3-of-5 from three), 4 rebounds, and a team-high efficiency rating of 21 \u2014 all in just 14 minutes.<\/p>\n Expect more from the big man as France begin their campaign against Belgium on Thursday, 28 August.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It’s a testament to the exceptional pipeline of French basketball talent that two members of Les Bleus make…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":174115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[1260,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-174114","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-nba","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115088991493346033","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}