USA Basketball got a major boost ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics when it got reported that Joel Embiid will join the men’s team. Embiid had a few options for his international basketball career, but ultimately, he decided that he’d suit up for Team USA, which filled the single biggest hole on the roster heading to Paris next year.
France and Cameroon lost out on Embiid’s services, and while Cameroon did not qualify for the Olympics, France did as the host country. They’re already heading into the tournament with an insane 1-2 punch at center of Rudy Gobert and Victor Wembanyama, and it’s hard to see how anyone could have dealt with them if Embiid got added to that equation. In fact, a new piece by Joe Vardon of The Athletic reveals that if Embiid joined them, French coach Vincent Collet had plans to put all three of his bigs on the floor at the same time.
Via The Athletic:
Collet coached Wembanyama last season in the French pro league and also for the few games in which Wembanyama played for Team France in FIBA competition. Collet said he had intended to play Gobert (7-1), Wembanyama (7-4) and Embiid, the 7-foot, 2023 NBA MVP and career 34 percent shooter from 3-point range, together as starters.
The challenges presented to the rest of the world, and the inherent advantages France would have had, are obvious.
“It would be easy to make them play together, especially Victor with Joel, because with Victor’s mobility, he can really play the three,” Collet said. “To have them together on the court would have been very special. That’s why I was so disappointed.”
It’s an idea ripped straight from a video game, and with the dimensions of the courts that are used in FIBA competitions, having to deal with all that size and length would have been a nightmare. But fortunately for Team USA and the rest of the field, they won’t have to figure out a solution to what would have, quite literally, been a big problem.
