Basketball: "Victor Wembanyama will immediately take on the importance of a leader"assures Vincent Collet after the announcement of the expanded list for the Olympics
On the sidelines of the announcement of the expanded selection of 19 players for the preparation of matches at the Olympic Games, coach Vincent Collet returned to his choices, the integration of star Victor Wembanyama after his first year in the NBA, his future association with Rudy Gobert, but also his important choices for the leader position, considered the most fragile in this French team.
Vincent Collet (France team coach): He is used to having a lot expected of him, and has been for some time. He showed that he had a real ability to overcome this difficulty. We will make sure to make his task easier, to allow him to express his qualities. The difficulty is that Victor is not a player who will join the team, he will immediately take on the importance of a leader. But I don’t have too many fears, because for a leader to emerge, he has to be good and that is the case. But others also have to see it as such, and I believe that is the case too. So it will be much easier.
His teammates know how much he can help us and they will make his job easier for him. Its integration depends on so many parameters, but there is no reason why it should not go well. He will have to readjust a bit, but I have no worries for him.
There are times when they will play together. Not systematically but they will play together. The preparation will serve to find complicity, a balance : Victor has the ability to deviate, and I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t pair them up. On the other hand, I think that this association should allow us to have a very important defensive base. We will try to make the best use of the deterrent capacity that their association provides.
We tried to learn lessons from last year’s failure. We will have to see what happens at the start of preparation, if we are in the right direction. What happened last year and this year gave us ideas to build this group with a strong defensive identity. We thought a lot about complementarity. There are players assured of their selection and it is around them that we wanted to build this team.
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