Washington Wizards rookie Bilal Coulibaly this week expressed his desire to represent his home country in the 2024 Olympic Games, which tip off July 27 in France.
Coulibaly, who was born just outside of Paris, projects to be among the players in contention to earn a place on France’s 12-man roster for the tournament. He has not yet debuted with the senior national team, though, appearing only in the 2022 FIBA U18 European Championship.
The 19-year-old averaged 7.7 points, 3.9 rebounds and one assist in seven games. He was joined by Melvin Ajinca, Sidy Cissoko and Rayan Rupert as the team finished fifth in the tournament.
He hopes he will have the opportunity to be called up for the Olympics.
“I will, for sure, try to be on the team,” Coulibaly said, via Josh Robbins of The Athletic. “But, yeah, we’ll see. I mean, coaches make their choices, and I totally respect it. So, yeah, we’ll see.”
France qualified for the Olympic Games by being the host country. The team had a rather disappointing showing in the 2023 FIBA Basketball World Cup, finishing 18th with Nic Batum, Nando de Colo, Evan Fournier and Rudy Gobert on the roster.
That quartet is again expected to suit up, and Victor Wembanyama is expected to join them. He was held out of participating in the FIBA Basketball World Cup after an extended run between Metropolitans 92 and San Antonio in the NBA Summer League.
France was selected to compete in Group B, along with Germany, Japan and a team still to earn a berth. The team will face the still-to-be-decided country to open the tournament (July 27) and play Japan (July 30) and Germany (Aug. 2) to wrap up the group phase.
With so many players available, coach Vincent Collet will likely face plenty of challenges configuring the 12-man roster. After a productive rookie campaign with the Wizards, though, Coulibaly hopes he showed enough to earn a place.
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