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, at 20, is France\u2019s towering defensive presence and one of the most promising centers in international basketball. Standing 7-foot (2.13m) 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":2,"featured_media":95620,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-95619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}