AFP<\/a>, San Antonio Spurs big man Victor Wembanyama will be available for the first two matches of the qualifying round against Slovenia and Sweden. He’ll also be available for a pair of friendlies against Serbia in the lead-up to the FIBA World cup qualifiers.<\/p>\n“[Wembanyama is] extremely important for the future of the project we want to pursue,” French national team coach Frederic Fauthoux said. “… Victor is the undisputed leader of this generation. We need him here so that a relationship can develop with the rest of the squad, both on and off the court.”<\/p>\n
The 22-year-old was unavailable for Euro 2025 due to venous thrombosis in his right shoulder but was fantastic in the 2024 Olympics, helping lead France to a silver medal while averaging 15.8 points, 9.7 rebounds, 3.3 assists, two steals and 1.7 blocks in six games.<\/p>\n
He had 26 points and seven rebounds in the gold-medal game, a loss to the United States. <\/p>\n
His takeover of the NBA continued in the 2025-26 season, meanwhile, as he averaged 25 points, 11.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, one steal and an league-leading 3.1 blocks per game. He was named the Defensive Player of the Year, a first-team All-NBA selection, finished third in the MVP voting and led the Spurs to the NBA Finals, losing to the New York Knicks. <\/p>\n
He has quickly become one of the faces of the NBA and his presence makes France a legitimate threat to compete against the top international teams in the sport as well. French fans will surely be excited to see him aiding in qualification efforts for the 2027 World Cup.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"France will have a major superstar available in their preparations for the 2027 FIBA World Cup. According to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790045,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,6],"class_list":["post-790044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-basketball","tag-nba"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116943055972460488","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=790044"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790044\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}