The French National Team seems to be one of the more talented squads in the Olympics. Armed with several NBA players, they may be the favorites to earn the Silver Medal.
Earlier this week, France released the official roster for the Rio Olympics set to start in August. The team includes Tony Parker, Nicolas Batum, Rudy Gobert, Boris Diaw and Joffrey Lauvergne.
Notice anyone missing? How about Evan Fournier, the newly re-signed member of the Orlando Magic.
Fournier is one of the brightest young French players. He exploded onto the scene in the NBA last season and looks to build off of that now as a highly paid player.
But apparently, there was no room for Never Google on the French national team. According to the general manager of the roster, the reason for that was to not upset the balance of the squad already in place.
Following are comments from said GM, Patrick Beesley, from French site Trashtalk.co:
All day Monday, the night after the plane and during the stopover in Abu Dhabi, the staff never stopped battling and analyzing the pros and cons.
The question was whether to upset this balance or not. It’s a gamble. Evan had not done the preparation, landing like that in the team … It does not mean that if Evan had been selected, all this would have been broken and f—– up, but we preferred not to deconstruct what existed.
This is a certainly strange reason not to include what would be one of the best players for the French. Perhaps there are other behind-the-scenes reasons for the omission. However, as it stands now, leaving Evan Fournier out of the roster could be a huge mistake for the French.
