NBA’s Rudy Gobert, Evan Fournier and Nic Batum turn attention to 2024 Paris Olympics after being eliminated by Latvia, 88-86
Rudy Gobert, winner of three NBA Defensive Player of the Year awards, and a few other NBA players weren’t enough to save France from an early exit from the ongoing FIBA World Cup in Asia.
France, a gold medal favorite in many people’s eyes coming into this World Cup and the world’s fifth-ranked team according to FIBA, will be eliminated in the first round, a huge embarrassment for a country that will host the Olympic Games in Paris in 11 months. On Sunday night in Jakarta, Indonesia, Latvia eliminated France with an 88-86 victory.
For the past 15 years, Nicolas Batum has played for France on the national team. At the Tokyo Olympics, he participated in a team loss to the United States in the gold medal game. A portion of the final game that ended in a gold medal loss at the 2017 EuroBasket. A component of two consecutive FIBA World Cup eliminations in the semi-finals.Those were the tough ones.
However, he thought this was even worse. Even more terrible.It’s not the same when you lose in the semifinals or the quarterfinals. At least you play, Batum essentially replied. We were eliminated in the very first round. Our hopes are quite lofty. For it, I feel tremendous guilt.
The World Cup has 32 teams, all of which are divided into eight groups of four. France’s opening loss to Canada, 95-65, on Friday left them in a tough spot for the rest of the first round, which consists of three group stage games. According to FIBA, it was the most lopsided loss by a French senior me𝚗’s team in a major competition since 1987.Now it was Sunday, and victory was imperative. For the vast majority of the race, France was in the lead. They finally surrendered the advantage with 37.7 seconds to go.
SuԀԀenly, our medal aspirations were dashed. A squad that thought it could win gold will not care much about the meaningless games in the consolation playoffs that follow Tuesday’s group stage finale against Lebanon.
France’s guard Evan Fournier stated, “We have to go home.” Very difficult. Extremely challenging. Really not much to add. We didn’t expect to be eliminated from the tournament so early. We need to take this experience with us into next year. There is no alternative.
Batum, Fournier, and Rudy Gobert should all be present in Paris next summer. San Antonio Spurs’ first overall choice, Victor Wembanyama, will be participating in the Olympics despite missing out on his chance to play in the World Cup. Joel Embiid is a kind of international free agent who is being courted by France but might possibly play for the United States.Batum admitted that he is prepared for widespread criticism of the team at home.
“I’m afraid to go home because we disappointed a lot of people,” he said. People all around the country had faith in us to accomplish great things, but we let them down.
He is also aware that by the time the Olympic cauldron is lit in July of next year, nobody will remember this outcome. In the meanwhile, it will be interesting to see if France can get back into the game.
Batum has stated, “We have a big thing coming up in 12 months.” “We need to take a hard look at what went wrong, from players to coaches to staff to the federation itself…. For us, today was a severe dose of reality.
