9 p.m. tonight at the Accor Arena. An American atmosphere will then have taken hold of the district, already several days as it is the case in Paris elsewhere, because in the Parisian hall will occur neither Angèle nor Anne Roumanoff but well Bulls of Chicago and Pistons of Detroit.
The last time the NBA stopped in Paris, let’s say that at the time we were… happy. It was January 2020, it was before Kobe, just before, and we didn’t know about COVID yet. Nicolas Batum and the Hornets had then challenged the Bucks of Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nico was in his period of scarcity and the influencers present in the room have since believed that Malik Monk is the best player in the world.
Rebelote therefore three years later with a new poster, a poster from the East once again, a poster that looks like the NBA Finals… 1989 or 1990. Well yeah, Bulls vs Pistons is Dad’s NBA, Jordan’s Bulls vs Michigan’s Bad Boys… but 25 years later don’t worry the duel is still enticing.
Chicago Bulls vs Detroit Pistons.
Some complained, always the same huh, but by leaning a little the poster will be worth a look. Reason number 1, let’s go cheerfully, is of course the presence on the Detroit side of Killian Hayes, a young French leader in full development and who will therefore be the headliner this evening. The desire to score in front of his audience is necessarily there, and all around him is a young team and ambitious who will present himself to the French crowd. Pistons who are today last in the East (12 wins and 35 losses) but in an assumed way since they are deprived for the whole season of their star Cade Cunningham and that they had in any case chosen since a lease of to be part of these teams which “tank”, in order to scratch a very high Draft choice in June, French and preferably very large.
The Bulls? Not glorious either in terms of the balance sheet (20-24), but high-sounding names all the same in the roster. Indeed, if for the Pistons Bojan Bogdanovic, Saddiq Bey or Jaden Ivey will accompany Kiki Hayes, in Chicago we are more on the All-Star level. DeMar DeRozan, Zach LaVine, Nikola Vucevic in the five, there are already a few stars, a few puntos and a few dunks on the CV, Andre Drummond and Alex Caruso on the bench, that’s for the glam side, and overall a solid workforce even if it struggles to collect less than 130 points every other evening.
But more than the real level of the two teams, it’s more history that will be played out tonight. The story of a new NBA match in Paris, two historic franchises although less competitive for some time now, and the basketball world which will therefore be turned towards the capital from 9 p.m. So gentlemen… do it right!