LEVALLOIS-PERRET, France — The place where Victor Wembanyama used to play his pro basketball games has a few rows of seats surrounding the court that fold into the wall, like a high-school gym.
On top of the wall is an upper deck with concrete steps that flank rows of sometimes blue, sometimes yellow seats. The ceiling is low, by NBA standards anyway, maybe 40 feet in the air, with a few steel beams, HVAC and stage lighting.
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The court itself is plain — no fancy decals or artwork in the center circle or wings, and a simple “LNB” is marked on both baselines. The Metropolitans 92 of the French Ligue Nationale de Basket play here, at the Palais des sports Marcel-Cerdan in this Paris suburb, about a block from an Israeli culture center and three blocks from a Porsche dealership.
It is easy to walk into the gym and be completely oblivious that Wembanyama, the Parisian sensation and No. 1 pick of the most recent NBA Draft, played here last season. There isn’t anything in the lobby or in the gym that marks his season with the Metropolitans, though there is a Boris Diaw jersey hanging in a glass window of a corner office overlooking the court.
The Cleveland Cavaliers, who practiced there Tuesday, certainly didn’t realize they were headed for Wembanyama’s old stomping grounds until the team bus rolled up; they saw a few Metropolitans signs and did the math.
They felt Wembanyama’s presence anyway.
“Do you feel French people will be mad at you Thursday, because you beat Wemby two days ago?” a French reporter asked the Cavs’ Caris LeVert.
Practice makes parfait. @RocketMortgage | #LetEmKnow pic.twitter.com/06EFdt38pX
— Cleveland Cavaliers (@cavs) January 9, 2024
Coincidentally, the last game Cleveland played in the U.S. before flying to Paris for the NBA’s third regular-season game in the French capital was Sunday against Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs.
From 30,000 feet, it might not make sense for the Cavs and Brooklyn Nets to be the two teams playing in Paris this season, when the NBA’s hottest rookie is a native son. The reality is the league’s international games (regular and preseason contests) are set up to a year in advance, and at this time in 2023, it was unknown which of the NBA’s 30 teams would secure the right to draft Wemby.
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When the NBA comes back to Paris next season, multiple league sources told The Athletic, Wembanyama and the Spurs will be one of two teams in the game. The Spurs have agreed in principle to participate and are making plans, those sources said, though no contracts have been finalized and the league’s front office could not confirm The Athletic’s reporting.
The excitement level in Paris for an NBA game, featuring Wembanyama, will be immeasurable, beyond any ticket sales or viewership counts. No offense to the Cavs and Nets, two teams that are excited to be in France but do not have a French superstar on the roster.
“He’s obviously going to be a really special player,” said LeVert, who laughed and played along when he was asked about possibly being booed for beating Wembanyama’s Spurs by two points Sunday.
Three of the biggest-name players for Cleveland and Brooklyn — Ben Simmons for the Nets; Darius Garland and Evan Mobley for the Cavs — are out with injuries and will not play Thursday, though all three traveled to Paris with their teams.
Garland underwent surgery to repair a broken jaw and Mobley had his left knee scoped last month, but both are slowly ramping up basketball drills. Mobley is able to jump, lightly, while Garland must avoid any drill that risks contact to his jaw (there was a slightly harrowing moment for observers clued in to Garland’s condition Tuesday during a youth camp the team put on, when Garland was playfully participating in a dribbling drill with campers who were all dribbling at the same time, but he navigated the potential danger with aplomb).
Simmons, who hasn’t played since Nov. 6 because of a pinched nerve in his lower back, also has resumed light, on-court work, but — like Garland and Mobley — is still a ways from a return.
The Cavs, though, came to Paris on fire despite the extended absences of two key players. They are 8-3 since Dec. 15, led by former Brooklyn center Jarrett Allen’s career-best play over the last seven games, by their biggest star Donovan Mitchell adjusting nicely as the team’s primary point guard with Garland out and by role players — including those formerly positioned at the end of the bench — performing at a high level.
