Wizards' French Heritage Night exemplified NBA's French Revolution

With Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs in town, the Washington Wizards hosted French Heritage night on Monday. 

Two Wizards hail from France: Alex Sarr, who is from Bordeaux, and Bilal Coulibaly, who is from Courbevoie. It’s no surprise French Heritage Night took place against San Antonio: the Spurs not only employed the previous most popular French players ever in Tony Parker, they now employ the French Wembanyama, a once-in-a-lifetime freak of nature that projects to forever change the geometry of the sport.

Wembanyama and Coulibaly were teammates on Metropolitans 92, a team from Levallois-Perret in the LNB Elite, before being selected six picks apart in the 2023 NBA Draft. As teammates on the French national team, they took home the silver medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics after falling in the final to the LeBron James-led United States team.

The Wizards went all-out for the Wembanyama-Coulibaly clash. A bobblehead was distributed to the first 10,000 fans featuring Coulibaly and Sarr gripping magnetic baguettes and French flags with a removable banner behind them displaying the term “Les Sorciers” — French for “the Wizards.”

That same “Les Sourciers” branding also adorned the Wizards’ warmup t-shirts:

The Wizards offered a special ticket package for the game that included a French flag themed Wizards bucket hat and a ticket to an exclusive post-game panel hosted by Coulibaly and Sarr. As far as I know, this is common practice for NBA teams’ special heritage night — I attended virtually the exact same thing hosted by Ivica Zubac as a high school student in 2019 for the LA Clippers’ Croatian Heritage Night.

The game itself was exactly what every French fan could have dreamed of, minus the fact that Sarr sat out. Wembanyama went off for 31 points and 15 rebounds, including a first-quarter flurry where he drained three straight three-pointers and then hit a one-legged fadeaway over his buddy Coulibaly to cap off a solo 11-0 run. 

Coulibaly returned the favor by jamming over Wemby, to which the Wizards social team got to use the term “hang it in the Louvre” for its most justified application yet.

The NBA’s French Revolution is only just beginning. 13 players from France currently occupy NBA rosters, second only to Canada in terms of international representation. Each of the last two number one overall picks, Wembanyama and Zaccharie Risacher, are French, as is reigning number two overall pick Sarr.

Matteo Coletta, a graduate student At George Washington University from Paris, is a Miami Heat fan but went to the Wizards’ French Heritage Night to catch a glimpse of Wembanyama and Coulibaly up close.

Coletta marveled at how quickly France is becoming a production line of pro-ready basketball talent: “I think there's a nice pipeline coming in from the French pro teams, like players like Wemby are going to make it even more prevalent.”

Coletta also noted how the so-called pipeline also flows to the French population at large: “I can see it among my family members, my friends, like, everyone cares much more about the sport [in France].” Coletta’s observation is backed up by statistics: according to the Associated Press, membership in basketball clubs in France is up about 10% in just the past two years alone.

Time will tell just how far the NBA’s French Revolution will go. Barring unforeseen circumstances, the French first overall pick streak will stop at two in June’s draft, as Duke’s Cooper Flagg, an American, is currently the consensus top prospect (and potentially will be a Wizard).

For now, though, French NBA fans can count on Coulibaly and especially Wembanyama making French Heritage Night a league-wide staple for years to come. Wembanyama is still just barely 21 and projects to dominate the league  — and the Olympic stage — for the next two decades.