Paris Basketball enters its second season in the BKT EuroCup with almost a completely new squad and a newly appointed head coach. After leading Telekom Baskets Bonn to Basketball Champions League glory last year, Tuomas Iisalo joined Paris as head coach – and he has brought several players with him to the French capital. Paris remains hopeful of making the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague in the not-too-distant future, but with so many EuroCup rookies on its roster, it will be interesting to see how Coach Iisalo and his players get on this season.
2023-24 Roster Rundown: Paris Basketball
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BACKCOURT
The team's star option in its backcourt is new arrival T. J. Shorts, who is one of those who followed Coach Iisalo from Bonn to Paris. Last season, Shorts was named the MVP of the Basketball Champions League after leading Bonn to the title, while he also earned MVP honors in the German League following Bonn's run to the finals. Another talented player who joins Shorts in Paris's backcourt is French prodigy Nadir Hifi, who thoroughly impressed last season with 16.8 points in the French League for Le Portel. The 21-year-old point guard is likely to create a lot of buzz in the coming season, so keep an eye out for him in the first few rounds of the 2023-24 EuroCup campaign.
At shooting guard, Sebastian Herrera – another ex-Bonn player – offers experience and reliability. The Chilean international averaged 9.4 points per game in the BCL and, like Shorts and Hifi, he will make his EuroCup debut this season. Paris also has the 18-year-old Jean Noba as a potential option, but the bulk of the playing time is likely to fall on the shoulders of Shorts, Hifi and Herrera.
FRONTCOURT
At the "three" position, team captain Gauthier Denis is the only senior player to still be on Paris's roster from last season. The 26-year-old had some impressive displays in his rookie EuroCup campaign last year, averaging 8.9 points and 3.6 rebounds for Paris. His competition for minutes is likely to come from another two former Bonn players: Tyson Ward and Collin Malcolm. In the case of Ward, he spent the last two years playing under Coach Iisalo, averaging 8.1 points per game in the BCL last season. Malcolm, meanwhile, posted 8.8 points per night in Bonn's BCL-winning campaign in 2022-23. Another signing who will be waiting for his chance to play is 20-year-old forward Enzo Shahrvin, who has arrived from French League side Pau-Orthez.
At power forward, Paris has a mixture of options. One player who is set to offer a veteran presence in the locker room is Bandja Sy, the 33-year-old brother of former Paris forward and current sporting director Amara Sy. Bandja Sy has arrived from Metropolitans 92, which he helped get to the French League Finals last season, and he has 75 games of EuroCup experience under his belt. A different sort of player to Sy is Mikael Jantunen, who was representing Finland at the 2023 FIBA World Cup this summer, averaging 8.0 points, 5.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists in five games. He has joined from Treviso in the Italian League. Don't forget Mohamed Diawara, Paris's academy prospect, too. The 18-year-old made 14 appearances off the bench in the EuroCup last season and will be hoping to make even more of an impact in the coming campaign.
Last but not least, Paris has signed two centers who were with Coach Iisalo at Bonn for the 2022-23 season: Michael Kessens and Leon Kratzer. Both big men obviously played alongside each other last year, which should make their transition to Paris that much easier. Kessens averaged 4.1 points and 4.4 rebounds in the BCL in the last campaign, whereas Kratzer posted 5.8 points and 6.5 rebounds in the same competition. Kratzer makes his return to the EuroCup after last playing in the tournament with Fraport Skyliners Frankfurt in the 2018-19 season when he averaged 8.0 points and 6.7 rebounds.
PLAYER TO WATCH
Nadir Hifi would have been a good option here, but it has to be T. J. Shorts, right? The 25-year-old American is coming off a career year with Bonn, in which he became the talk of the German League and the BCL. Now, he gets the chance to make the step up by bringing his talents to the EuroCup.
Shorts averaged 19.5 points and 6.8 assists en route to Bonn's BCL triumph last season, while he had similar numbers in the German League – 19.5 points and 7.2 assists – as Coach Iisalo's group reached the finals, losing to ratiopharm Ulm. The 2022-23 campaign will forever be remembered as the season in which Shorts announced himself to the European basketball community at large. Can he now take another forward in the EuroCup, this time as the face of Paris's ambitious project? Only time will tell.
OUTLOOK
Paris concluded its debut EuroCup season with a quarterfinal finish, having lost to eventual champion Gran Canaria in the second round of the playoffs. The French club had a 10-8 regular-season record and defeated 7Bet-Lietkabelis Panevezys in the eighthfinals, so building on that will be of the utmost importance for Coach Iisalo in his first year on the sideline.
In theory, the six players who followed Iisalo from Bonn to Paris should already have decent chemistry between them, so it will be important for the others to get on the same page as soon as possible. With so many departures and incomings it is hard to know just how Paris will get on in the EuroCup, but the club's directors will be hoping that Iisalo can replicate last year's achievement with Bonn and end the campaign by lifting a European title.