At 34 years old, you have a series of top performances ...
I think that in the end, age is just a number.
Obviously, there is more effort to do when you get older, physically you have to pay attention to all the little glitches.
As soon as there are cuts (in the calendar), it's a little more complicated to get back into the rhythm, but I don't take my head too much on my age.
It's more people who remind me of it, because they need to talk about it all, I'm trying to do my thing and I'm in good shape, so it's going really well.
The defeat in the final of the Tokyo Olympics against the United States, does that leave a taste of unfinished, making you even more want to continue until Paris-2024?
A taste of unfinished business, yes of course, because we had very clear objectives from the start, even if apparently, in the polls of certain journalists, we were not seen going that far (...) We are a a team that knows each other and wants to go until 2024 to get the gold medal, that's obviously the goal. Afterwards, setting goals and giving yourself the means to achieve them are two different things, so we'll see when the Paris Olympics come. In the meantime, there is still a lot to do.
You arrived in Turkey a little over two years ago, is the Euroleague title for this year?
The problem we have here is that every year we change almost the entire workforce. We have a few key pieces that remain, but it's as if every year we start from scratch. We know that when we want to evolve at the level of the Euroleague, it takes two, three years to achieve its ends. I'm not saying it's impossible, I think we have a team on paper that is capable of doing great things, but to say today that we are capable of winning the Euroleague, that would be a bit overestimate us. The first objective before talking about the title is to reach the play-offs.
In France, we see two big budget clubs, Villeurbanne and Monaco, which are growing. Can this allow players like you to come back and play in Pro A?
I don't know, it depends on the opportunities that will be offered to me. I think it's very good to have clubs that play in the Euroleague, which can have a large enough budget to bring in players. This is clearly what is lacking in France: we have a good championship, we have a country where life is good, but where we have to make a financial effort, compared to everything that can happen in Europe for, to a given moment, get to compete with the biggest. Is it going to take time? Yes, surely, and then behind, it's not just time, it is also having several years of experience in Euroleague to be able to afford this kind of effort. I am happy for the French clubs, it allows to have a championship which is a little more watched, even if todayhui we have problems with the media coverage of French basketball. But it's important, that's what our young people lack today, to say to themselves: There you are, I can go to a club that immediately plays the biggest competition in Europe and expose myself to basketball. global.