Victor Wembanyama will not be the only Boulogne-Levallois player affected by the lottery on June 22. Bilal Coulibaly, teammate of the new phenomenon of French basketball under the colors of the Metropolitans, will also appear in the next NBA draft.
The Boulogne-Levallois club thought it would only have one representative on June 22 in the NBA draft. They will ultimately be two Metropolitans. Like his illustrious Mets teammate and new tricolor basketball phenomenon, Bilal Coulibaly (18, 1.99m) will also try his luck.
This Thursday, the club dear to “Wemby” announced that the young French winger who has been running since the start of the season at 4.2 points, 2.7 rebounds and 6 ratings in an average of 16 minutes per game while he is living his very first professional season (he was not even part of the rotation at the start of this new exercise of Betclic Elite) had also registered for the traditional lottery of the famous North American league which sees each year, once the season is over, the NBA franchises retain a total of sixty new players called upon to discover the championship. Coulibaly, who has risen in power over the matches since his first steps in the elite, made himself known for the first time this summer during a match which had opposed the team of Bronny James, the son of LeBron James, to Nanterre. , to young French hopefuls.
Three French drafted for the first time in history?
The native of Saint-Cloud (Hauts-de-Seine) had been there that day. Today, like Wembanyama, big favorite to embody the number 1 choice, or the two other registered Frenchmen, Rayan Rupert and Sidy Cissoko, he can aspire to join the NBA next season. And France eventually beat its record of players drafted in the first round.
In 2003 (Boris Diaw and Mickaël Pietrus), 2005 (Ian Mahinmi and Johan Petro), 2008 (Alexis Ajinça and Nicolas Batum), 2013 (Rudy Gobert and Livio Jean-Charles) and 2016 (Timothé Luwawu-Cabarrot and Guerschon Yabusele), two representatives had been selected each time. This is to date the maximum in history. With Coulibaly joining Wembanyama, this record is just waiting to be beaten.
