European Prospects

After the comments of the German coach Kay Blümel on his players, we have today what the French coach Philippe Ory told Basketnews about his own players. With the permission of the French magazine, here is the English translation of his words.

• Evan Fournier: He improved during the tournament after having started slowly. The preparation games were good in the beginning but then he struggled. He doubted a bit. Very young, he may not have understood everything what we expected from him. But in the end, he understood his role.
• Mael Lebrun: Very big performance during the European Championship. A real player, who we missed in the beginning of the tournament when he was injured. A good guy and a good player.
• Fabien Paschal: The surprise. He suffered from his lack of physical during the last games. In the semi-final, he was already a bit suffering and during the Final he could not really show what he can do.
• Leo Westermann: He started the European Championship very well. He shifts between the very strong moments and the mediocre ones. He needs to gain in consistency and improve probably on the tactical level too.
• Chrislain Cairo: In Nationale 1 (third French league where CFBB plays), he is very operational but here, when it is long and big, he struggles. An enormous fighting spirit!
• Nikola Stojiljkovic: He was way better during the European Championship than the whole season with the CFBB. This level is more in line with his playing style. He is a 2m04 tall forward and it is difficult in Nationale 1 especially in defense and because we focus on that, he suffered from it. But he accepted the challenge and now he needs to become a real scorer because he has a good shot.
• Henri Kahudi: He dominates the Espoirs League. But you can see his limits here, limits that are mainly technical. He needs to develop a shot and to be able to play with both hands. On the other side, he is great fighter and a very nice guy.
• Frédéric Bourdillon: We did not keep him initially because we thought he would be just on the physical and athletic level. But he is important for our game and that’s why we took him back. He is capable to play in short stretches. He struggled a bit when the teams were bigger and more athletic.
• Geoffrey Renon: He improved step by step. He is one of those guys that barely see minutes at the moment in his club. So he needed to gain some confidence. That’s the problem of our basketball education.
• Vincent Pourchot: We tried to use him at best with what he can do at the moment, with what he is capable of producing. He can give us what Frederic Weis has done before him. We need to continue to work with him, he is in my opinion somebody important for the federation in the future if we can really develop him.
• Kevin Mondésir: He had the exactly opposite development over the tournament than Chrislain Cairo. In the beginning, he was nowhere. But finally, he is 2m04 tall, he jumps, he runs and he gave us a supplementary rotation. Against Lithuania, he gave us some very interesting minutes.
• Nicolas Wachowiak: He was very important during the preparation. A huge three point shooter. He suffered from the good start that had Bourdillon. This has put him in competition and he lost some of his confidence. He was the fifth rotation of our outside players and he never really found his way back into this European Championship.