The Parisian little Thumb is on the way to becoming a giant.
For its third season in Pro B, the team coached by Jean-Christophe Prat has gone after its dreams: to reach the Jeep Elite, the highest national level.
A real feat for the Parisians, still residents of the Nationale 3, the 5th national level only five years ago.
But the arrival of American investor David Kahn changed everything. In 2018, thanks to the withdrawal of Hyères-Toulon in Pro B, the new Paris basketball, so baptized after having carried the name of Paris Basket Avenir since 2013 (merger of three clubs, Domrémy 13, Ménilmontant and the Ministry of Finance) , bought the rights of the Var club and found himself propelled from the Nationale 2 to the anti-chamber of national basketball. Eleventh the first season in Pro B then tenth last year, the Parisians did not miss the opportunity given to them this season.
By winning this Friday in Lille his 23rd game of the season, the teammates of American rapper Sheck Wes, who arrived on May 7, won the last missing points.
The defeat of Blois against Nancy on Sunday confirmed the happy outcome for the club in the capital.
In a season marked by the health crisis, with the abandonment of the playoffs, the Parisians knew they had to finish in one of the first two places to win the cup.
After a semi-finalist spot at the Pro B Leaders Cup in November, Paris stammered their basketball for much of the season.
A stunning end to the championship
But a cannonball end of the championship with in particular 10 victories including seven consecutive in the last 11 games transformed the dying into champion. Raised to 2nd place since Tuesday and its spectacular success against the red lantern Poitiers (107-80) for its last match of the season at the Halle Carpentier, Paris did not crack in Lille this Friday. Unlike Fos-sur-Mer, the leader, who stumbled in Nantes, and who thus offers one of the two tickets to Parisians. The latter will be accompanied by Jeep Elite by Fos-sur-Mer.
Having become the only club in intramural Paris after the end of the merger between Paris-Levallois, which became the Metropolitans 92, Paris Basketball will be the resident club of the Olympic Arena built at Porte de la Chapelle in 2023, with a capacity of 8,000 places. An Arena that will allow Parisians to target Europe, a real goal of David Kahn, who declared on his arrival in 2018 that he wanted to "make Paris Basketball one of the biggest European basketball clubs".
