Last season’s French League finalists meet on Thursday for the first time in the EuroLeague
Monaco-Paris rivalry puts French hoops in the spotlight
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Regular Season
Round 5 of 34
Regular Season
AS MonacoASM
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Paris BasketballPBB
Overview
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French basketball has been on the rise.
One example of that came this past summer as the French national team won the silver medal at the Olympic Games in Paris. Over the last decade, there has only been one season without a Frenchman on the All-EuroLeague team.
Mathias Lessort, a EuroLeague First Team selection in each of the last two seasons, helped Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens capture the Turkish Airlines EuroLeague crown in May.
Even across the Atlantic, Wemby-mania has taken hold, with fans and analysts alike gushing over the exploits of former Turkish Airlines EuroLeague prospect Victor Wembanyama.
And on Thursday night, French basketball will again be in the spotlight when AS Monaco hosts Paris Basketball in Round 5's Rivalry Series game.
This is the first time these teams will have met on the international stage, but make no mistake. They know each other well.
Back in June, Monaco ousted Paris 3-1 in the French League Finals and no fewer than 21 players from the teams’ current rosters were with the teams for that series, including one – Paris guard Yakuba Ouattara – who joined the club over the summer from Monaco, where he spent parts of seven seasons.
When it comes to the big stage, Monaco clearly has the upper hand. This is the club’s fourth season in Europe’s premier competition and it has made the playoffs in all of them, including reaching the Final Four in 2023. Before Monaco made itself a EuroLeague contender, it put the basketball world on notice by winning the EuroCup in 2021.
Paris, whose climb to the top is documented in the Euroleague Basketball Originals production 'The Making of a EuroLeague Team', followed in Monaco’s footsteps by winning the EuroCup last season to reach the EuroLeague for the first time.
The similarities between the teams do not end there. Both teams are led by dynamic guards, who were MVPs last season.
Monaco’s Mike James, the EuroLeague’s all-time leading scorer, was the EuroLeague MVP, while Paris’ TJ Shorts took home the MVP trophies for the EuroCup, EuroCup Finals and French League.
In their showdowns in the French League Finals, James had the upper hand with averages of 20.5 points and 3.3 assists and backcourt mate Elie Okobo posted 18.3 points and 4.5 assists per game.
That duo continues to lead Monaco this season with Okobo contributing 16.0 points and 5.0 assists and James, who missed the preseason after undergoing back surgery, going for 15.7 points, 4.0 assists and 2.3 steals over the last three games.
Paris’ rising star Nadir Hifi led Paris in scoring with 17.0 points per game in the playoffs, and Shorts was no slouch with 14.8 points, 4.0 rebounds and 4.8 assists per game.
They remain Paris’s go-to guys in the EuroLeague, with Shorts fourth in the league in scoring with 17.8 points per game and third with 7.0 assists per game. Hifi has contributed 14.2 points per game off the bench.
Although these teams are by no means two-man shows, it is fair to expect the performances of these backcourt stars to play key roles in this game’s outcome.
Monaco is unbeaten at home thus far this season and its three wins at Salle Gaston Medecin over EA7 Emporio Armani Milan, Maccabi Playtika Tel Aviv and Virtus Segafredo Bologna have come by an average margin of victory of 11.7 points.
Paris has yet to win a EuroLeague game on the road, though it pushed FC Bayern Munich to the limit before falling 109-107 last week.
Will Paris be able to get its first road win on the floor of its chief domestic rival? If so, it will go a long way toward taking this rivalry to the next level. Or will Monaco hold court to remain the king of French League clubs? We will learn the answer in this week’s EuroLeague Rivalry Series game.