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LeVert, another former Net, is averaging 17.9 points off the bench since Dec. 15, above his career scoring average of 14.3 points per game. Sam Merrill, the last pick of the 2020 NBA Draft who had logged just 41 games in his first three seasons, has scored 11 or more points six times since Dec. 15, including 18 Sunday against the Spurs and a 27-pointer (on eight 3-pointers) Dec. 20 against Utah. And Allen, who was an All-Star in 2022 but on a healthy Cavs team is not a top-two scorer, is averaging 21 points and better than 15 rebounds in his last seven contests.
“I think we were getting better as a team even before Darius and Evan went out,” LeVert said. “It just so happened that they went out at the time, and we started to kind of surge. I think we would have surged if they were playing.”
The Cavs were tied with four other teams in the Eastern Conference with a 21-15 record entering Tuesday’s games, 2 1/2 games behind third-place Philadelphia.
The Nets, meanwhile, sit at 16-21 (10th place in the East as of Tuesday afternoon) and have lost six of their last seven games. They are led by Mikal Bridges, a Team USA player at the FIBA World Cup last summer who scored 42 points in Brooklyn’s last game (a loss Sunday to the Portland Trail Blazers) but had suffered through a stretch of four consecutive games shooting 40 percent or worse from the field.
Thursday’s game at Accor Arena, the site of the 2024 Paris Olympics basketball finals this summer, will be Brooklyn’s 24th game outside of the U.S. and Canada — the most of any team. When the Nets were selected for this game, Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving were still on the roster. They were, of course, both dealt at last season’s February trade deadline (Durant was sent out for Bridges, among others), and the Nets are retooling in relative peace and quiet compared to the previous few seasons with three controversial stars on the roster (James Harden was the other).
“We get a chance to re-establish ourselves as a culture, as a team, and we have some young talent to do that,” Nets coach Jacque Vaughn said. “It’s great that they’re able to be abroad and do this together and get a chance to grow together also.
”It’s special to represent the NBA and let other fans see us play.”
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The Paris trip is a decidedly different experience for the Nets — and for LeVert and Allen — from their last NBA overseas trip. Brooklyn went to China in 2019 for exhibition games against the Los Angeles Lakers, a tumultuous week for all involved because of the Chinese government’s anger with then-Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s social media post supporting protesters in Hong Kong.
Morey posted the message as the Nets and Lakers were en route to Shanghai, and the Chinese government ordered all signage promoting the games torn down and nearly canceled the entire event. Players on both teams were part of a tense meeting with NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and while the players were permitted to leave their hotels, the community building and culture dabbling that are normally part of the NBA’s international program were non-existent.
By contrast, the Nets and Cavs (LeVert and Allen were both on that Brooklyn team in 2019) are welcome in, and very much enjoying, Paris. Both teams will hold multiple community events, such as skills camps for children, while they are here, and the Nets have opened a pop-up pizza shop. Both teams posed for pictures Tuesday at the Eiffel Tower before practice. LeVert took his mother to dinner in the Paris shopping district Monday night; Allen and his fiancée dined out together. The Nets held a team dinner Monday night with their full travel party, hosted by owner Joseph Tsai.
A slice of Brooklyn in Paris 🍕
📅 Open now through January 13
📍 4-5 Rue de la Fontaine au Roi
🔗 https://t.co/ksav1fdVNg pic.twitter.com/SCThcZdwfQ— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) January 9, 2024
“I remember things just started going sideways,” Allen said, reflecting on the Shanghai trip with the Nets. “(This year) we don’t have things getting in the way of our games or just the whole meaning of why we’re here.”
If you’re wondering, the Cavs’ last overseas trip was to Rio de Janeiro for a preseason game in 2014 against the Miami Heat. What was special about that, other than the trip up the mountain to visit the Christ the Redeemer statue? LeBron James had just rejoined the Cavs, having left the Heat the previous July to do so.
(Photo of Cavaliers at Special Olympics Clinic in Paris: Catherine Steenkeste / NBAE via Getty Images)
