Expectations are all the time excessive for France in males’s basketball on the Olympics, and that’s notably the case this 12 months with the nation internet hosting the 2024 Paris Video games. Victor Wembanyama’s Olympic debut is the main storyline for the French, however this workforce is so gifted even past the 20-year-old wunderkind. France took silver in males’s basketball on the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, and the majority of that workforce returns this 12 months (plus Wemby) for one more medal run.
Rudy Gobert has been France’s key participant for practically a decade. Gobert remains to be on the high of his sport coming off his fourth NBA Defensive Participant of the Yr award this previous season with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the place he captained the No. 1 protection within the league. Nicely, don’t inform Brazil’s Maozinha Pereira about all of the awards Gobert has to his identify. The 23-year-old produced a superb Olympic second towards France on Saturday with a vicious poster on Gobert. Gobert’s greatest haters across the NBA needed to like to see this:
Right here’s a fair higher angle:
Pereira signed a 10-day contract with the Memphis Grizzlies final season. That is already the spotlight of his profession.
For such an excellent defender, there are such a lot of viral examples of Gobert being on the unsuitable finish of an excellent spotlight over time. Not being afraid of embarrassment is an underrated a part of being an elite defender: Gobert jumped to attempt to block the shot though he knew he won’t get it and thus find yourself being clowned once more on social media. It didn’t work out for him this time, however he has the precise mentality of all the time making an attempt to make the play. Typically even future Corridor of Fame inductees like Gobert get beat.
France beat Brazil to start out off the Olympics. Pereira will definitely always remember this second, even in defeat.
